Farm Life Teaches Responsibility by John Cody Bennett, Sophomore, Cedar Creek High School This article was published in the D”Arbonne Conservation Trader September 2003
When my mother was a girl, she would wake up early every morning to feed her show calves. The darkness of a Louisiana winter night still lingered in the air, and I can imagine my mother, her hands burning from the cold, her eyes still filled with sleep, working to clean each cow’s stall, working to feed each and every individual cow, working not because anyone had told her, but because she knew that if she wanted to keep doing what she loved (showing cows), She’d have to be responsible enough to work for what she wanted.
Or I can think of my father when he was in high school, growing up the son of a cotton farmer, having, to work while his friends went out and enjoyed themselves. I can imagine how much he pleaded and how angry he must have felt inside when his father (my grandfather, Coy Bennett), told him that he couldn’t play basketball his freshman year because he had to work in the cotton fields every afternoon. And I can just see the frustration in my father’s eyes when my grandfather closed the discussion, saying, “You’ve got to work. Besides, it’ll do you good and help you too.” I can see the frustration in my father’s eyes, because I’ve had that same frustration in the past, myself.
Growing up on a farm, there have been times when I have not felt like working. On early Saturday mornings, after a long week t school, a time when I would rather be sleeping, my father would get me up to go help him in the chicken houses. Or, whenever I wanted to go out somewhere and do something, my father would need me to rake hay or haul hay for him. I, like most anybody, became irritated by having to constantly work on the farm. But through this work, I have gained responsibility.
I have learned that in order to achieve what one wants, one must work. Hard work, determination, and confidence are the only ways of getting anything. Living and working on a farm breeds these traits in a person, shaping them for the hardships that they will face in the future. And it is because of this kind of responsible people that our nation has achieved the greatness that it has.
It is not surprising then to find that today there are more people unemployed and in prison. In this age where agricultural industries are decreasing more and the public’s view of agriculture ranges from unnecessary to primitive, it is no surprise that the values of our people are declining more, too. I firmly believe that a nation becomes weaker when its people become lazier, and as more farms are lost, less people are being taught the value of hard work. I only hope that as time goes on, people of the future will realize our nation’s and our people’s dependence on agriculture. That is one of the things in this world that will actually “do you good and help you too.”