Surely the days are now gone where a farmer's wife could carry a pig under one arm and a child under the other; wear a pinny on top of overalls; do the book-keeping and make apple pies; and stay at home to keep 6 children entertained whilst the income from the husbands 150ac tennanted farm kept them all well and let them go on holiday every year? 

Do young women marrying farmers happily relinquish their dreams for their own careers through the bribe of a nice house in the country, a Freelander and space for their pony? Or are more farmers' wives, like mine, juggling a full-time job with keeping the husband in packed lunches at harvest time? 

If so, I would be interested in how the children fit in with your farming lives. If you are the child of a farming family, how did you find it? Did you miss time with either parent and do you feel now that it has caused any resentment, or has your farming background shown what it is like in the "real" world? I now find myself with a 4yr old who will be going to our nearby school (4 miles away) in one dirction, whist nursery provision for the youngest is 10 miles away in the opposite direction. 

To add to the fun, my wife works 70 miles away from the farm. 

Last summer we employed a nanny who was wonderful. Infact, words cont describe what a boon she was. But how do you all manage? If you are a farmer and want a family, would you only consider marrying someone who was going to stay at home with the children until the youngest was ready for school? Do you, if an arable farm, spend your quiet winter months doing some childcare, or do you find urgent jobs to do in the shed? 

So, discussion aside and now complying with forum rules, I am looking to find a rurally-minded nanny for c.24 weeks from early July to end October who would live-in and take care of my two children aged almost 5 and just 2. Neither of them can be decribed as "tricky". Pay is good, and we provide a nice room, food, car, gym membership and all that. Candidate must have some experience (not including their own family ideally), be CRB checked, aged over 21, have a full (preferably clean) driving license but most of all calm and cheerful, good with children, and willing to muck in a bit with a frantic harvest household. 

If you know anyone who would be interested, message me for my email address. 

I sympathise with you Tesla, it can be very tough. My wife gave up her job to have kids and then went back to work part time when the youngest went to primary school. She now works full time as the youngest is now in secondary school. I still have to do the school run most days as my wifes hours don't coincide with the school bus.

My wife works very hard, she manages to juggle doing three or four things at a time. I have to give a lot of time up for family commitments that my wife could be doing if she were a stay at home mum. Sadly finances don't allow this and besides, she enjoys her work. It must be nice to get away from the farm and all the stress etc etc.

I honestly don't know how families cope when both parents are in employment. At least with me being self employed I can change my plans if some emergency crops up. My parents also helped out a great deal when the kids were young.

Unfortunately I don't know of any unemployed nanny's at the moment, but with 2.62 million unemployed in the UK at the moment I'm sure one of them is capable.

Good Luck

My parents looked after my chidren before they were of school age, on the farm( I lived in town at that time).they were brilliant of course, but being of the older generation had scant regard for health and safety.(example: helping grandad burn things on the bonfire such as aerosol cans...........helping lift really heavy walling stones that could break toes, or letting my daughter aged 9 ride her pony on her own on the road when she was 9, as she had always let me do at that age). They did have the grace to smile indulgently at my rants to ' look after them' (and bless 'em still look after them!)

When we moved here after my father died, my children were teenagers, and that brought a whole new set of problems, giving them a 'social life', and also the problem that their friends didnt think a farm was fun/ cool anymore, and also some were of the opinion that farmers were cruel/ stupid/ and at the very least weird and smelly!

 

failedfarmer:

My parents looked after my chidren before they were of school age, on the farm( I lived in town at that time).they were brilliant of course, but being of the older generation had scant regard for health and safety.(example: helping grandad burn things on the bonfire such as aerosol cans...........helping lift really heavy walling stones that could break toes, or letting my daughter aged 9 ride her pony on her own on the road

 

And I'll bet they loved it! I don't think you can beat that sort of upbringing.

