The trauma bond with the dirt their body will return to is real and the day my Dad had to go into the hospital with end stage stomach cancer the desperation on his face was deep.
“I won’t be coming back here, once I go to the hospital.”
I’ve never seen anyone more miserable than he was at that moment. And he was right, he never made it back again.
An old farmer doesn’t recognize he’s alive without their land.
You tell of the hurts that bind everything together on a family farm Walter.
The farm accidents that happen because children are working with large machinery are so frequent no one counts them. Missing body parts especially toes and fingers are parts of body dysmorphia caused by farm work.
I still have nightmares about not being able to disengage the power take off in time so I deliberately body slammed my sister into the snow to make her coat sleeve tear. It had a rip in her sleeve and the fabric of her coat was trapped in the power take off of the grain auger. I couldn’t climb up on the tractor to tun off the engine in time and we didn’t have a kill switch. I saved her by knocking her down.
Seconds of desperation…. I was eleven and she was six.
It’s not something you perceive all at once. I felt unsure how I knew what to do after I did it. That frightened me because I was afraid I might do the wrong thing by instinct the next time.
Sadly there were other close calls once per week for sure. The understanding that I could have done the wrong thing just as easily as the right thing made me less childlike sooner.🌹
I am sorry you had to live thru so much just like Walter. The things you have to survive and the way things are now are probably giving outriggers too. I pray you find peace.
Whew! Since I once lived on a farm, I totally understand and have been there. Idaho potatoes. Before the potato harvesters were invented, we had to go and help neighbors harvest their potatoes. Wore a big old belt with hooks on it, gunny sack on front hooks, drag between the legs, bending down picking up the potatoes and tossing them into the sack, dragging it on until full - about 100bs. On to the next sack. 12 years old at time of first harvest. Awfully hard work. Hay balers. We weren't permitted around them, only after hay was baled, then we had to haul it. But we had a friend who lost his arm in one when he tried to clear up a stoppage, without turning off the baler. I hated the farm. Went off to college and never looked back. Tough life.
Thank you Susan. I've been writing these stories for a while now and I'm getting fewer people who resist or tell me I'm lying. Affirming comments like yours are a huge help. When you corner people, they admit they know kids who were maimed or killed by working on farm equipment. We have to make people recognize that's child abuse. I think that's the key to getting our country back.
And there are states in the US now that have lowered the age for kids to work, like in Arkansas. Don't recall the age but it's about 13 or 14. Even on school nights. But farm work. If you're born there, you're part of the farm. No choice.
Florida is doing the same thing. What makes someone want to go backwards other than they( the current government) does not want us educated. they know that ignorance allows them to have more control. I also suspect they figure if they are ridding us of immigrants the children will have to pick up the slack in the fields and on farms. Just nauseating.
Your words stab me directly in the heart and gut. Thank you for this piece. When will we ever stop the culture of abuse that pervades every aspect of life in the US?
You are so spot on. I was raised on farms in KY. Daddy was a dairy farmer, aunt Lucy (the matriarch) had the tobacco, uncle Estil did wheat, and aunt Ada Garr (how about that name, huh?) grew corn. All of us worked each other's farms. And it WAS unregulated child labor, plain and simple. Luckily for me, my mother grew up in a "town" with nary a farmer in her family. She pushed me, ever so gently, to get the hell out of that place. And I did, bless her.
Thank you for affirming Terrie. It's interesting that I've written on this same subject a dozen times and I'm seeing less resistance to the ideas. This is how change happens. Thanks so much for your comment!
Thank you Stephanie. I think that once our nation recognizes that our rural areas only exist because of child labor, we'll make progress towards a more humanitarian society. This trauma bond is what compels rural voters to elect a criminal. Thanks for your kind words!
Unfortunately, it seems that our nation is happy to further exploit child labor, as long as it benefits someone who has never set foot on a farm.
I do love the realization that farmers are the reason we city folk have food. What we also need to do is realize as a nation that we can't continue to exploit children in the name of profit.
Walt Disney was also a farm kid, at least for a time, when his father Elias farmed near Marceline, Missouri. He witnessed all his older brothers leave the farm because they fought one too many times with their father, and he no doubt suffered from similar abuse. At the same time, he always considered Marceline his true "home", and the discipline and regimented necessities of farm life always governed the way he approached his film and television productions and the development of Disneyland.
He did love Marceline (and they have reciprocated that love), but I think he loved the idea of quiet rural life and close community. Elias only stayed in Marceline for 5 or 6 years, as he was never able to make a living through farming. Walt and Roy returned often, returning the love from the town in ways such as endowments and funding projects and schools. Marceline is still a small town, although the farming aspect is not a big part of it any more. The Disney farm still exists, although the home is owned by someone else (there's a commemorative plaque) and the land behind the home is maintained for the public by a nonprofit group. The same group runs a museum in the former passenger train depot. Freight trains still run all day, although they no longer stop there.
