Do the Benefits outweigh the Dangers? (farm, acres, calves, cow)

[phonelady61]

Originally Posted by thebreadlady

i grew up on a farm, and so did my husband. we have 5 kids all grown with all of their fingers and toes. they all learned to drive tractors when young, and none has ever had a car wreck. worked around all kinds of livestock. they all learned to work, and they all have jobs/homes/families. 3 emergency room runs: a bunkbed fall for 4 stitches, a cat bite, and a bicycle incident involving teeth and asphalt while one of the girls was visiting in town. oops, forgot the broken finger from playing volleyball at school.....4 ER runs.
statistics say the kids who die on farms are the two year olds that no-one was watching and the 14 year old boys who work like men without the wisdom of a grown man. yes, you have to watch out for the kids.

Exactly my uncle and aunts had farms all their lives . we all managed to go horse back riding and tractor driving and we still have all our toes and fingers and yes still tote some scars from cows getting a little rough or a stab from a pitchfork that went hay wire . amen you have to watch the kids when On a farm .

[NCN]

Originally Posted by BrokenTap

Awhile back I posted on another forum about children and farms and one poster suggested that "farmers did not make for very good parents." I did not comment on it then because its silly to explain rural life to those that don't know, but I bring the question up here.

Do the dangers of rural life outweigh the added dangers we live in?

I don't think you have to be a farmer per se to chime in on this. I had a best friend whose 10 year old sister was killed while riding a horse.

My parents were pretty lax, letting me drive my first tractor at 8 or so, not to mention forcing us to run around in the silo "packing it down" as they blew up corn at with chunks of corn cobs bouncing off our heads! I don't know what they were thinking anyway...I weighed 50 pounds...like I was packing anything down!

Now I am a bit more safe then that with my own 2½ year old daughter, but I admit I do put her in some danger. We all know a tractor only has one seat, but I do stuff with her all the time riding in my lap. Being around tractors, trucks, moving equipment lagoons, silos and bunkers is questionable too. Of course she is also around sheep, cows and donkey's on a daily basis too. So yes, dangers exist for sure...

But I don't see myself as being a terrible father. My daughter once got in trouble at a birthday party because the parent there made them go for a walk with all the kids holding onto a rope. I let my daughter explore the yard on her own...no rope needed so she did not want any part of holding onto some stupid rope. She is also raised with Grandparents, Uncles, Aunts and other children, not to mention being with me and learning my ideals, work ethic and just strengthening that daddy/daughter relationship. Overall she has got a smorgasbord of learned behavior to pattern herself after.

I suppose being in daycare and whatnot might get her more adjusted socially to kids her own age since no one is her age here. She would also do more sports related stuff rather then simply work. But being around so many dead calfs and lambs, she has a pretty good grasp on death for such a young age. That sounds odd but todays kids who do not deal with death on a daily basis are often shocked when a death occurs in the family. My daughter understands the cycle of life for the most part (hey she is only 2½).

So I don't know. My daughter is in dangerous spots sometimes, and sees things most don't, but does it make me a lousy parent because she does?

I am more concerned about those children in the day care who are learning to do what they are told rather than learning to think for themselves. Your child is a very lucky child and is being raised in a way that will make our country strong. With every privilege comes a responsibility and sometimes extra dangers, but I am sure her guardian angel is up to the task.

I once made a comment to a coworker about a popular singer; I told her he could not sing. She told me that lots of people would disagree with me about that; so was I supposed to think just as they did? I do not like the institutional herding of children. It makes those who hear a different drummer thought to be wrong.

Now is there someone on here going to ask me to provide a source, suggesting that if I cannot provide a website for what I just said, there is no merit to it. I don't need to repeat what others have said, I have original thoughts. I was raised on a farm. LOL

[arctichomesteader]

I think the country is a better place for children than cities.

[BrokenTap]

Originally Posted by NCN

Now is there someone on here going to ask me to provide a source, suggesting that if I cannot provide a website for what I just said, there is no merit to it. I don't need to repeat what others have said, I have original thoughts. I was raised on a farm. LOL

You got that right. I don't post a lot of links either.

[jimboburnsy]

Originally Posted by BrokenTap

Awhile back I posted on another forum about children and farms and one poster suggested that "farmers did not make for very good parents." I did not comment on it then because its silly to explain rural life to those that don't know, but I bring the question up here.

Do the dangers of rural life outweigh the added dangers we live in?

I don't think you have to be a farmer per se to chime in on this. I had a best friend whose 10 year old sister was killed while riding a horse.

My parents were pretty lax, letting me drive my first tractor at 8 or so, not to mention forcing us to run around in the silo "packing it down" as they blew up corn at with chunks of corn cobs bouncing off our heads! I don't know what they were thinking anyway...I weighed 50 pounds...like I was packing anything down!

