Personal Narrative: What It Means To Be A Farmer's Daughter

When people think of a farmer’s daughter, they often envision a naive young girl who talks reeeeeal slooooow, wears barely anything besides her “daisy dukes”, and has an affinity for finding trouble. Unfortunately for women such as myself, many in the American society are blinded by this pop culture stereotype; they fail to think beyond their mental cloud to see the reality of what it means to be a farmer’s daughter. Living on a farm teaches one that grit and moxie will get you through life--not how to be a ditz. A ditz could never survive a day of planting sweet potatoes or picking butterbeans.

Being born into a farming family established a covenant of hard labor until I turn eighteen. Around the age of four I would start “going to work” by placing label stickers onto bags of butterbeans; and as I grew I would take on more challenging tasks: manning the bean harvester, hauling heavy equipment on trailers, processing paperwork to determine how much produce needed picking for

My dad’s driving workforce has always been high school boys and young men, all of which have been older than me, so I wasn’t always taken very seriously. If I ever tried to lift a load of any substantial quantity, I was quickly told I was too weak as someone else would quickly take over the job; when I would work as cashier at the farmer’s market, several customers would avoid me and go to the other employee because, to them, my younger age meant that I’d be less accurate. I refused to be underestimated; I was determined to eradicate their prejudices and show them that my age and gender did not mean I was incapable of performing my tasks. I ignored their judgements, and as I continued to carry out my work, I slowly began to dispel their ignorant pop culture stigma. Now my co-workers even ask for my help on issues, and I’ve developed good rapport with many of the market