“Family Farm Life”: 64 Things That Are A Lot Worse Than They Seem

Yes! People do sometimes ask me if I get anything done. No, I just lie there wanting to sleep but being unable to. Sometimes I have enough energy to fold laundry and put it away. That's it.

It's s**t if you're in a 9-5 job. One night is bad, after a week, you are praying for a nights sleep.

Not everyone can be a Voltaire, ffs.

I have always had bad sleep. When I studied at the uni I realised that I could expect about a week with no sleep at all (but for the sporadic 30min her and 30min there) once ever 6 months or so. I just relaxed about it as much as I could. Read in a book until I feel asleep, read in it again when I woke up and would continue this until it was time to get up. Didn't really notice my sleepless week when I first had kids. But in 2023 I then had a sleepless week... but for over a month. Total hell when you have a bf and 3 small children. It's been more stable since then but I wake up every night between 2 and 3 and on a good night fall asleep again within an hour, on a bad night I just don't fall asleep again. Instead of reading books I either go read stuff on BP or tumblr or I relax and make up some nice story in my head that makes me happy. I feel exhausted and tired every day. But it's just how things are, I suppose.

A small amount of cannabis munchies one hour before going to bed. Problem solved.

We did it, but it was very tough. Helped that my father was a trained agriculturalist, horticulturalist, beekeeper and had started veterinary training.

It's not "impossible" in the literal sense, but might as well be to the average person who thinks medieval peasants had 5 months of vacation time and a 40 hour work week is inhumane. The self sustaining farm life is still the norm for much of the world, and 12% of the U.S population operated family farms into the 1950's. For most of human history, the majority of people spent all day, every day working just to survive. Tending crops, livestock, crafting tools to be able to build and maintain homes and the contents therein. Making and maintaining their own clothing. From the age of 5 or 6 years old throughout the entirety of their lives, keeping in mind that child labor laws didn't go into effect until 1940. Did it suck? Absolutely! But that they were able to do it is the only reason why any of us are alive today. I don't think anyone really wants to go back to that, but they should also have a little bit of perspective in what they qualify as "hard"

We went to Florida for a week once, and to Chicago for a weekend once when I was a kid. Those are the only vacations my dad ever took that I can recall since he had livestock to care for.

Agree. Farms in the US generally need to be larger to be profitable due to economy of scale. We had a 275 acre dairy and beef farm. In later years just beef because the price dropped out on milk. After my folks died the farm was bought up by owners of bigger farms. It was basically too small to still be very viable as a farm by itself. And even if income is not a concern, it is a LOT of work to try to do everything small scale. Farmers who raise many acres of the same crop or hundreds of the same animal have the right equipment to streamline doing the thing they are doing. Family farms generally mean each crop is being tended by hand or with small implements.

My wife and I are about 50% sustainable and it is a lot of work. I don't think it would be possible for us to get anymore sustainable at this point in our lives.

I absolutely love translating. Unfortunately so do computers now.

I almost did that with reading. I had a book blog, and at some point I also got free books from the publishers (which was super exciting at first). But slowly blogging was getting more demanding, I needed to be up to date with all the trends and read all the talked about books. Also I somehow ended up being favored by a few publishing companies, and a couple books per season turned into dozens. Everything turned into chore instead of hobby.

I'm a pretty good amateur photographer. I'm not into the technical aspects of it, just good at capturing the moment before it passes. Get a lot of compliments and when I get asked why don't I do it professionally, my response is generally along the lines of: Why would I want to take something that I enjoy and turn it into a job?

I used to love thrifting. I turned it into an eBay business. Ended up hating it and closed the business. I haven't been thrifting in years.

I used to love to cook, then I became a chef.

I feel this one in my bones, been a tough few years :(

Knew a couple having their first kid. They were about my son's age (early 30s) Told them congrats and reminisced on how it was great but also time consuming and tiring, especially initially. Was told they had read the latest books/blogs and taken classes and it just wasn't like that these days. Ok, no worries. So, they had their kid and I didn't hear from them for a bit. Saw them in a group facetime a while later. House looked like a bomb had gone off and both had 1000 yard stares. Didn't say a thing but nice to see things haven't changed :)

This one isn't black and white. I love the heck out of my son and wouldn't take it back for anything because he exists and is a person whom I adore. That said he's got some issues. Oppositional defiance disorder and adhd. Every day is a struggle and I realized pretty early that I didn't have that natural paternal drive. That's another struggle to throw on the pile because I'm basically just winging it. I'm quite and introverted and I love my peace and my kid is anything but peaceful. There exists in the dichotomy on the human experience a world where you can love your child and also realize you would have been completely happy never having children. Its okay to acknowledge your feelings. Now the really hard part. The choice was made and none of it was the kids fault so despite how you feel you have to suck it up and be the best parent you're capable of and sometimes that's hard too.

The silent part about being a parent is that it never ends. Even when they become adults, move out of the house, leave for school and have their own families, you are still their parent. Which comes with that sense of worry if you raised them right, did you do anything that could of caused harm to them as an adult. Some think 18 and I am done. Maybe long ago, but the world the way it is now our children dont always get to leave home and be financially stable. Sometimes I like my son more than my daughter, and not because he is my favorite but because she is like fighting with myself. Geesh, parenting brings on so many emotions, I feel like its been the longest, happiest and craziest roller coaster for the last 33 years for me.

highwaycrossingfrog

highwaycrossingfrog

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I absolutely adore babies, but having kids of my own seems like such a terrible idea, I'm genuinely amazed anyone chooses to do it

I think this about people who want to retire so they can open a B&B as well. Cool so you have to get up early every damn morning to make breakfast for strangers? That does not sound like retirement to me

Doesn't really matter what business you want to run, you have no idea what it entails until you're doing it. You spend the first few years struggling to get a foothold, working every waking moment of your life for slave labor wages. Licensing, Accounting, tax laws, Marketing and advertising, customer service, inventory, laws on imports and exports, and the actual manufacturing of your products. You have to learn how to do all of it, because you literally can't afford to pay anyone else to do it for you....and by the time you can afford it, you don't want to because you've spent years of your life enduring sleepless, stressful days and nights sacrificing EVERYTHING else in your life, your time, relationships, mental health and every cent you have to get to that point of profitability and are hyper aware and petrified of the knowledge that it could all come crumbling down with one stupid mistake. It's never easy, and every success story was built off years of suffering and sacrifice.

I owned a bookstore before Amzn & ebooks. Difficult enough then.

I've always said I want to work in one of those book shops, but never own one.

I might picture myself doing this, if I knew who Cormac McCarthy is...

Read about this guy who tried to prove he could make it with nothing failed

I forget who said it first, but it is expensive to be poor.

And so many people have "just" suggestions. "Just get a good job", "Just go to college", "Just save your money". Like it's the easiest thing in the world. So many people in denial about the real world.

They can get it at Walmart for less and it's quality is worth what they paid.

I'll stick to the video game version then.