Jeremy herding our goats
Today’s guest blogger is our son, Jeremy.
“What’s it like to grow up on a farm?”
Only a few years ago, I might have answered that farm life was at best bearable and at worst downright misery. But if you were to ask me this question today? I would say – without hesitation or equivocation – that growing up on a farm was by far the best thing that could have ever happened to me, an upbringing I wouldn’t dream of trading for anyone else’s.
Far from this change in attitude constituting some kind of attempt to rationalize away any unpleasant memories, it’s simply a reflection of the time it takes to grow up a little and realize just how much good an experience has done you, whatever your feelings for it at the time.
Because when you’re actually out on the farm and it’s a scorching summer day and you’re feeling dirty and sweaty and tired? You don’t see the silver lining to any of this. You think it sucks.
But you do it anyway. And it’s not until you move away from the farm that you start to notice these things about yourself that you really like, certain traits and habits and tendencies that you couldn’t imagine being without. Curiously enough, they all trace back to a common origin. It dawns on you that they’ve been with you all along, thanks to the farm, rooted into your very being and nurtured into full bloom, without your knowing and to your everlasting benefit.
And that’s when your attitude changes. When you finally come to thank your parents for giving you this lifestyle, the same parents you once silently blamed for making you different from your peers. When you recognize that your atypical background, once a source of insecurity, is now a source of pride and comfort and meaning, something you know you’ll cherish to the very end.
Jeremy Young (21) is the youngest of John and Janet’s three children. He currently lives in the Bay Area.