My Story
My life began in my home state of Michigan, known as the Great Lakes state. My faith, the home I grew up in, my neighborhood, and the love of my family and friends truly had a big part in who I am today. All of it helped me to face my challenges and get me through some really tough times so that I could experience better times.
I am Amy Roloff
I’m a little person, or more specifically, an achondroplasia dwarf. My family, parents, and siblings are all average height. There is no history of anyone else being a little person in my family. Some of the challenges I faced were being a little person, a dwarf. I had low self esteem and confidence, I wondered about the what if’s all of the time, I overcame a childhood illness I had for six years, and I paid more attention to what others thought about me than what I thought about myself. The things that kept me pushing forward were my faith, the belief that I can do it somehow, and the love and support of my family and friends.
Not Feeling Different
I have never felt different or less than because I was a dwarf. I was just me, like anyone else. I didn’t see myself as a little person, even when I looked at myself in the mirror. However, life reminded me all the time that I was different when I stepped outside of my house each day. I chose to be someone that saw life bigger than I was so that I could take in and appreciate life’s many little moments as a gift to be experienced.
Challenges
Some of the challenges I faced were being a little person, a dwarf. I had low self esteem and confidence, I wondered about the what if’s all of the time, I overcame a childhood illness I had for six years, and I paid more attention to what others thought about me than what I thought about myself. The things that kept me pushing forward were my faith, the belief that I can do it somehow, and the love and support of my family and friends.
Getting Married
Then one day, I met someone at the Annual Little People of America National Conference. He was from California and I from Michigan. After seeing each other just four times, he asked me to marry him, and I said yes. I wasn’t going to let distance get in the way of my relationship.
The Farm
We bought a twenty-acre farm. Our family became bigger, and I had two more kids, a daughter and another son. We bought more property to add an additional 12 acres to our farm. Years later we bought a seventy-five acre farm property right next door to make a total of 108 acres.
Raising The Kids
The farm was a wonderful place to raise my kids. There was always something to do and something new being built. We decided to plant pumpkins and have a pumpkin patch, and we turned it into a u-pick pumpkin patch that grew to be a big, successful patch and destination for people to come and visit in October for the Fall Harvest event.
Pumpkin Recipes
I started up my own charity foundation in 2009 to raise monies to help kids that were facing tough life challenges. In those years, we raised over 1 million in funds and in kind donations. A year ago, I started up Amy Roloff’s Little Kitchen, an online business that is about gathering around the table and sharing a meal and conversations together, recipes, cooking, and other unique items to get back to the love of being in the kitchen and making a meal.
Little People Big World
A number of years after we moved to Oregon and our kids were growing up, we said yes to do a reality show called Little People BIG World. Never would I have imagined that it would last more than a couple of seasons. After fifteen years of filming, we just finished up filming season 14.