Now I am a bit more safe then that with my own 2½ year old daughter, but I admit I do put her in some danger. We all know a tractor only has one seat, but I do stuff with her all the time riding in my lap. Being around tractors, trucks, moving equipment lagoons, silos and bunkers is questionable too. Of course she is also around sheep, cows and donkey's on a daily basis too. So yes, dangers exist for sure...

But I don't see myself as being a terrible father. My daughter once got in trouble at a birthday party because the parent there made them go for a walk with all the kids holding onto a rope. I let my daughter explore the yard on her own...no rope needed so she did not want any part of holding onto some stupid rope. She is also raised with Grandparents, Uncles, Aunts and other children, not to mention being with me and learning my ideals, work ethic and just strengthening that daddy/daughter relationship. Overall she has got a smorgasbord of learned behavior to pattern herself after.

I suppose being in daycare and whatnot might get her more adjusted socially to kids her own age since no one is her age here. She would also do more sports related stuff rather then simply work. But being around so many dead calfs and lambs, she has a pretty good grasp on death for such a young age. That sounds odd but todays kids who do not deal with death on a daily basis are often shocked when a death occurs in the family. My daughter understands the cycle of life for the most part (hey she is only 2½).

So I don't know. My daughter is in dangerous spots sometimes, and sees things most don't, but does it make me a lousy parent because she does?

To me, someone who has grown up around danger is going to have a lot more sense than someone who grew up in a nice, safe, soft, padded subdivision with rounded corners.

Everyone turns their kids loose with a driver's license at 16 and a lot more kids are killed in cars than on horses.

I would feel much safer knowing that my child was, for example, out hunting with a bunch of farmboys than out drinking with a bunch of affluent suburban boys, know what I mean?

You are not a lousy parent.

[masonsdaughter]

I tend to think farmers make the best parents. They often spend more time with their children and teach them about work, gulp, yes, work. Isn't it awful? A parent actually teaching a child that life isn't a free ride?

[marmac]

I belive many posters are confusing rural life ( hunting, swimming etc) with farm life.


Nothing too dangerous about --rural life--
Many dangers on ---farm life--especially with machinery.

A self employed bricklayer might have no reason to be concerned with having his kids with him while laying brick/block at ground level.

Doing that on a 4 story building, it might not be wise to have his kids with him playing on the scaffolding.

A neighbor let his 9 year old boy take the tractor and a load of hay from the field to the barn with his younger brothers,sisters,and cousins riding with.

His brother fell off, got runned over and killed.

Kids and machinery don't mix.
Kids are not minature adults.

[BrokenTap]

I think Marmac is right, on our farm we do push the envelope a lot, and just because a tractor has GPS does not mean it is safer. If you got ledgerock on the field and have to go around it, GPS can give you a false sense of security.

I think we do tend to push the kids into doing to much. It is part of being a dairy farmer, but as he said they are not minitaure adults.

I will say I think my daughter needs therapy now. I had her with me as I typically do and that days tasks were to disbud the calfs. It's not for the faint of heart for sure, but hopefully she will see that good husbandry can often mean a brief moment of discomfort for the animal.

[mkfarnam]

I've mentioned that i was raised on a dairy farm. My brother and I, i think he was 8 and i was 7, we had an old 57 Plymouth parked out by the lane so we could drive around and check the fences or just drive it out and go skinny dippin' in the creek running across the north pasture.

We had a John Deere 10-10 and a crank start Farmall. There's been many times that I've been knock down by the kick-back of the crank starter. Even as a kid, that just told me that the engine had good compression

[SCGranny]

I got into a fearsome debate on another forum with some city folks who insisted that children must be protected from the big bad old world. Their kids had helmets, knee pads, shin pads, and elbow pads for bike riding, and weren't even allowed to play tag or kickball on the playground unless it was an organized and supervised activity.

One of the kids at our high school where I work now entered the local rodeo in the bull-riding competition, the barrel-racing, and the pole racing competition this year. Her horse decided half way through the barrels to bow up and buck her off. She hung on right up until her chest hit the saddle horn and knocked the breath out of her, and she fell off. It took her a minute to get up, even with help. A half hour later, she was back out there for the pole racing - on the same horse. THIS time when he started his crap, she yanked him down to a standstill and made him finish. And she won both that and the bull-riding competition! Everyone around her said - "There ain't no quit in her!" And there isn't. She is a quiet, hardworking, proud young lady. I guarantee nothing will ever stop her from getting what she wants. She earned those two gold buckles!

Yes the world is dangerous. Yes you can die. But if you don't, you learn from it, gain self-confidence and abilities at an early age, and are better able to handle the changing world around you when you are a grownup. Far more so than any mollycoddled, padded, helmeted little whiner who is afraid of his own shadow, who gets a prize just for showing up and breathing.