Parlor Profiles: Dairy Families Talk About Their Lives

Couple Time

Never Enough Time

Time—most families feel they never have enough. On a dairy farm, that perception is magnified because one constraint never goes away—the cows must be milked at consistent times and intervals every day. In such a situation, carving out time to spend as a couple or away from the farm is a real challenge.

“Not too many people end up having to pay somebody so they can have a vacation.”

Of the 17 families interviewed for this study, each mentioned some concern about being able to take time off. At least the husband or wife of 12 (80%) couples had some concerns about the amount of time they spent with their spouses.

Husbands expressed as much frustration, if not more, as wives about not being able to spend time together and not being able to work on developing a quality relationship. The husbands were more specific, mentioning concerns like divorce, something they feared might happen to them if they didn’t work harder to find more couple time. But finding time is difficult. Only a few couples would even venture to guess how much non-work time they actually spent with their spouses in an average week. “Not counting in bed I don’t remember whether I spend any time with her,” one husband stated.

Wives had similar responses. “I have a lot more kids time than I actually have spouse time,” said one. “We have not spent any time alone probably all summer. I think my husband and I both feel that a lot of times we just need to catch up some.”

Finding Time Together During the Day

Twelve couples gave specific examples of how they spend their time together. Eight mentioned ways they regularly spend time with each other. The most common example, reported by seven couples, was during meals.

“We usually try to have a little time for breakfast,” said one husband. “It is our time to relax and take about 11/2 hours and kind of get ready for the rest of the day.” One couple spends time together during morning milking. “All we have to do is put milkers on, so we sit here and have a little hot chocolate,” the wife said. “We usually sit about a half hour.” In both cases, the regular time together came out of the work day and wasn’t away from the farm.

Just a Walk in the Woods

Eight couples (53%) mentioned specific examples when they had recently spent at least a night away from the farm. One husband was tuned into what relaxed his wife. “We kept our beef cows over on the other place,” he explained. “Every night we would just go over, because they were all in the woods, and then we’d walk out there. She said that was most enjoyable, that walk in the woods.” One wife illustrated her frustration about the whole subject of time away from the farm when she said she would like “to have the freedom that, if you go to a wedding, maybe you could stay for the whole thing instead of hurrying home.”

Many Related Reasons

Sixteen families were frustrated about not being able to take vacations. The reasons cited were lack of money for hired help and an inability to trust others to do the job.

Fourteen families (82%) felt the lack of hired help significantly affected their ability to take much time off. One wife said, “You can’t do that (take vacations) with dairy unless you have a full-time hired man or someone who can step in and do it.” Six families mentioned a lack of finances to hire the help. “Not too many people end up having to pay somebody so they can have a vacation,” one wife said.

Trusting Others

Five families spoke of the difficulty they had in letting go of their responsibilities and trusting others with their farm work, even for short periods of time. One husband’s comments illustrate this: “I don’t care to leave the cows in someone else’s care,” he stated, “because there are so many things that need to be done a certain way.” Wives shared this concern. “Sometimes the stress of worrying about (how the help is doing) counteracts the relaxation,” one woman noted. “Because I guess we figure we can’t hire anybody good enough to do what we are doing.”

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Produced by Communication and Educational Technology Services, University of Minnesota Extension.

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