| IowaCenturyFarm - 11/17/2018 06:09
I think your question is worded in a way that comes across wrong, but I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt.
I think the general reaction here is telling. Most of the older guys are saying it’s none of your business. Unfortunately, many of these same farmers treat their own kids the same way. For some reason money is a completely taboo subject even among immediate family. Their kids grow up thinking they’re poor, but can readily find info on salaries for various careers through the internet, their guidance counselor, etc. Guys like your dad are knocking down at least a couple hundred grand a year. Even when they weren’t, they were building serious equity every year that doesn’t translate to new pickups and houses in the short term but translates to long term financial security that can span generations.
But dad doesn’t want you or anybody else to know all that, so he never explains it to you. So you find a stable job in accounting or whatever that affords a comfortable lifestyle and you are content with that. Meanwhile dad keeps farming, all the while wishing one of his kids had gotten involved. Then years later when he retires at 85 and rents it out to the BTO down the road - about the time you are nearing traditional retirement age and it’s way too late to get started - he can lament to all his buddies at the coffee shop that you never took an interest in farming and will probably sell it all when he dies.
I’ve been trying to avoid this but you sucked me in. I’m almost 40 and grew up in the eighties. Things were tough, but I was only partially aware at the time. Looking back now I can’t imagine the stress my parents were under. Dad had just bought out grandpa. Things weren’t easy.
I say that to make the point that regardless of how tough things were or how much we did without, I never wanted to do anything but farm with my dad. How much money he made or what I could make was never a part of the equation. My parents neither encouraged me or discouraged me to farm. It was never a question. So, while I do agree with what you are saying about kids being kept in the dark and therefore pushed into other careers, I can’t help but think that if they really had an interest in the farm none of that would matter. |
Is my dad lying to me?
