I think this is how Stay at Home Mothers and Fathers feel. I have been told by many a stay at home parent and just as much by a working parent that you get so wrapped up in taking care of your kids and your job that you forget to be who you were before you had kids. No, that isn’t the right wording. Maybe the best way to say it is you forget to bring a piece of who you were before you had kids with you. You love your kids, but there is someone more than just the SAHP or the Working Parent to who you are.
Lots of these faces have been going around. Too many layers and too much snow!
That is how I feel. Everyone who knows me personally knows I love my cows and my farm. The majority of my Snapchat, Instragram and Facebook are pictures of my cows or dogs. The best is when I can get them all in a picture.
I love talking farm and I like to think I am good at what I do. There is always room to improve but for my age I think I do well.
But, there is more to me than my farm.
My farm is not the only part of my identity. I have so much more to me and I want to own it. Too often being a woman in agriculture I have fought to be taken seriously. I walked around like I had something to prove. And for a while I think I did.
I was on a Facebook group that is all about bringing together women in agriculture. The group that sponsors it posted they were thinking about having a conference and inviting the ladies in the group to it. There was a very lively discussion about speaker topics. Many ladies wanted to talk about photography, cooking, blogging, etc. But there was another distinct group of ladies who wanted to learn about agricultural topics relating to the farm. I remember one lady who said, and I am paraphrasing here, “I am tired of going to meetings where they think I want to learn how to cook the best pot roast.”
I don’t think it has to be one way or the other. As a beef producer, I care about the best way to cook a pot roast to feed my family and in an easy way so I can be outside all day working. I care about photography so I can capture the memories of my family on the farm and how our farm is growing and changing. Of course I love listening to beef production talks or intense dairy cattle topics at a meeting. But there is nothing wrong with the fact that I don’t want to listen to those things at every meeting I attend. I will not feel like less of a farm owner because I like a break from it and enjoy talking about “farm wife” topics too. Too often we segregate farmer and farm wife like they are two totally different things. More often than not we wear both of these hats and we wear them well.
But now that I am getting older I am fighting to prove there is more to me than a “country bumpkin”. I am intelligent, funny (although my husband doesn’t think so), hard working, but I also have hobbies. Other things I enjoy. Yes, I am a farmer but I sure do know how to wear a pair of heels. And yes, I can jog in them too thanks to many years of tap dancing.
If someone doesn’t think I know what I am talking about because I am a woman then they can leave. I don’t need to waste my time. In the same token, if they don’t think I like to talk about girly things too then they are sadly mistaken.
I don’t have to fit in the camp of farm wife or farmer. Just because I like to sit in the dairy meeting and listen to talks about nutrition and raising calves doesn’t mean I don’t like to hear a speaker about photography or how to cook the best roast or about redecorating my home.
Do you classify yourself as a farmer or a farm wife? Or do you consider yourself both?
