OT since it is slow...

Dave H (MI)

Well-known Member
How about a proud Dad story?

I have been very resistant to my daughters following me into the CPA practice. It is very hard to get the license and a nuisance to take all the continuing education. The government legislates me half to death. I have to be the health insurance cop for the nation. And, frankly, one gets tired of being told that anybody with a computer and a cheap software package can do what you do. Phew...that felt good!

So my eldest daughter loves farming and has long been my good right arm. She can do anything, I won't bore you with a list. She enrolled at MSU in their animal science department and had a talent around the cattle barns as well as others. She wanted to work in extension but it is a shadow of what it was before Granholm. Not much there. She had already figured out that there was not enough money on our place for a full time salaried farm manager...other than me and I bet many can imagine what my compensation is like! I encouraged her to take up a profession, like her dad, but a different profession. Then she could make money off farm and spend it ON FARM! So she decides she wants to try for vet school. Probably one of the hardest things she could have picked. She worked an extra year and a half on prerequisites she did not have. Got herself a job at an emergency vet clinic where she does just about everything there is to do except surgery. Yesterday she walked in my office with a letter. Accepted to the Michigan State University School of Veterinary Medicine. Starts in the fall. Has to live up there for four years. Won't see her much at the farm for a while. Very sad/very, very proud. Who would have thought that little girl...
 
Be PROUD!!!!! You have a very smart young Lady there. I have more respect for my Vet than my Doctor anymore. The vet is more in touch with the average person. So I think she has chosen a good career.
 
A neighbor kid (45 years ago) started at Iowa State to become a Vet. He had 2 Brothers-In-Law that convinced him to become an MD. He transferred to Iowa the next year. I just googled him and I see he is an Anesthesiologist in California.
I do not applaud his decision, as it was probably due to the money difference in who you treat!
 
I had a girlfriend who went to vet school there while I was dating her. Good school and nice faculty. They let me sit in on classes when I visited her, maybe you can too when she gets settled. Went to a lot of Lansing Lugnuts games. Check them out, even if you are not a baseball fan. A lot of fun.
 
Will Rogers or Mark Twain once said that they admired a vet much more than a MD because the animals can't tell you what hurts.

Stan
 
I find it interesting how most parents relay the negative in their chosen profession to their children. My dad always told us to go to school to get a better job than he had working for Ma Bell. My wife advised our daughter in law that nursing was a lousy profession, so she dropped out of nursing school. To my way of thinking (now retired), both of those were darn good professions with great benefits. I can honestly say I never told my children I had a lousy job not worth perusing.
 
My oldest granddaughter is going the vet tech route next fall. She starts at Alfred university in NY next fall. She was accepted at Delhi also, but chose Alfred.
 
I assume she's read the "All Creatures Great and Small" series of books by James Herriot. The books were much better than the TV series, guy was a natural story teller.

Congratulations to you and your daughter.
 
I've heard that too! Half thought it was a pipe dream. You're close to me...need a job? You need to be willing and able to do pretty much everything and anything even remotely farm related including all the physical stuff I am no longer up to. There's no money but you get all the corn you can carry and we provide meals. :)

I hope she comes back part time after school. :(
 
Thanks! I'll have to ask her. If not those might make a nice gift. I am taking the whole family out to dinner to celebrate. I could give her those there.
 
Great feeling ain't it Dave?

I've told the stories before.Daughter runs a dental office,her one and only husband was plant manager at an auto parts factory. Head of maintenance for Denso Corporation now. Their oldest daughter is in grad school at WMU to be a neurologist. Their younger daughter is a junior at MSU.
Our oldest son is a top notch engine builder. Younger son has a good job,employer is sending him to community college to get his journeyman's machinist card. Owns his own home,getting married in the fall.

I guess they all take after my wife. She dropped out of school at 16. Went back and got her GED then went to college and nursing school. Had her first exposer to advanced math,biology and chemistry at the college level and still pulled it off.
 
Congrats! That is what Sarah has been doing the last couple/three years. She likes it a lot and is popular with the docs. Five of them wrote letters for her. She just figured she was doing so much of the work anyway, why not be the doctor? Kids don't really anticipate ahead of time how friggin hard it is to achieve goals like that. Guess that is why they succeed.
 
