This was originally going to be one extremely long blog post. I have shortened it to 4 shorter posts.
I'd like to take this opportunity to talk about what it is really like to be a female farmer. In an attempt to order my thoughts and (maybe) avoid ranting, I have organized this discussion into 4 basic topics.
You can read about the first topic relating to being a female farmer here:
4. Thinking About the Future
I am 25 years old. I have my whole life ahead of me (well, aside from the 25 years and 16 days that are behind me). Naturally, I spend some of my time thinking about my future. I also just took over the farm, so naturally I spend a huge quantity of time thinking about the future of the farm. Of course, those two futures are closely related.
Thinking about the future of the farm is fairly simple. It's as simple as writing a business plan. All I have to think about is marketing strategies, crop rotations, beef sales, herd management and expansion, land acquisitions, financing options, and that sort of thing. It's a lot to think about, but it's simple. I can map out the future in spreadsheets and base my planning on science and statistics.
Thinking about my personal future is significantly more complex. I have no spreadsheet or formula to tell me what it's going to look like. I can't predict what types of disease might invade my body the way I can predict what types of disease I need to vaccinate my herd against. I can't know what my emotional and mental health will be like a few years from now. Maybe I won't be able to continue farming. Maybe I will have to sell the farm for my own well-being. That part would be simple, but figuring out what to do with the rest of my life would be daunting. I really can't imagine doing anything other than farming for a career.
The one thing that consumes the most mental energy when I think about my personal future intersecting with farm life is the possibility that I might get married one day (every relative who has taken the time to diligently read through this blog series in case I mentioned romance just scooted closer to the computer screen in anticipation). Yes, I would like very much to get married and have a family one day. Now, if I was a man, I could go find a nice girl, marry her, bring her home to the farm, and carry on being a farmer while she takes care of the house, helps out on the farm, and raises the kids. I am not a man, though.
Even if I do eventually find a nice young man to settle down with, who can guarantee that he would be willing to leave his home and move to the farm? I don't want to marry someone who has no interest in the farm, but I also don't want to limit my options and set a piece of land and a career above any person. What if I find a man who is willing to come live on the farm and help out occasionally, but has his own career in town? What happens when we have a family? I'd have to hire a farm hand to do a bunch of the work while I take care of the children. I'd also have to hire help for the entire nine months prior to each child being born. Splitting my time unequally between the farm and my children is not my idea of being a good farmer or a good mother. And if I did manage to marry the ideal farmer-without-a-farm-of-his-own, would I suddenly feel as if I had to give up control of the farm I worked so hard to grow? What if I never get married and become that crazy lady with all the animals that the neighbours have to help when I get old because I won't leave the farm because it's all I have to show for my life? I know that some of these questions might be ridiculous and I will never know the answers until that part of my is over with, but they still plague me sometimes. Somehow, I don't think men have quite the same problems when they think of the future of their farms.
I am 25 years old. I have my whole life ahead of me (well, aside from the 25 years and 16 days that are behind me). Naturally, I spend some of my time thinking about my future. I also just took over the farm, so naturally I spend a huge quantity of time thinking about the future of the farm. Of course, those two futures are closely related.
Thinking about the future of the farm is fairly simple. It's as simple as writing a business plan. All I have to think about is marketing strategies, crop rotations, beef sales, herd management and expansion, land acquisitions, financing options, and that sort of thing. It's a lot to think about, but it's simple. I can map out the future in spreadsheets and base my planning on science and statistics.
Thinking about my personal future is significantly more complex. I have no spreadsheet or formula to tell me what it's going to look like. I can't predict what types of disease might invade my body the way I can predict what types of disease I need to vaccinate my herd against. I can't know what my emotional and mental health will be like a few years from now. Maybe I won't be able to continue farming. Maybe I will have to sell the farm for my own well-being. That part would be simple, but figuring out what to do with the rest of my life would be daunting. I really can't imagine doing anything other than farming for a career.
The one thing that consumes the most mental energy when I think about my personal future intersecting with farm life is the possibility that I might get married one day (every relative who has taken the time to diligently read through this blog series in case I mentioned romance just scooted closer to the computer screen in anticipation). Yes, I would like very much to get married and have a family one day. Now, if I was a man, I could go find a nice girl, marry her, bring her home to the farm, and carry on being a farmer while she takes care of the house, helps out on the farm, and raises the kids. I am not a man, though.
Even if I do eventually find a nice young man to settle down with, who can guarantee that he would be willing to leave his home and move to the farm? I don't want to marry someone who has no interest in the farm, but I also don't want to limit my options and set a piece of land and a career above any person. What if I find a man who is willing to come live on the farm and help out occasionally, but has his own career in town? What happens when we have a family? I'd have to hire a farm hand to do a bunch of the work while I take care of the children. I'd also have to hire help for the entire nine months prior to each child being born. Splitting my time unequally between the farm and my children is not my idea of being a good farmer or a good mother. And if I did manage to marry the ideal farmer-without-a-farm-of-his-own, would I suddenly feel as if I had to give up control of the farm I worked so hard to grow? What if I never get married and become that crazy lady with all the animals that the neighbours have to help when I get old because I won't leave the farm because it's all I have to show for my life? I know that some of these questions might be ridiculous and I will never know the answers until that part of my is over with, but they still plague me sometimes. Somehow, I don't think men have quite the same problems when they think of the future of their farms.
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