Choices: Made for Us or By Us

It's planting season, actually most of the planting has been done. The hens are laying and meals usually have some component that we have raised. This led us to the question, what would our parents think of our gardens and hens?

All four of our parents have passed on and some knew of our gardening before doing so, but we never discussed what they thought of our projects. Our parents were children of the Depression and three of them moved to California for better opportunities. My grandmothers both had gardens and at times raised animals for food. One set of grandparents had a turkey farm at one time. Gardening, canning, raising animals was a part of their life. It was done to support themselves. As a child I remember eating fresh fruit and vegetables from both grandma's gardens, one in town and one in the country. I never thought about it being a choice.

Move forward a generation and our parents didn't grow gardens for food. Both fathers went to college and moved into jobs utilizing their education. Our mothers worked outside the home, but worked harder at raising families. Both of our families helped when some of the children raised animals for the county fair and FFA. But it seemed more like they were helping their children with a project. I remember my father making a comment about "filthy" sheep when I chose to raise a lamb. He didn't go into the reason he believed that, but his stories of milking cows before school and using draft horses on the farm hinted that there had been some experience with sheep that gave the comment some validity.

Ultimately the short answer we came to is that our parents would have looked at our efforts in a positive light. We thought my father might even have joined in and helped some. All of them would have enjoyed the food.

Over the next few days I started pondering the question deeper. I was at a baseball game when the topic came up with some family friends. The mother talked about growing up on a farm and raising and harvesting chickens. She wasn't against what we were doing, but there was a distance in her voice that raised some flags in my mind. I am helping one of her sons get set up to have some laying hens.

As I thought more about this subject I stumbled into the idea that what for us is a choice and a decision to raise good safe food might be considered a step back by our parents generation. In my family my grandparents worked on a farm and drove truck and saved so their children could go to college to have a better life. Our parents did the same, but we were choosing to step back and live like our grandparents. The difference is that our grandparents didn't have a choice. We made the choice after living a life made possible by a college education.

What now will happen to our children?