I asked my eight year old what she wanted to be when she grew up. Without hesitation she said “farmer.” I felt pretty ambivalent. Not because she’s a girl, but because as the bumper sticker says, “crime doesn’t pay, and neither does farming.” I felt the same way the last time I asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up and she answered “teacher.”
So, I started talking to her about agribusiness, agronomy, biology, chemistry, engineering, marketing, veterinary medicine, all the different fields related to farming that she might want to consider pursuing. Especially considering how little she’s pursued helping her grandpa do farm work, let alone help her grandma work in the garden.
“Maybe you didn’t here me, I said FARMER,” came the indignant reply. Okay… a few years too soon to be a surly teenager, maybe I’ll talk to somebody else for a while. So I asked my three year old what she wants to be when she grows up.
“Um… I don’t really know what I want to be when I grow up yet,” she thoughtfully explained. Holy crap, I don’t know high school and college students who are reflective enough to admit that they haven’t made up their minds yet. This is why I’m convinced that this kid will become President some day.
Then a train drove by and she decided to change her answer, “Gwace says I can dwive a twain someday if I want to. That’s what I want to do when I gwow up.”
An engineer, fair enough. With airlines doing as wella s they are, I’m sure there will be plenty of railroad jobs when she grows up.
The last time I asked my six year old what she’s like to be when she grows up, she told me “I want to be a vegetarian, because I love animals SOOOOO much! Even though my MEAN dad won’t let me have a dog, that I promise I would take care of and take for walks and give baths, and it could sleep in MY room and it wouldn’t poop in the house, I PROMISE!”
Now, I know that she loves steak, pork chops, hamburgers, and chicken too much to ever become a vegetarian, so I’m assuming that she meant veterinarian. But she’d have to do it part time so that she could still manage her career as a pop-star like Hannah Montana or the Cheetah Girls.
When I was five I wanted to be a cowboy. Now you’d have thought that growing up in Arizona, I’d have been all over that. But here’s the thing, those boots- not all that comfortable. Definitely too much work to get on and off. Then they kind of make you walk funny. One of the reasons I’m glad I’m not a woman is that there’s no way I could do those high heels. Plus I have kind of fat calves, cowboy boots can really chafe your calves if you’re “husky.”
Then there were the hats. I don’t know, I always felt kind of conspicuous. Cowboy hats make me feel phony, like I’m putting on airs or trying too hard to be cool. And to be honest, I always believed that part of being a cowboy was real and not trying to impress anyone or fit into anyone else’s stereotypes. So forget the hat. The official state neckwear of Arizona is the bolo tie. Have you ever seen anybody wear a bolo tie since Barry Goldwater? Exactly.
Growing up in the rugged, desert southwest was great. Mountains and wilderness, cacti and sagebrush. But the only “cowboy” I knew was a guy who worked in freight at the airport with my dad, he just lived in a part of town that was zoned so he could have a couple horses and a mule (or donkey, or whatever it was).
At Boy Scout camp, I got the nicknamed “Whoa-boy,” after failing to earn my equestrian badge. It wasn’t my fault, the camp people insisted on putting me on a pigeon-towed horse named “spook” and gave his butt a swat and just expected me to know how to gallop.
This is time of year I have a huge amount of respect for the real cowboys. Those people who primp their calves with blow driers and Armor All and then lead them around the show ring at livestock shows and county fairs. They work their tails off and, like other people involved in farm related industries, they feed our country. Of course around here they’re called “cattlemen” instead of ranchers and it’s truckers who lead the herds to markets.
So whatever you became when you grew up, if you’re like me or my six year old and love a good ribeye, thank a farmer, cattleman, or trucker.
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