You get what you expect
Written for the High Plains Journal
Last week I was out driving the highways of western North Dakota and something hit me like a ton of bricks. You know how we constantly brag about the kids that grow up on farms/ranches and how they have a different level of work ethic. It finally dawned on me that we have an unfair advantage in that regard.
The US Census report suggests that 90% of the dads with kids under the age of 18 have jobs away from the home. On a farm or ranch, every day can be “bring your kid to work day.” Those kids with dads who have to leave home to go to work do not have the same imprinting of how hard their father works as farm and ranch kids. I believe that has to be a disadvantage for those young ones.
Most interestingly, I see a bit of a silver lining in the storm we called COVID.
WFH Research suggests that in 2019 5% of the workforce was working remotely from home. After the attempted “shut down,” the work force is now comprised of 25% of the folks working from home. One must think that parents working from home have a leg up when it comes parenting. As you would imagine, the data says that most frequently it is the mother who works from home.
Everything is clearly different today than it was in 1975. At the age of 9, I was driving Dad’s 1972 Chevy pickup up and down the gravel roads between fields and to my grandparents’ house. The number of folks that allow that to happen today is significantly less. But to that point it is not just about driving, but rather when you work alongside family members, no matter the age, you can build confidence.
Isn’t that truly the battle we have in raising kids today? They either build confidence in what they can do or they stop trying because failure becomes too great. Let’s be honest, most of the things I have done have been learning experiences of what not to do. Honestly, memories of those events are exactly what led me down this path to begin with.
I just met Jerry Karsky at a gas station and quickly he was proudly talking about his 11-year-old son that lives to ride a horse and chase cattle. In fact, he just loves working cattle. I didn’t need to take Dad’s word for it because within 20 minutes of meeting Jerry at a gas station, I was there at the ranch talking to the young man who shared his passion for working cattle.
The story just gets better from here. Jackson was telling me about this horse he started riding a couple years earlier. He said this real calm horse was called MOFO. I reckon Jackson had yet to discover why this horse would have been so named yet, the 8-year-old was riding this horse working cows like it was a Sunday afternoon stroll in the park.
I have long said that you get what you expect. I truly believe that for the last few generations, parents have expected our kids to be lazy and not possess the gumption we did, and we didn’t have the motivation that our grandparents did. In my mind, the only path forward is to expect excellence and I realize that not every working father can do that along side their sons and daughters, but it would seem like a great strategy for the future of the family heritage if we could all find a way to do just a little more in that regard.