My daughter was made to watch food inc in school today | General Homesteading Discussion | Forums

spotted-horses said

KVR said
agreed, I need to ask her what class that was for, I forgot to 

How old is she? What is her interest in homesteading?

She's 17

She use to be all into gardening, animals ect, then she hit preteens

Then what mom and dad were doing wasn't cool or fun anymore.

She was coming up with designs for the house when we were planning it and would show me these huge layouts and such, when I actually laid out the footing forms, her and my wife stopped by to check on me, she was visibly upset, it was too small, what would her friends think etc. 

Most of her friends at the time lived in McMansions and the families were house poor, that's what she was starting to believe what was important. This was right after my father got out of the hospital after being in icu for 2 weeks and basically dying twice. I told her to go tell her grandfather that's what is important to you. She left in tears, I still feel like an ass for saying that.

One of the things I use to hear often was, we're not amish dad lol

Two years ago she started to come back around, like all teenagers do, and started getting more involved with the animals and such. She's the one who really pushed to get turkeys again this year, we were debating it, she really enjoyed having them around.

She realizes the house is going to be hers at some point in the future, hopefully sooner than later if we can get our cabin built and she is taking a more active interest in the layout and what we are doing around the house.

Will she be as involved and active as my wife and I? I don't know, I think she still needs that natural progression to find herself and what's important, all I can do is try and lead by example, I try not to push her in one direction, what usually ends up happening is they push back.

For example I have never pushed her to be involved with our business as far as a career, but if she wants spending money, she needs to work for it, so she has been washing dishes in the restaurant 2 to 3 nights a week since she was 11 years old. 

She's a wicked smart girl, high honors, but has no interest in college at all, and is vocalizing more and more that she wants to be involved with the day to day operations when she graduates and has been pushing me to open a second location. Which if my brother moves up, we will probably have to do anyways, thenewsettler manages several days a week for us, my wife, me, my brother and if my daughter gets involved, that's a lot of chiefs for a small 48 seat restaurant.

It's part of the reason I'm holding off the cabin right now, in case we do need to expand the business.

I would prefer that she takes several years, take some college, see if she changes her mind about school, get a job that interests her and find her passion in life, if after five years, she still doesn't want school, and wants to be involved, then we get serious about it.

For her, starting out in life, it would be ideal, she would have a home that is paid for, live 50 feet behind where she works, etc and she would have a huge opportunity that the rest of her peers do not. But she needs to make that decision on her own.

yeah, we are pretty lucky to have her, she's a good kid, don't tell her I said that though