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THE LAND, SEPTEMBER 6, 2013
6 A
Farmers have hard time recognizing own limitations By DICK HAGEN The Land Staff Writer Veteran farm therapist Ted Matthews has shared time with many farmers. He knows the quirks that often typify a farmer’s action. When talking about the stresses of modern day farming he shared a most common observation. “Most farmers, especially during the planting and harvesting seasons, tend to overestimate their durability. They simply do need more sleep.” Conversely, Matthews said, farmers who don’t need as much sleep think extra sleep is being lazy. They then push themselves harder and that is a setup for potential disaster.
So who’s most guilty of pushing the envelope and not knowing — or acknowledging — their own limitations? Matthews’ consulting experience with the Farm Business Management Program tells him that older farmers tend to push harder. Yet because of better equipment and much more technology he contends there isn’t the need to crank up like there used to be. “Admittedly those old habits die hard,” he said. Matthews said another social change going on in rural Minnesota is “Kids used to take over the farm when Dad got into his late-50s, early 60s. And that was basically because Dad’s body was wrecked by that age, especially if he was a dairy
farmer. But now thanks to technology both in farming and medicine, Dad can farm ’til he’s 85 if he wants to. A lot of them want to do just that and that conundrum is creating some social or transitional changes which is putting new stresses on both Dad and the family.” What’s the impact of education in this era of agricultural stress? Does the “better-educated” farmer push harder because he thinks he can, and should? Farm consultants hesitate to make a call on that issue, but Matthews suggested the value of sons going off to college before returning to the farm because “if they listen to their father, and father listens to them, between the two of them they can come up with some pretty good ideas.” The readily identifiable problem in many farm family relationships, however, is that most young people today
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don’t have the patience to listen, and many older folks tend to think the youngsters aren’t old enough to have opinions on these issues. “Both sides have some work to do in this area of mutual respect and understanding,” he said. Will a farmer voluntarily bring up stress issues, whether that be mental, financial, even family and marital concerns? Not likely. But because Matthews functions as a “third party” in these disagreements he’s the unbiased listener with which a father or son can discuss issues in confidence. “The father will listen to me even when I’m quoting to him directly the very comments of his son, and vice versa. That also relates to wives and daughters who often are now part of this total team partnership.” See LIMITATIONS, pg. 7A
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