Honestly Randy? It is a great feeling. On Thursday morning she woke up as a kid with no certain future. Vet tech job was great and she would do some overnight jobs that paid really well too. Babysitting really sick patients who needed constant monitoring. Still it had a definite ceiling...there were no promotions or big salary raises coming. Thursday night she goes to bed with a world of options in front of her. Plus she finally gets out in the world. I'm really happy for her.
 
I know what you are saying but I work out of an office on the front of the house and my kids have gone with me to clients since they were infants. Particularly this one, because her mother worked out of the house then. They see and know how nice it is for me most of the time. These things I listed were reasons that I did not encourage them to follow me. They have never been communicated to them. To tell the truth, neither has ever really expressed an interest in accounting.
 
Thanks Larry! Carried her around on my hip all day while I worked because her mom's work was out of the house. She sat across my desk from me coloring while I did tax returns. For farm work she is as good as any son could have been. My younger daughter and I had different things we did and she is also a good worker, but this older one was tied to me all day every day. Hard to imagine her being away...but that is what has to happen for us both to be happy in the long run.
 
I appreciate that! I am looking for excuses to visit as often as possible without being a nuisance. Hoping it will ease the transition.
 
I think it is easier to be an MD...you only have one kind of animal to treat. :)

I just hope she stays away from equine or zoos. Dangerous critters.
 
That's the thing right there,getting out in the world. I guess I took the easy way out,buying the home place and staying right here all my life. Crowding 61 years old,that doesn't seem like the best decision ever anymore. It wasn't until just a few years before I quit milking cows,when the boys were old enough to milk for us for a week every summer so we could travel a little,that I found out just how big the world was. Deep down,I feel like I missed a lot and wasted my life. Both of the boys have been to Sweden,the younger one to Norway,Denmark and Finland too. The daughter and son in law have had the chance to travel out of the country too. They lived in Arizona for six years.
Jon hunts in Colorado every year. These kids are darned lucky to have the whole world at their feet and not be tied down to looking at the same tree lines every day with manure on their shoes.
 
Thanks Ronnie, I am! A little scared for her though. She was such a timid little kid. You would not believe it to see her today. A long haul, but I think she's gonna be OK.
 
I know what you are saying, but I do not agree. Everyone has regrets in their lives and the older we get, the more we feel them. Being on this forum I am sure you are aware how many people envy you a life on the farm and the ties to community and family that come from being part of a multi-generational farm. Yet I know what you say is true because I know a lot of fellas who are part of the same thing. Many feel trapped. A lot of them drink. Those are guys who should have moved off the farm I know just as many or more who bless every minute they spent working with family toward a common goal. Your feelings are completely normal. I hear the same sort of thing across the desk on a daily basis. We all wonder what it would be like to be the other guy, never realizing that the same grass is growing on both sides of the fence. :)
 
Ya,one of those dammed if you do,dammed if you don't things. The oldest boy couldn't wait to get away from here. He was in college down in Ohio taking summer classes three weeks after he graduated high school. He had graduated and was back up here working when I decided to sell the dairy cattle. I gave him the chance to buy the cows,then the farm after he owned the cows,but he didn't even need time to think about it. He turned it down flat on the spot. The younger boy at least wanted to think about it overnight before he turned it down.
About five years later though,the older boy decided he wants the place,eventually. He doesn't want to quit what he's doing,but he wants it when I'm ready to quit.
I can't deny that it's been security for me. I've always tried to be involved in things too,from township government to the milk co-op,so I haven't just sat here at home on my hands,but it's great if these kids want to get out in the world and have the option of coming back if they want to instead of being tied down to it from day one. If your daughter ever decides to come back,trust me,she'll appreciate it a lot more if she knows it's a choice instead of a chore.
 
Thanks Randy! That really hits the nail on the head! As you can tell, this is a sad thing too for me. You make me feel a lot better.
 
I know exactly how you feel. When I took my daughter to the airport in Grand Rapids to fly out to Arizina to join her husband,and when I dropped my son off at college in Ohio and walked out of his dorm room and closed the door,I swear by all that's Holy,in both cases,it literally seemed like just yesterday that I held them as babies in the hospital. The years in between didn't even exist anymore.
 

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