This farm enclave in Ohio is Mecca for the ‘MAHA Mom'

Boston Globe

12 hours ago

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Several mothers and their children gather in this spot twice a week, amid cucumber and tomato vines they have planted themselves on a plot next to a small working farm. Most live just a short walk away, in custom-built homes with painted shutters and rocking chairs out front, on roads with names like 'Nectar Court' and 'Lavender Way.'
Lauchlan and her husband were one of the first couples to buy a home in 2018 at Aberlin Springs, an 'agri-community' in southwest Ohio, commuting distance from downtown Cincinnati. The development includes almost 100 homes that sell for between $520,000 and $1.5 million, constructed around a farm that feeds the residents — with a farm store that sells a $22 beef tallow balm alongside fresh sourdough and eggs. A luxury outgrowth of the hippie commune, the neighborhood has become a mecca for the 'MAHA mom.'
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Resident Leah Lauchlan (center) spends times with her children at Aberlin Springs, a luxury update of the hippie commune.
MADDIE MCGARVEY/NYT
'Recreate this in every state,' Alex Clark, a leading influencer in the Make America Healthy Again movement, posted on social platform X in April, apparently referring to Aberlin Springs. 'This is actually what women want.'
Led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Donald Trump's health secretary, the MAHA movement is gaining momentum across the country, fueling skepticism about established food and health care systems. Many of its followers are presenting a new vision for familial utopia, one that aspires to transcend ideology but promotes a definition of American values with profound political reverberations. More Americans, they say, should embrace the homestead lifestyle of a bygone era — in which raw milk is readily available and 'free range' kids eat farm-fresh dinners, ideally prepared by a mother who stays home.
At least some elements of this vision appeal to a broad cross section of Americans. Rooted in a movement concerned with harmful chemicals and food additives, idyllic depictions of homestead living are attracting Instagram followers — and homebuyers — from both ends of the political spectrum.
During a recent open house, Leslie Aberlin, the development's owner, described Aberlin Springs as a place where 'the far lefts with their pictures with the Bidens' can find common ground with 'the far rights with their Trump flags and their guns,' connecting over healthy food and close community. While the demographics of Aberlin Springs reflect those of heavily white Warren County, the neighborhood has attracted a diverse range of family types, including single women and LGBTQ+ couples. Political lawn signs are banned.
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But a shared passion for healthy soil and fresh vegetables sometimes fails to bridge the political divide created when some MAHA believers reject scientific consensus and modern conventions of motherhood. Parents wrestle with whether to vaccinate their children, weighing the advice of a neighborhood mom against that of their pediatrician. And even the most family-focused conservative mothers, determined to put their kids first, struggle with what Lauchlan described as the 'wildly challenging' decision to take a step back from a high-powered career.
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Before she moved here seven years ago, Lauchlan said, she had planned to work full time for Mary Kay, a multilevel marketing beauty company that she joined in her early 20s. She had intended to hire a nanny so that she and her husband, a lawyer, could both fully devote themselves to their careers.
Then she drove up the hill to Aberlin Springs, where a sign now promises that 'Happiness is just around the corner.' And Lauchlan's priorities started to change.
From left with clipboards: Nathan Reidel, farm manager, Leslie Aberlin, development owner, and her mother Barbara judge a 4-H contest at Aberlin Springs on August 6.
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'Part of me being here has been a journey to discover that this is what I want,' said Lauchlan, who now works part time. The role of wife, mother and homemaker, she said, was 'more satisfying and rewarding than I ever thought it could be.'
She never wants to live anywhere else.
No-pesticide Bavarian chalet
The idea for the agri-community came to Aberlin in a dream.
For years, she had been mulling the future of the eccentric, agricultural estate her late father had built for his retirement. Set back on 141 acres in Warren County, a Bavarian-style chalet — adorned with fine Oriental rugs and cowbells from Switzerland — overlooked a small farm. In the dream, her father reminded her that the land had always been pesticide-free.
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She could build a toxin-free oasis.
More than a decade later, Aberlin Springs has a multiyear waiting list, with nearly a dozen homes under construction. Landscaped with fresh mulch and tightly trimmed hedges, the yards have all the trappings of upper-middle-class suburbia: swing sets, Weber grills and Solo Stoves. Red, white and blue flowers bloom for the Fourth of July.
