I too lived on a farm beginning at age 12. My sisters and I did much of the farm work and it was very difficult. My father also had a full-time job, but would come home and make sure we were working and did some of the work, like hauling hay. It was really hard. We were his total slaves. The farm work in the fields, irrigating, caring for all the animals etc. for which we were never paid a wage or allowance. Zero. So happy when I was able to leave for college.
Making kids into slaves is normalized in rural areas. We need to denounce this. It would be nice to have a few more people speaking out. Thanks for your comment!
Thank you for all of your writing, Walter, describing that you've seen and experienced with sensitivity and brutal honesty. We're not (still) talking about too many of the things you write about.
I felt really burdened yesterday, but I'm doing a bit better today. I guess every now and then there's a moment of realization where you're forced to recognize how present all these problems are. Thanks so much for your kind words! I appreciate it!
Your writing also reflects how you've worked through and are continuing to work through things that affected you but also were "just how things were" as a child - for many of us.
It's important to call out and identify problems - we can't solve what we don't see or won't acknowledge. Some things can't be 'changed' but we certainly don't need to repeat patterns our parents, predecessors.
It's been a hard several weeks for me, feel like I'm starting to pick my head up again - there have been reasons, unfortunately - talking to cousins who never "left" where we grew up brought many things back to surface last week - and realizing where patterns are persisting there (where I grew up, which is not "home" right now - thank goodness)
I think our family members are too close to our trauma. I know I've had to cut most of mine off. They threaten to pull me back down rather than allow me to lift them up. This isn't an easy process, but it's a necessary one and worth it. Thanks for the comments!
My dad was a farm boy. I'm nit exactly sure what it was like when he farmed alongside his dad in the late 1930s- 1940s, but his ethics carried over to us. I remember being under the age of 5. We had to carry in wood from the wood pile, maintain the yard with a push mower (no power) and clean the house because mom worked outside the home. It was a daunting task for a preschool child. We never got paid or allowance. His philosophy was, we let you live here, we put food on the table, and you have clothes. I never understood allowance when friends spoke of it. I still don't. Your story resonates. Thanks for writing!
I used to be in the business of flipping houses. So I needed to have men work, many that were like Levi. One Friday afternoon a worker, everyone called “Red” as his skin tone was red, approached and was advocating for a job that he assured that if I paid him half upfront he would complete the work over the weekend. I knew this was not so much a lie to me, rather a lie to himself. Of course I declined. Then I explained to Red that even if he did complete the job as promised then I would still be shorted.
“You see Red half the joy of the job completion is in my watching a man complete the job. A job that needed to be done. A job that I did not want to so badly that I was willing to pay someone else to do”. He just nodded his head and said, “I get you”.
Think of Sisyphus making his kids roll that rock. The (survivng) kids continue the tradition for the next generation. That's what family is all about. A Christan interlretation of the story, anyway.
I too lived on a farm beginning at age 12. My sisters and I did much of the farm work and it was very difficult. My father also had a full-time job, but would come home and make sure we were working and did some of the work, like hauling hay. It was really hard. We were his total slaves. The farm work in the fields, irrigating, caring for all the animals etc. for which we were never paid a wage or allowance. Zero. So happy when I was able to leave for college.
Making kids into slaves is normalized in rural areas. We need to denounce this. It would be nice to have a few more people speaking out. Thanks for your comment!
You are such a good writer. This was great. Thank you.
Thanks Brent!
Wow great article. I’m speechless because I’ve seen this behavior all throughout my life. I wish I could punish people like that.
Thank you for confirming it. I’m bracing myself for the hundreds of comments from people whose only coping mechanism is to deny they were abused.
Loved this. Making sense of so many memories in years past.
Thank you Eva!
Saw lots of this pattern growing up.
Thank you for all of your writing, Walter, describing that you've seen and experienced with sensitivity and brutal honesty. We're not (still) talking about too many of the things you write about.
I felt really burdened yesterday, but I'm doing a bit better today. I guess every now and then there's a moment of realization where you're forced to recognize how present all these problems are. Thanks so much for your kind words! I appreciate it!
Your writing also reflects how you've worked through and are continuing to work through things that affected you but also were "just how things were" as a child - for many of us.
It's important to call out and identify problems - we can't solve what we don't see or won't acknowledge. Some things can't be 'changed' but we certainly don't need to repeat patterns our parents, predecessors.
It's been a hard several weeks for me, feel like I'm starting to pick my head up again - there have been reasons, unfortunately - talking to cousins who never "left" where we grew up brought many things back to surface last week - and realizing where patterns are persisting there (where I grew up, which is not "home" right now - thank goodness)
I think our family members are too close to our trauma. I know I've had to cut most of mine off. They threaten to pull me back down rather than allow me to lift them up. This isn't an easy process, but it's a necessary one and worth it. Thanks for the comments!
My dad was a farm boy. I'm nit exactly sure what it was like when he farmed alongside his dad in the late 1930s- 1940s, but his ethics carried over to us. I remember being under the age of 5. We had to carry in wood from the wood pile, maintain the yard with a push mower (no power) and clean the house because mom worked outside the home. It was a daunting task for a preschool child. We never got paid or allowance. His philosophy was, we let you live here, we put food on the table, and you have clothes. I never understood allowance when friends spoke of it. I still don't. Your story resonates. Thanks for writing!
I used to be in the business of flipping houses. So I needed to have men work, many that were like Levi. One Friday afternoon a worker, everyone called “Red” as his skin tone was red, approached and was advocating for a job that he assured that if I paid him half upfront he would complete the work over the weekend. I knew this was not so much a lie to me, rather a lie to himself. Of course I declined. Then I explained to Red that even if he did complete the job as promised then I would still be shorted.
“You see Red half the joy of the job completion is in my watching a man complete the job. A job that needed to be done. A job that I did not want to so badly that I was willing to pay someone else to do”. He just nodded his head and said, “I get you”.
Ha! Well, I'm glad that he understood!
Think of Sisyphus making his kids roll that rock. The (survivng) kids continue the tradition for the next generation. That's what family is all about. A Christan interlretation of the story, anyway.
Yup.
The jaunty music of this tune belies the authoritarian nature of farm life, as you noted: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tK8TbOIm6bA
Excellent example!