Sunday Solopreneur
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Should You Make Your Kids Farm? Our Approach to Raising Kids on a Small Farm
When my wife and I started our small farm in 2016, we made a big decision: We wouldn’t make our kids farm.
That might sound surprising, especially since we run a production farm raising pasture-raised meat and eggs, but that’s what we decided.
We’ve grown our farm to where it provides a substantial income for our family, with the premise that my wife and I would be the only employees (i.e. doing all the work).
We raise and sell beef, pork, poultry, turkey, and eggs. A lot of work for sure, but after years of farming and homeschooling our children, we still stand by the choice of not MAKING our kids farm.
This isn’t about avoiding hard work or skipping responsibility. It’s about making sure our farm remains a place of learning and opportunity—not a burden forced upon our children.
Here’s why we take this approach and how it has shaped our family farm.
We Want Our Kids to Love the Farm, Not Resent It
One of my biggest hopes is that my children will want to take over the farm someday. But forcing them to do farm work they don’t enjoy could push them away.
If they grow up seeing the farm as just chores and responsibilities, they might not want anything to do with it as adults.
Instead, we want them to appreciate the lifestyle, the lessons, and the value of farming without feeling pressured.
That doesn’t mean they don’t do chores for their own animals or help out from time to time, but it’s allowing them to help because they want to and not be forced to work that makes all the difference.
This Is Our Dream, Not Theirs
My wife and I chose this life. We built our farm from the ground up because it’s what we love. But that doesn’t mean our kids have to share that dream.
They might want to pursue something completely different, and that’s okay.
Our role as parents isn’t to mold them into farmers—it’s to support them in finding their own paths while giving them the life skills that farming naturally teaches.
Teaching Hard Work Without Exploiting Free Labor
Farming is tough. It requires long days, constant problem-solving, and physical effort. It’s easy to fall into the mindset that kids should just jump in and help because they’re part of the family.
But we decided early on that if my wife and I couldn’t handle a task ourselves, then it either wouldn’t be part of the farm or we’d hire someone when the time came.
That being said, our children do have house chores (dishes, laundry, cleaning up) as they are part of the house and it’s something we all need to learn (or should, haha).
We do pay our children for their farm work. As they’ve gotten older, they’ve taken on responsibilities like collecting and washing eggs, feeding chickens, and filling water troughs. And just like we would with any worker, we compensate them for their efforts.
When they were younger, we even paid them for smaller tasks—things that you wouldn’t normally pay an employee for. But we saw it as an investment in helping them understand that hard work has rewards.
Using the Farm as a Classroom
Since we homeschool, our farm is more than a business—it’s an educational tool. We use it to teach our kids about:
- Life and Death: They see firsthand where food comes from and learn to respect the process.
- Science: From animal growth to pasture rotation, the farm offers endless learning opportunities.
- Work Ethic: Without forcing them into labor, we give them opportunities to take responsibility for real-world tasks.
- Entrepreneurship: They see the work and how we’ve gotten to where we are, as well as staring their own side business including Lavender Lemonade, Soap, and Lip Balm (They make a killing at the market!).
- Money Management: 70% they get to keep, 20% goes to a Roth IRA, and 10% goes to charity.
- Creativity and Imagination: Fishing (we’er on a River), building forts, go-carts, or just running around bare-footed. There is so much for them to do here.
Instead of framing the farm as just a place of work, we introduce it as a place of learning and curiosity. That way, our kids engage with it on their own terms.
There’s No Right or Wrong Approach
Every family farm is different. Some farm parents believe that making kids work on the farm is essential to teaching discipline and responsibility, and there’s nothing wrong with that. What works for one family may not work for another.
This is simply what works best for us. We want our farm to be a place our children love—not one they feel trapped by.
If you’re starting a farm or already farming, I encourage you to consider what kind of experience you want for your family.
Farming is more than just a way to make money or escape the 9-to-5 life—it’s a lifestyle that should work for everyone in your household.
Thanks for reading and we’ll see you next week!
with my appreciation,
Jason
Aka: The Part-Time Farmer
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