Q: My son returned to the farm to work with his father following a successful career in the civil service, but it has not worked out well because the two men do not work together well.
My husband is stuck in his ways and my son is convinced his father is out of date.
Our daughter-in-law and I would like to do something to resolve this and try to get our lives back to normal.
A: I have worked with several families who are struggling much like yours. I can assure you that your family is not the first to struggle with dissension.
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Each of us has buried inside our neurological structure a little picture of the world, not just the world, but the world as we see it. All of our pictures are different. My picture is my picture and your picture is yours. What is important here is that each picture tells us how to go about living day by day.
In your husband’s picture, that which keeps him going on the farm, the farm is a family farm and each person in the family has a role and a responsibility to make the whole thing work. Dad spends his day in the field bringing in the crop. Mom is in the kitchen nurturing meals so that Dad has the energy and stamina he needs to keep going in the field. Each of the kids has a specific chore that also makes the farm solvent. The more that the family can work together, the greater are the chances for the farm to be successful.
The picture is different for your son. To him, farming is an industry and his role in the industry is to be as successful as he can. He is forever renegotiating his line of credit to upgrade his farm machinery, sometimes borrowing a dollar or two from his wife’s account, who by the way has her own career in town. The kids play hockey and baseball, go to school, run their computers and cellphones and do not contribute all that much to the farm. But they are neat kids and watching them blossom as they make their way through high school is rewarding.
Now here is the problem. When the family farmer father and the industrial-driven son start to disagree, they cannot find a compromise without one or both of them giving up on that hidden picture that is the foundation to whom each of them is as a person. The argument is a present and real danger to that personal and private well-being.
The way out could be for you and your daughter-in-law to sit down with each of them and encourage them to listen to each other. You want your husband to verbally paint a picture of his family farm and, of course, you expect the same from your son.
Once they start listening without judging or criticizing, chances are good that they will reach some compromises and find that they can keep their neurological pictures while still enjoying each other.
Jacklin Andrews is a family counsellor from Saskatchewan. Contact: jandrews@producer.com.