"Better drowned than duffers. If not duffers, won't drown" (Arthur Ransome)

 I was brought up on a farm, spent most of my time out with my parents when they were working, used to get left in my pram in the corner of the lambing shed. mum was a nurse  until I was 5or 6 and then changed to being a secretary as a part time job as it fitted in better around farm life and me and my brother at that time always got to see a lot of both parents as a kid. hopefully I will be able to do the same if  I ever have any, much easier now we dont milk cows, can be a bit more flexible with the beef

bovril:

Better drowned than duffers

Hadn't heard that one before but it's totally correct. I don't know what the farming equivilent of 'streetwise' is, but kids who have grown up amongst the livestock and machinery are far better because of it. They learn things about farming without realising. They also learn not to expect to finish work by five and not to expect a holiday. Holidays are for townies, or so I was always told as a child.

i'm an only child, and was brought up on a farm that is in the middle of no where, where the next nearest kid, at the time was about 4 miles away, i cant say i didn't enjoy any part of it, both my parents would work the farm, when i was really young my gran or granddad would look after me, but that was fairly rare i would be out helping all i could, i loved being in the tractor, i had a pillow that my dad wedged behind his tractor seat and i would all day sit their while he worked, telling him when the fertilizer spreader had run out, or something went wrong, by the age of 6 i was allowed to steer the land rover across the field while dad would walk behind it cutting the hay bail strings and pulling wedges out as we went across the field, it was great, at the age of nine dad bought an old 1490 David brown which was my tractor, any job that little tractor could manage i would do, but it was drummed into me if i got out i was to stop the engine put the hand break on and leave it in gear, never to take a risk, with anything. i would ride my pony for miles alone, sometimes having a long walk when i bucked me off and went home without me!, for me i was dam lucky to have this up bringing, i decided from a young age i was going to be a farmer when i grew up and im now a tennent farmer managing my own sheep flock and heard of beef, i dont have kids yet, and i really worry the day that i do as their is so many people out their ready to tell you how to bring them up, and would flip if i was to let them do what i did, it would be child abuse today, endangering their lives, and so on. but i sure as hell still would let them do as much similar as they wanted to, making sure they were safe at it like my parents did with me, if they wanted to of course. oh and good luck finding a nanny

 Now to really make people irate..............

Never marry a career woman.

You either have kids or your wife has a career. No ifs or buts. The most important job in the world is rearing the next generation, and the next generation needs its mother. 

You all know the title of my book. We live it.

 

old mcdonald:

 Now to really make people irate..............

I'm not irate, I'll leave that to some of the female forum members, but I do feel that you're being a tad unfair. Many farmers wives work off the farm through necessity. An extra wage can make a huge difference to a farming family. The fact that my wife works means that I have a little more cash to invest in the farm for the benefit of future generations.

Of course in an ideal world all farmers would earn enough to keep themselves and their families in relative comfort, but in reality it just isn't the case any more.

I can safely say I did 'work' and not have a career, however, I can say now hand on heart I regret it.But each to his own, and we definatly needed the money at the time.I know several farmers where the wife was a nurse/ teacher, and kept family finances afloat, and will provide a reasonable pension, so they do not draw off the farm when their children take over

However, I have since had to give up work to look after an elderly parent (and her farm!), and in many ways it is similar, as you do two jobs very badly at times.we seem to have a full social life of hospital and doctors appointments, just as we are getting the hay in,and I have been doing something else when she has fallen, with the added guilt. Now wheres that Nanny!

old mcdonald:

Never marry a career woman.

 

Well then I will probably never marry

But surely is it not the independence that a career gives, that makes a woman attractive?

 I'd say in 2012 never marry a woman without a career.  Farming is entirely to undependable for only one person to work, and you might as well marry someone with a good education and earning power as someone without.  My mother always worked(as a registered nurse), we lived close to both sets of grandparents and had a happy childhood, and turned out fine.