The family farm, so many stories untold, buried in the dirt. My ancestors were primarily farmers, originating from Germany and Norway. A damn tough life. Thank you for sharing, Walter.
I am moved by your writing and horrified to know this continues today. Florida is lowering the age of kids allowed to work and the length of time while in school they can work is being dropped to. They want every kid to be ignorant so they can control them as they become adults. Dumpf even said he liked stupid people and he knows that is his base. I am sorry you had t live like that. I suspect my mother lived a similar life growing up in rural Mississippi but never talked about it. She was allowed to go to nursing school when she got older so that was a saving grace.
Yes, the unfortunate thing is that the Republicans have leveraged the trauma of rural areas. The trauma bond is all that party has. Now that we know what we're fighting, maybe we can make progress.
People who know farming differently as a family (romanticising it) will tell you that isn't how it is--just bc they know differently doesn't make this not true. It absolutely is true. You couldn't have described it better.
Thank you for your affirming comment. Anyone who denies that this is how farming is has been trauma bonded to the horrors of that life. I've gotten through to a few people... I'll get through to more.
I want to ask you to tell me this is fiction. I don’t know this side of America, or that it existed, until you started writing about it. How do we fix/ameliorate it and give the children at least -achance?
I find a lot of people are in denial about the abuses they suffered on a farm life. We have to fix it by offering better education and more social programs in rural areas. First, we have to recognize that rural spaces in the US are built on abuse and they're not the quaint little peaceful villages they're made out to be.
The trauma bond with the dirt their body will return to is real and the day my Dad had to go into the hospital with end stage stomach cancer the desperation on his face was deep.
“I won’t be coming back here, once I go to the hospital.”
I’ve never seen anyone more miserable than he was at that moment. And he was right, he never made it back again.
An old farmer doesn’t recognize he’s alive without their land.
You tell of the hurts that bind everything together on a family farm Walter.
The farm accidents that happen because children are working with large machinery are so frequent no one counts them. Missing body parts especially toes and fingers are parts of body dysmorphia caused by farm work.
I still have nightmares about not being able to disengage the power take off in time so I deliberately body slammed my sister into the snow to make her coat sleeve tear. It had a rip in her sleeve and the fabric of her coat was trapped in the power take off of the grain auger. I couldn’t climb up on the tractor to tun off the engine in time and we didn’t have a kill switch. I saved her by knocking her down.
Seconds of desperation…. I was eleven and she was six.
We have blinded ourselves to this reality to our everlasting shame. Thank goodness you were able to save your sister. That would have killed her.
I know.🌹
What an awful thing to endure and I am sure it still haunts you to this day. You were a brave child that never should have had to go thru that.
It’s not something you perceive all at once. I felt unsure how I knew what to do after I did it. That frightened me because I was afraid I might do the wrong thing by instinct the next time.
Sadly there were other close calls once per week for sure. The understanding that I could have done the wrong thing just as easily as the right thing made me less childlike sooner.🌹
I am sorry you had to live thru so much just like Walter. The things you have to survive and the way things are now are probably giving outriggers too. I pray you find peace.
Thank you for your kindness 🌹
Horrific!
Whew! Since I once lived on a farm, I totally understand and have been there. Idaho potatoes. Before the potato harvesters were invented, we had to go and help neighbors harvest their potatoes. Wore a big old belt with hooks on it, gunny sack on front hooks, drag between the legs, bending down picking up the potatoes and tossing them into the sack, dragging it on until full - about 100bs. On to the next sack. 12 years old at time of first harvest. Awfully hard work. Hay balers. We weren't permitted around them, only after hay was baled, then we had to haul it. But we had a friend who lost his arm in one when he tried to clear up a stoppage, without turning off the baler. I hated the farm. Went off to college and never looked back. Tough life.
Thank you Susan. I've been writing these stories for a while now and I'm getting fewer people who resist or tell me I'm lying. Affirming comments like yours are a huge help. When you corner people, they admit they know kids who were maimed or killed by working on farm equipment. We have to make people recognize that's child abuse. I think that's the key to getting our country back.
And there are states in the US now that have lowered the age for kids to work, like in Arkansas. Don't recall the age but it's about 13 or 14. Even on school nights. But farm work. If you're born there, you're part of the farm. No choice.
