Recently, I heard part of an episode of the Like a Farmer podcast. The guest was Sean Gleason, CEO of Professional Bull Riders (PBR), and he suggested that:
Every kid in America should have to go work on a farm for a couple of months in a summer during their lifetime because it'd teach them values — the value of hard work, that this life isn't just handed to you, you gotta go make the most of it.
Around the same time, I ran across a 2021 study that suggested that 40% of children between the ages of four and seven had no idea where much of their food came from. They thought that bacon and chicken nuggets came from plants, not pigs and chickens. Forty-seven percent of the kids thought French fries come from animals. Most of them said that it's not okay for people to eat cows and pigs, even though I'm betting many of them eat them daily.
(And if you think that's bad, let's all remember the 2017 survey that suggests that 7% of adults in the United States think chocolate milk comes from brown cows.)
Back to the kids. An article at Meat Eater responded to that study with this:
As nice as the idea of picking bacon flowers may sound, it’s seriously alarming to learn that such a large portion of kids in the group surveyed believe that meat comes from plants. Wait a moment, do you hear that? The hunters, farmers, and ranchers are yelling from the back of the room: 'Hey, our kids know where their food comes from!'
All of this got me to thinking: Kids do need to get back to learning some basics, and a farm or ranch is a great place to do that. I don't know about forcing every kid in the United States to spend two months there — that wouldn't fly anyway; I can hear the bureaucrats screaming now — but if schools ditched all the critical race theory, gender ideology, and woke stuff and just taught kids some hands-on, real-life lessons, this country would be in a much better place.
Not only would kids learn where food actually comes from, but, as Gleason said, they would learn the value of hard work. They'd learn that's how to make money and get ahead in life. And they'd learn so much more that you can't teach in a classroom.
South Harrison Community School Corporation in Indiana offers student farm internships, and on its website, it posted a list of what two high school seniors who participated learned during their time on the farm in 2023. A strong work ethic was one — knowing your hard work will eventually pay off. Skills like teamwork, time management, and problem-solving were also listed — skills many employers say candidates lack these days. The students said they also learned patience and how to accept the things you can't control (how many kids will settle for nothing less than instant gratification in modern times?), and they simply learned how to appreciate the little things in life, like a beautiful sunset.
Another article I found from the Kansas Farm Food Connection talks about a child named Mylee who, at the time, was just five years old, but she'd placed in a national competition in speech. How? Mylee, a little farm girl, shows goats in the Pee Wee division of the Junior American Boer Goat Association National Show, and she was already teaching her younger sister how to do it, too.
"Farm kids are smarter than we give them credit for because farm life exposes them to a lot of lessons many adults don’t ever experience," the article says.
And it's true. The article goes on to point out that at the age of five, little Mylee already knows the importance of being responsible for the lives of others because she takes care of her goats, and she's already gained many important entrepreneurial skills as well. She learns about safety being around farm equipment, and she knows a lot about science and nature, and the way the world works. She even knows the "birds and the bees," as the article put it, something many adults don't even seem to understand these days. Finally, Mylee understands competition, and at such a young age, she knows that sometimes you don't win. This doesn't sound like a participation trophy kind of girl. (I'm also guessing she knows where bacon comes from.)
That's just scratching the surface. A farm life education works for adults, too. I'm living proof. About a decade ago, someone I know ordered some chickens and got too many, so she asked if I'd like the seven extras. I'd been thinking about getting some chickens, so I said yes. That was a life-changing moment for me. In the first few weeks I learned so much — carpentry from building them a coop, the facts of life when one of them died at just a few days old no matter how hard I tried to save her, how to raise them to be healthy, how much fun they could be (suddenly, I found that watching baby chicks play was a lot more fun than watching TV). I felt more connected to the natural world.
I'll confess something here: In those early days, I was kind of scared of the chickens. The first time I let them out as adults for some free range time, I carried a broom around in case one of them tried to attack me. I went a bit overboard on their care. I took them to the vet when they were sick or injured and anxiously posted on message boards, asking for advice when something seemed even a little bit off.
Fast forward to present times, and I have even more chickens (and ducks — they're my favorites), and I no longer carry a broom around. I rarely go to the message boards for advice. And not too long ago, one of the chickens had something wrong with her, and I had my dad hold her for me in my bathroom while I performed surgery on her myself, rather than rushing off to the vet. Not only was it successful, but I also kept her wound from getting infected, and she thrived afterward.
Those little birds have taught me so much beyond animal husbandry. They've taught me those important life skills like problem-solving, creativity, and time management. They've built my confidence. They've taught me responsibility — there are days I don't want to go outside when it's 95 degrees and take care of them, but they need me. I have a greater appreciation for nature. I get more exercise than I used to. And I know where much of my food comes from. Try eating an egg from the grocery store after eating your own farm-fresh ones, and you'll gag. I also get to provide healthy food for others, which makes me feel good. At the start of the pandemic, when people were worried about food shortages, I knew that wouldn't be a problem for me.
I studied biology and agriculture in school, but I've learned so much more about the realities of all of that by doing than I ever did in a book. I enjoy the "farm life" now and can't imagine living any other way. I'm also extremely grateful that it kind of accidentally chose me and gave me the type of education I would have never received otherwise.
And I think it's beyond time our children receive a similar education. All the technology and woke ideologies in the world won't change the very basic concepts of life, no matter how hard many try to pretend they will. We're doing our children a disservice by teaching them that those basics don't matter anymore.