At a recent open house, Aberlin, 60, introduced the property to a group of prospective residents, visiting from Cincinnati and other nearby towns in their polo shirts and weekend khaki.
'The whole food industry is a disaster, I'm sure you all know,' she said. 'I got very sick with an autoimmune disease that almost killed me. And that was kind of how this all started.'
Aberlin embraced the central tenets of MAHA long before Kennedy popularized the term last year. A seasoned real estate agent and homebuilder, she struggled for years with a mysterious illness that sapped her energy and left her unable to walk. Frustrated by medical consultations that never seemed to help, she said, she stopped taking her prescribed medications and began eating only grass-fed meat and raw fruits and vegetables — a diet now endorsed by influencers in the MAHA movement.
Within two months, Aberlin said, she was walking again.
Children learned about gardening along with their mothers during a 'Kids Farm Day' event at Aberlin Springs, on August 5.
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Ellie Mae Mitchell, a farmer at Aberlin Springs who grows produce for the community, on July 25.
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The experience left her highly suspicious of American agriculture, especially the pesticides sprayed widely on farms across the country. She started believing that 'dark forces' had brought pesticides to the United States after World War II in an effort to kill Americans — a conspiracy theory Aberlin shared shortly after starting the open house tour.
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'That's as far as I'm going to go in unless you guys start asking me questions, because I know it freaks a lot of people out,' she said, as most of the group stared blankly back at her. 'But I'm a canary in the coal mine.'
Aberlin loves that so many 'traditional wives,' as she calls stay-at-home moms, are raising their children in her community. While she brought up her two kids as a single mother, divorcing her ex-husband soon after her second baby was born, she calls herself a 'boss woman by accident.' She believes women have been 'sold a bag of goods' about the importance of a career and are usually more fulfilled when they focus on their kids full time.
That's an expensive proposition, she knows. But people at Aberlin Springs have money. And she has no qualms admitting that money is part of what makes this community work.
'As long as we're shackled to the monetary system, which we are, you always have to follow the money,' Aberlin said.
The MAHA lifestyle does not come cheap. Many of the hippie communes of the 1960s and 1970s eventually failed, Aberlin argued, because the people were too busy having sex to focus on farming and too poor to hire full-time farmers.
At Aberlin Springs, every resident pays $850 each year to participate in a community-supported agriculture program, or CSA, that delivers approximately 10 farm-grown items to them every week between the spring and fall. That level of production requires three full-time farmers and a group of seasonal contract workers, many of whom live almost an hour away from the property.
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Even in conservative Warren County, Aberlin is well aware that million-dollar homebuyers hail from both the right and left. Aberlin stresses that liberals are 'very welcome' at Aberlin Springs — proud that the neighborhood has attracted what she said sometimes feels like 'every far left person in the county.'
Aberlin makes it her mission to keep the peace.
A market at Aberlin Springs, an 'agri-community' development where residents pay $850 a year to participate in a community-supported agriculture program.
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She agreed to host the Rogue Food conference at Aberlin Springs later this year, a national event where Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., will speak, along with several farmers and influencers aligned with the MAHA movement. But she has requested that speakers avoid talking about vaccines, fearing the topic could disrupt the property's finely tuned state of political harmony.
'That's just a hot spot that I don't want to play in,' Aberlin said to a few stragglers who lingered after the open house.
She does not tell the potential buyers that she is fervently opposed to vaccines or that she wrote in Kennedy on her presidential ballot in 2024. When pressed on her politics, she says simply: 'I'm on Mother Nature's side.'
'Hard to know what's real'
Many residents can only remember a couple of times when political conflicts have surfaced at Aberlin Springs. They cannot recall exactly what was said or how each interaction ended. But one particular mother is always involved, and they all know her name.
Rachel Pitman, 36, was standing in her kitchen on the evening of the open house in a hot pink bikini, churning ice cream for her husband and five children. Unlike some of her fellow MAHA moms, Pitman does not mind a little sugar — as long as the dessert is preservative-free.
Today's culture encourages women to take the easy way out, Pitman explained from behind the kitchen island.
'Like, just get an epidural, it's fine. Just get takeout, it's no big deal. Just buy a Stouffer's lasagna,' she said, recounting the messages she said modern women receive.
