Grasshopper New Media Presents...

I know all the numbers about how many careers people will have by the time the retire. The number is growing, so it is an almost pointless factoid to learn. And when it comes to knowing what your own, personal, responsibility-demanding child will do with her/his life, there is incredible pressure and frustration.

Besides, who can guess.

Andrew, for example, wanted to be a farmer. One of the pictures from his first week of life shows him in his maternal grandfather’s arms. Next to his head is a 1/64th scale John Deere tractor. For the next dozen years, he was confident that he was going to be a farmer. He got farm toys for every birthday. When he was old enough, he took these toys to the dirt out behind the house. When it was cold, he drove them on his floor, on a large plastic mat painted like a farm, on a board that I made and painted. We regularly stopped at John Deere dealers to get toys and catalogs. He wore out the catalogs (not of toys, of real tractors). He could identify the tractors by their series number. He loved to ride on the tractor. He had a bucket of soy beans in his room. He read Farm Journal and stacks of other farming magazines. His wall was stenciled with a hand-cut John Deere tractor. He used his toys to farm the garden. He had seed corn hats (Jacques and Mycogen) and John Deere hats.

As much as he could want it, he wanted to be a farmer.

The problem, of course, is that if you want to be a farmer, you have to be on the farm. Because we lived 90 minutes or 2 hours from Nancy’s family’s farm, regular visits weren’t likely. We went when we could but you have to be there.

And so, somewhere in his preteens, the dream faded (though he still talks about it). The toys are in the attic and the garage and in the closet.

And so the obsession was pointless and should never have been encouraged. We should have directed his attention into something practical.

Except.

Andrew has a wonderful eye for layout and design. He is incredibly aware of detail. He has wonderful skills in writing. He is capable of being focused on activities he likes. He has a green affinity, (both John Deere green and the earth). He can be blown away by a sunset (almost never a sunrise, but that’s a different post), is aware of weather.

I have a funny feeling that his devotion to farming gave him a space for developing perspective and skills and interests, a space that wouldn’t lock him into a career path. It was, for Andrew, a playground of the very best sort.

We wondered at times whether we should have pushed him in certain directions. I think that the best thing we did was to plant and weed and water and shelter. I think that the best thing we did for our non-farming son was… to farm.