Like most farm kids of my generation I spent all my early childhood out on the farm with my dad or one of the staff, mostly on the foot plate of post war fordson standards wrapped up in hessian spud sacks or 16stone railway sacks for hours at atime. When I was 8 or 9 I used to wash the cows udders at milking time and fother up after milking, plus a multitude of other jobs like chopping mangels and chopping marrow stem kale which towered above me and showered me with water or frost with every swipe of the bill hook. I had a fantastic and very happy childhood but these days my parents would have been branded as criminals by the control freaks in the multitude of commie enforcement bodies who rule our lives in this nanny state.

Dick

My backgorund was slighly different as in my mum and my grandparents ran the farm and my dad worked...he did 9-5 then came back and worked the farm including weekends etc....i wouldn't change my childhood for the world growing up on a working farm is amazing and the older i get the more i realise it... I just hope i get the chance to raise any future children i may have in the same way. One thing i would say though is make you get your kids involved with other farming kids/ groups... i was sent to a school full of townies and never went to YFC so always felt a bit different to everyone else with clean town houses with baige carpets, as a teen i resented the farm a bit cause when everyone else was skateboarding getting nice clothes and 'hanging' out in town i was labouring on the farm, if i knew kids the same as me it would have been different.

Farming is such a different way of life that only people in the countryside or who have experienced it really understand it..all i want to do now is farm and raise a family in the countryside giving them the ideallic start to life my parents gave me.

 We are different as well my wife has always been involved with the farm and her interest is the stock , which she now manages and my role is looking after the arable side of the farm. She is so much better at looking after stock.more patience,more particular,more focused.

When the children came along they were put in the car seat and lived in the farm ute from a very young age, they were not neglected but did not spend much daytime in the house. However as they get older it is not so easy, but today with modern tractors and cabs it is much safer than ridding on the foot plate.

Now that they are at secondary School life is much easier, although the wants are greater and the demand for money is never ending, it seems to be no time since they were riding around in a backpack on your back as you worked , they now look after themselves

 Now with their own motor bkes and the run of the farm and the nearby beach they are the envy of all their mates, but the town boy's do not have the nous of boys brought up on the farm and so it necessary to keep a close eye on them.Just because our boys know how to drive a tractor or ute. they think they are able to do the same.My old Dad had to sayings"the bigger the kids get the bigger the problems"and the second one was "your wants expand to the money available".He would look at us and shake his head at all the mod - cons we thought were essential in the house ,and huw they raised 5 children on the smell of an oily rag.

How times have changed, but mostly for the better. 

Without my wife's income in the early days of starting out, we would have been in local parlance "FF'ed". If  say the first F stands for fundamentally, I'm sure the 2nd doesnt need elaborating. I dont think you can really tell if someone is set up as a stay-at-home mummy or a career woman until they have had at least one child - someone dead set on a clutch of children may find that they actually prefer spending their time in the company of grown-ups when every conversation doesnt revolve around primary school places and the usual dross.

My eldest enjoys comming for a few hours ploughing, or "driving" the rolls tractor, but at 4 its not as if I can put him to work just yet. But the wake-up call will come this September as ye local tiny school (about 50 on the roll) has no before or after school club. I dont like the idea of dumping a 5yr old from 8am to 6pm, but then I dont relish the new school day of 9:15 to 3:00 as I cant manage on a working day of about 5 hours after travel.

Few nanny offers are starting to come in but still interested in hearing from others. Perhaps you know / have a youngster training in childcare at uni / college who is finishing this June and looking for work until they find something full-time? Or someone looking to fit a job with no expenses in before going travelling? If so, please let me know.

 I had expected a lot more flack. Not that it would have changed my mind, but in response to one or two of you, my wife is, in fact,  well-educated (better O and A levels than me) and qualified as a Domestic Science teacher. A couple of years after we married she gave up teaching. We still needed income to finance our mortgage, and to develop the 9 acres and modernise the house we had bought, so she remained at home, looking after the house, garden and whatever work around the holding that she could. I continued with my job.