'But we can do hard things.'
That is one opinion, and Pitman has many more. Healthy moms should give birth at home. Vaccines have killed people. Sunscreen is unnecessary; kids should build up a tan. Full-time careers make mothers miserable.
Before she moved to Aberlin Springs, Pitman launched and led a small business that built and shipped tiny homes across the country. But that work stopped seeming so important after her third baby was born, she said. She now stays home and homeschools her kids three days a week. She has encouraged other Aberlin Springs mothers — including her neighborhood best friend and fellow mom of five, Lauchlan — to do the same.
'Whatever this feminist BS is — chase a career, leave your family — it's not working,' Pitman said.
Resident Leah Lauchlan led a group of children during 'Kids Farm Day' activities for them at Aberlin Springs, on August 5.
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When she moved to Aberlin Springs in 2020, Pitman immediately felt like she was joining an extended family. The community rallied around her in 2023, she said, organizing a meal train while her husband served 45 days in jail, after pleading guilty to several counts of fraud and theft that involved a medical marijuana business. Pitman said the experience has deepened her family's faith.
She knows she has alienated a few people over the course of her five years in the neighborhood, mostly by expressing her views on the coronavirus and vaccines. When one neighborhood mother posted on social media about vaccinating her children for the coronavirus, Pitman messaged the mom with her own views on the issue, several residents recalled — explaining that, due to health concerns, she would not let her kids play with anyone who had recently received the vaccine.
'I've been too quiet for too long on this topic,' she posted on her Instagram in January 2021, as the coronavirus vaccine was just starting to become available. 'People — do your research. Don't blindly trust what's being fed to you.'
Leading medical associations continue to endorse the safety and effectiveness of the coronavirus vaccine, as well as other vaccines for young children.
For Pitman, the MAHA movement has brought validation she had been missing since she started following Kennedy and other vaccine skeptics over a decade ago. When Kennedy joined forces with Trump — and both men pledged to 'make America healthy again' — Pitman cried tears of joy, thrilled to realize her beliefs had finally entered the mainstream.
More and more, Pitman said, people at Aberlin Springs are asking about her views on vaccines. And while Aberlin asked her not to stir up controversy on the issue, Pitman feels it is her responsibility to help her neighbors see the issue as she does.
The topic came up on a recent afternoon at the pool, when a new resident, Jackie Borchers, asked Pitman whether she had vaccinated her kids.
Borchers, a nurse anesthetist and mother of five, had always trusted her doctors to know what was best for her children, she said, vaccinating her oldest four kids. But now she had to decide whether to vaccinate her baby, and she wasn't so sure.
'I feel like I'm in this uncomfortable spot of: I'm starting to question stuff, but I don't know enough yet,' Borchers said. 'So I'm just scared to make a choice.'
At the pool, Pitman told Borchers all the reasons she does not trust vaccines, referring her new neighbor to some of her favorite influencers who shared her views.
A donkey grazed near homes at Aberlin Springs on August 6.
MADDIE MCGARVEY/NYT
The conversation left Borchers feeling even more uncertain. She had recently heard about one child in the area who had contracted mumps and another who came down with pertussis.
'It's hard to know what's real,' she said.
Like-minded neighbors
Most residents just try to not talk about their differences. In a largely Republican county, liberals in the neighborhood said they had learned to look for cues to help them quietly identify their 'people.'
'You find out who's in your camp,' said Barbara Rose, a retired palliative care program manager and astrology enthusiast drawn to the agri-community for its strong 'earth vibe.'
At the Fourth of July barbecue, a neighborhood event that drew over 100 people this year, Rose tried to hide her distaste for the premeal prayer delivered by Lauchlan's husband, who thanked God for all the great things happening in the country.
'Lets just put it this way: I know who I'm not going to invite to the Warren County Dems fundraiser,' she said.
When Rose's husband, Andrew, was selected for an early trial of the coronavirus vaccine in 2020, the couple decided not to share the news too widely at Aberlin Springs, expecting that some neighbors would likely have something to say about it. While Rose is horrified by mounting vaccine skepticism, she said, 'it's not my job to sway people one way or the other.' Especially in her own neighborhood.
'I live with these people,' Rose said. 'I see them day in and day out.'
This article originally appeared in
.