Every year we grow a pivot of corn to turn the cattle into when the snow starts to fly. The tall stalks provide great feed without the cows having to search for it beneath the snow. It also saves days of feeding hay that we’re more than willing to keep stacked in the yard.
Rather than turn the cows out on the entire field, we portion the corn into smaller sections so they’ll clean up the feed before moving to the next. Using an electric fence, it’s a fairly simple process to rotate around the field every week or so—simple enough that even the littlest ranchers come out to help.
We start by mowing down the strip where the fence will go, making sure there isn’t anything that will touch the wire and ground it out. Then we string the wire across the field, getting an idea of where the fence will sit before pounding in the small fiberglass posts.
The one challenge with doing this in the winter is that more often than not, the ground is frozen, making it surprisingly difficult to pound in even those little posts. It’s frustrating for any rancher, but especially for a young one.
Last winter was no exception. After wrestling with another stubborn post, our youngest son stopped, looked up at me, and asked, “Do I have to do it as good as you?”
I wasn’t sure how to answer. And I’ve thought about that simple question many times since.
As far as the job itself goes, the answer is yes. The fence has to work. A post that’s only halfway in won’t keep the wire standing, and a fence that won’t stand won’t keep cattle where they belong. The cows don’t care whether the fence was built by a ranch mom or a seven-year-old. But at the same time, how could I possibly expect someone with only a fraction of my experience to do the job exactly the way I do?
That question follows us through almost every season on the ranch.
This summer our sixteen-year-old has been doing much of the swathing. For the most part, he has done an excellent job. One afternoon, though, my husband and I drove through one of the fields and noticed several narrow strips of hay left standing between the swaths and I was surprised. He had enough experience to know not to miss them. We found ourselves asking, “What was he doing for that to happen?”
The easy response would have been frustration. After all, those missed strips meant the job wasn’t done right. Instead, they became a conversation.
Was he distracted? Was he watching behind him instead of ahead? Was he trying to hurry before the weather changed? Whatever the reason, it became another lesson that couldn’t have been taught nearly as well from the pickup seat as it was from seeing the results in the field.
I’ve come to realize that raising kids on a ranch means constantly walking the line between maintaining high expectations and allowing room for growth. The standard itself can’t change because the work matters. Cattle still need to stay in the pasture. Hay still needs to come off before the storm. Equipment still needs to be cared for.
But the teaching changes.
Sometimes it means explaining the job one more time. Sometimes it means slowing down when we’d rather hurry. Sometimes it means pulling out a crooked fence post and trying again. We don’t lower the standard. We simply recognize that learning is part of meeting it. I’ve always believed people tend to rise to the expectations placed before them. If we expect very little, we often get very little. But if we expect our children to do meaningful work—to contribute, to be responsible, and to solve problems—they will do it.
This fine line between high expectations and allowing room for growth isn’t one you only find on the ranch with budding ranchers. It’s everywhere we find people trying new things, given new responsibilities, or growing into their opportunities. Yes, the child learning to pound fence posts and teenagers learning to swath hay, but also a new employee learning a trade, a first time volunteer trying to find their footing, or even ourselves stepping into something we’ve never done before.
Maybe that’s why I’ve kept coming back to our son’s question. “Do I have to do it as good as you?” I think the answer is both yes and no.
Yes, because the work still matters. A fence still has to hold cows. Hay still has to come off the field. The job still needs to be done right. But no, because becoming capable takes time. Experience isn’t something we’re born with; it’s something we earn one lesson, one mistake, one conversation, and one success at a time.
I’ve come to believe that holding high expectations and extending grace aren’t opposites. In fact, I think they belong together. High expectations give us something to grow toward. Grace gives us room to get there.
Maybe that’s the balance we’re all trying to find—not lowering the standard, but recognizing that today’s learner, if they’re willing to keep trying, can become tomorrow’s expert.
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