Florida is doing the same thing. What makes someone want to go backwards other than they( the current government) does not want us educated. they know that ignorance allows them to have more control. I also suspect they figure if they are ridding us of immigrants the children will have to pick up the slack in the fields and on farms. Just nauseating.
Your words stab me directly in the heart and gut. Thank you for this piece. When will we ever stop the culture of abuse that pervades every aspect of life in the US?
Yes, we will stop it or the nation will collapse. These evils cannot continue. Thanks for your kind words!
You are so spot on. I was raised on farms in KY. Daddy was a dairy farmer, aunt Lucy (the matriarch) had the tobacco, uncle Estil did wheat, and aunt Ada Garr (how about that name, huh?) grew corn. All of us worked each other's farms. And it WAS unregulated child labor, plain and simple. Luckily for me, my mother grew up in a "town" with nary a farmer in her family. She pushed me, ever so gently, to get the hell out of that place. And I did, bless her.
Thank you for affirming Terrie. It's interesting that I've written on this same subject a dozen times and I'm seeing less resistance to the ideas. This is how change happens. Thanks so much for your comment!
Hi Ingrid. I don't have WhatsApp installed, and I'm not interested in yet another message app.
I banned that user and removed that comment. People offering to connect on WhatsApp are scammers.
Thanks!! I was suspicious
I don't have the wırds to say how much these words touched me...beautiful and heartbreaking.
Thank you, that's very nice!
Walter, this is both beautiful and completely heartbreaking. Thank you for sharing it.
Thank you Stephanie. I think that once our nation recognizes that our rural areas only exist because of child labor, we'll make progress towards a more humanitarian society. This trauma bond is what compels rural voters to elect a criminal. Thanks for your kind words!
Unfortunately, it seems that our nation is happy to further exploit child labor, as long as it benefits someone who has never set foot on a farm.
I do love the realization that farmers are the reason we city folk have food. What we also need to do is realize as a nation that we can't continue to exploit children in the name of profit.
Walt Disney was also a farm kid, at least for a time, when his father Elias farmed near Marceline, Missouri. He witnessed all his older brothers leave the farm because they fought one too many times with their father, and he no doubt suffered from similar abuse. At the same time, he always considered Marceline his true "home", and the discipline and regimented necessities of farm life always governed the way he approached his film and television productions and the development of Disneyland.
It installs a work ethic, but the cost is too high. I feel I'm making progress with this theme. I'm getting fewer denial comments. Thanks David!
He did love Marceline (and they have reciprocated that love), but I think he loved the idea of quiet rural life and close community. Elias only stayed in Marceline for 5 or 6 years, as he was never able to make a living through farming. Walt and Roy returned often, returning the love from the town in ways such as endowments and funding projects and schools. Marceline is still a small town, although the farming aspect is not a big part of it any more. The Disney farm still exists, although the home is owned by someone else (there's a commemorative plaque) and the land behind the home is maintained for the public by a nonprofit group. The same group runs a museum in the former passenger train depot. Freight trains still run all day, although they no longer stop there.
Discomfortingly true
Thank you!
The family farm, so many stories untold, buried in the dirt. My ancestors were primarily farmers, originating from Germany and Norway. A damn tough life. Thank you for sharing, Walter.
I am moved by your writing and horrified to know this continues today. Florida is lowering the age of kids allowed to work and the length of time while in school they can work is being dropped to. They want every kid to be ignorant so they can control them as they become adults. Dumpf even said he liked stupid people and he knows that is his base. I am sorry you had t live like that. I suspect my mother lived a similar life growing up in rural Mississippi but never talked about it. She was allowed to go to nursing school when she got older so that was a saving grace.
Yes, the unfortunate thing is that the Republicans have leveraged the trauma of rural areas. The trauma bond is all that party has. Now that we know what we're fighting, maybe we can make progress.
Agree, fingers crossed
Wow
Thank you.
That was devastating.
Thank you.
People who know farming differently as a family (romanticising it) will tell you that isn't how it is--just bc they know differently doesn't make this not true. It absolutely is true. You couldn't have described it better.
Thank you for your affirming comment. Anyone who denies that this is how farming is has been trauma bonded to the horrors of that life. I've gotten through to a few people... I'll get through to more.
I want to ask you to tell me this is fiction. I don’t know this side of America, or that it existed, until you started writing about it. How do we fix/ameliorate it and give the children at least -achance?
I find a lot of people are in denial about the abuses they suffered on a farm life. We have to fix it by offering better education and more social programs in rural areas. First, we have to recognize that rural spaces in the US are built on abuse and they're not the quaint little peaceful villages they're made out to be.
He's telling the truth. My husband grew up on a farm. It was a hard, punishing life.