Farming to Save the Family: Part the Second
I say
farming is good for kids. I also say
farming is good for marriages.
But there’s
so much work and so little money and you can never leave your animals for a
long vacation, and, and, and…
Lot’s of
work? Yes.
Good work
you can take pride in? Double Yes.
Little
money? You bet.
Tied to the
barn? Absolutely.
Is it worth
it? Unequivocally, Yes.
Ready for
my patriarchal, chauvinistic theory?
It’s good for wives to be dependent on their husbands economically… and
it’s good for husbands to be dependent on their wives, too.
Guess what? That happens on a farm!
What am I
talking about?
I am
talking about mutual dependence.
In our day
and age where both husband and wife often work full time jobs outside the home,
the idea of splitting up comes much easier.
Financially, each party makes enough money to live on. If we divorce, I’ll be just fine on my
own. Each spouse is an island.
On the
farm, it’s not so easy to split. Mama
usually spends her days fixing meals and chasing children. Papa spends his days raising the food and
chasing the animals. Combined they don’t
make much money, let alone apart. They
have divided the labor, but all of it is equally necessary.
They need
each other. And when you really need
each other you need to work through your problems. When you don’t need each other, it makes it a
bit easier to walk away.
Am I saying
that marriages only last because Papa doesn’t know how to cook and Mama isn’t
strong enough to work the fields?
Don’t be
ridiculous. All I’m saying is that one
facet of farm life – mutual dependence – is an asset to working through the
inevitable problems that come with sharing life with another human being.
On the
farm, husband and wife have to work as a team.
There is no other option. They
both have to sacrifice for each other on a daily basis.
And the
beauty of farm life is that both are better poised to see the other’s
sacrifices. When one or each of them is
working 40 hours away from home, it becomes easy for each to take the other’s
sacrifices for granted.
When Papa’s
gone all day, no matter how hard he’s been working, Mama hasn’t seen it and
finds it easier to forget and focus on her own sacrifices. All she can think about is how crazy the kids
have been all day and how much she needs a break… and is tempted to bitterness.
Papa hasn’t
seen all the hard work she’s been doing around the house and has no clue how
crazy those children really are.
All he can think about is how hard he’s been working and how badly he
needs to sit down… and he, too, is tempted to bitterness.
But when
they are both working from home and they can see how hard the other is working,
that inspires something good in them.
When we see the sacrifice of another for our sake, it inspires us to
sacrifice for them. When we see
someone’s love for us played out in concrete action, it kindles greater love in
our own hearts.
One last
thing; the farm is a good place to cultivate humility. The farmer needs God to send the sun and the
rain. He needs God to make the plants
grow. Sure, the farmer does his share of
hard work, but in the end, he is faced with the fact that he is desperately
dependent on God.
This
fosters humility in the farmer and his wife, because they both know that
despite their hard work, they are ultimately unable to provide for themselves
on their own. They learn to rely on
God’s providence. This helps them grow
in humility and we all know how important this virtue is to getting along with
the rest of the folks living under our roof.