Up to this point I still thought I needed to make a lot of money to fulfill my aim of becoming a farmer, but a couple of years later we sold our 9 acres for more than it cost us to buy 163. Obviously the respective condition of the two warranted the price differential. From then on my philosophy changed to living well as cheaply as possible. It has worked, although from time to time I have had to either undertake contracting to other farmers, take any work I could, or, the worst, go back behind a desk when some extra money was needed.

This way my wife was able to rear our boy herself when he eventually arrived. She heard his first word. She saw him take his first step. She took him to school on his first day. She picked him up again later. She was always there every day afterwards when he left in the morning and returned in the afternoon. She was first to hear of his triumphs, and there to console him in his miseries. Naturally I spent as much time with him as I could, and we have a great relationship, but I felt it was more important for her to be there for him than me. She agreed.

With the greatest respect Old Mac, I think times have changed a lot since you and your wife got married.

My wifes wages probably kept us afloat in the post F&M years when hill lambs and cull ewes were worth next to nothing.

I do more work on the farm and at home than my mum, and she works part time! (She has too many townie influences, so watches more Emmerdale than she works at the field.) I do like having the farm though, even though I get less leisure time, I would struggle to find things to do, staying at home cooking, cleaning and raising children isn't really my bag...

I like to be busy and have things to do, so I don't think I'll be a 'stay at home' woman, I mean, what is the point of paying a lot for education, and working hard to achieve, if you don't use it to the fullest extent throughout your life?

~Meggiewes~

meggiewes:

what is the point of paying a lot for education, and working hard to achieve, if you don't use it to the fullest extent throughout your life?

 

Some would consider education in being an end in itself, rather than a stepping stone to somewhere else. Although I admit that £9k uni fees might alter the view on that. Raising the children is a lot harder work than being out on the farm. And I get zero leisure time. 

You might also be suprised what a nanny earns, especialy given the nil cost of living and potential for world travel. The lady we had last year went all around the world looking after children and if you consider a) no food, rent, council tax, and b) nil income tax in some countries, then it can be a very good earner for a recent graduate / someone who wants to earn before uni /  a career childcarer. 

w'n'w,  Our son just turned 29 on Boxing Day, so it is not that long since he left school, but I do appreciate the courteous manner in which you disagree with the philosophy my wife and I hold about rearing children.

old mcdonald:

but I do appreciate the courteous manner in which you disagree with the philosophy my wife and I hold about rearing children.

I didn't say I disagreed with you, I just think it's harder to live on just one wage these days, especially if you have four children as in our case.

 

welshnwilling:

I just think it's harder to live on just one wage these days

Yes, thats a massive point. One wage, unless it is a massive one, means a whole pile of sacrifices and potentially very dubious long-term plans re home owning, pensions, retirement, and all that. I know its a long way off, but the idea of 40 years graft simply paying the rent and putting food on the table is not an option. I have two children, and to get each of them the start that I had would not be possible on just one of my / my wife's salary.

i have been very fortuneate to marry a non career girl,and when the children started arriving, she gave up work at the bank,  luckily at that point, farming got a whole lot more profitable (2005). Also, with me being older father than average, i had a bit under my belt by then(now its hanging over)

 

I agree with old mac, you can live on very little if you try , and time spent with your kids is priceless.

saying that, we could do with some help at times to give her indoors a break, as we have no relatives near.

Tesla, if it's any consolation, it gets easier as the kids get older. I'm not talking financially, but just fitting them into your daily routine. As they get older they are more able to look after themselves for a bit or come with you in the tractor or truck. I don't think it does them any harm, in fact it teaches them to pitch in. With a bit of encouragement they will do a lot of work without realising they are working. They think helping is the norm, that can't be a bad thing ?

A local businessman told me he always tries to employ farmers sons or daughters as they are used to 'work'. He reckons townie kids would rather sit on their ***'s playing with their x-box.