When sharing the highs and the lows of life with your family, tension is bound to arise. When you not only live with your family but also work with them on the family farm, that tension can quickly eat its way into the dynamics of your close-knit daily lives. Farm life isn’t the same as it is in the suburbs. On a farm, home is where the work’s done and everyone plays a role. Harmony between family members is a must when each one depends on another to get the many jobs done that life on the family farm entails. So, what’s the answer to finding that harmony? The answer is in shared values.
At a recent Midwest Women in Agriculture Conference, one of the speakers, Laura Daniels, touched on this topic during her presentation. Living and working on a family farm, she knows first-hand how important harmony in the family is. In an article from The Farmer’s Exchange that followed up on the conference, she summed up pretty well what it takes for a family to navigate their way through the process of achieving harmony:
“For farm families, I have found that writing down key characteristics and goals for their farms has helped them find harmony and balance,” said Laura. “It’s important for every person that has a foot in the farm family business to be on the same page, whether it’s how you care for your animals, farm the ground or care for your employees.”
Her advice is spot-on. It’s impossible for everyone to share the same views on everything, but coming together to find common ground and establishing values everyone can agree to live by is a step in the right direction. Her suggestions to identify key commonalities, such as agreeing on how to care for the animals, help to keep everyone on the same page, minimizing conflict.
Life on the farm teaches many lessons. Learning to deal with conflict and finding resolutions is one of them.
For more information about life on the family farm, please contact us.
