Down on the Farm

The night before last was the Kindergarten end-of-school play; “Down on the Farm”, in which my beloved Six had a speaking part as a donkey.

Actually, it was wonderful as all of the children had a speaking part and they sang some very sweet songs, hilariously finishing up with “Country Road, Take me Home“.
All thirty six children – that’s both Kindergarten classes combined – trooped into the assembly room and lined up on the steps of the stage in twos and threes according to which character they were playing. Most of the children were animals, but there were a couple of scarecrows, two farmers and three ‘farmers’ wives’.

Just to let you know, there are six boys in the whole of Kindergarten. They were assigned  the scarecrows and farmer parts. Oh. And two who aren’t such great talkers got to be turkeys.

Each animal described its job on the farm in rhyme, with each child assigned a line. It was very sweet!

Six and her fellow donkey:

“I am stubborn and I never behave, I always make the farmer rave”
(visions of agricultural students with smileyface t-shirts going “Aciiiiiiiiid!”)

But the Farmers’ Wives! Three little girls in aprons and headscarves:

“I cook and I clean and I sweep all day, sometimes I get to tidy hay”

WTF?

Husband and I exchanged a raised eyebrow although nobody else seemed bothered.

Um, last time I checked we were not encouraging women to think of themselves as being defined by their menfolk.
HELLO? THE WORLD IS FULL OF WOMEN FARMERS!
This strange hybrid of 1950’s housewife and rural idealisation was very unsettling and, in my view, limiting and damaging to my curious, wild daughter not to mention the other thirty impressionable girls.
Of course it was just a play, and yes, it was just cute, and I know, it was just full of chatty sheep and turkeys, but still. Even the talking livestock were allowed their own identity and some kind of farm-specific work.
The farmers’ wives lives were just domestic servitude transplanted to the country with a side of straw.

I want my daughter to think she has more to offer than a dustpan and brush, and that life (and agriculture) has more to offer her.

So I wrote to the teacher.

Dear Mrs. X, and Mrs. Y

Wasn’t that the most fantastic performance? All of the children did wonderfully and it was so marvellous to see them all shining on the stage, confident and happy after a year of learning and nurturing under your expert tutelage.

You have done so very much for us all. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

One thing, though, that did jump out for me and my husband were the lines of the ‘farmers’ wives’.

Why do they have to be cooking and cleaning as their primary role? And why do they have to be farmers’ wives in the first place? Why can’t they have their own identity and also just be farmers? (I don’t remember the cows being referred to as the bull’s wives)

This might seem like a small point, but to our small children, it might actually loom rather large, especially compounded over time.

Growing up as a child of the 70’s and 80’s – the era of political correctness – meant that a lot of gratuitous sexism was eradicated, or at least suppressed, and I thought that it really was going to be possible to grow up as an equal to men and by the time I raised my own children there would be no question of gender inequality. However, since then there seems to have been an alarming backlash, and now I find that more than ever there is casual and thoughtless sexism running rife and unquestioned through our daily lives. The media becomes increasingly appearance obsessed, plastic surgery is on the rise for all age groups, female politicians are judged on their appearance rather than their policies, and we’re still earning 79c on the dollar as compared to men.

Thanks to you, the children have all been learning about seeds and plants and how they grow this year (I have had photosynthesis explained to me, somewhat condescendingly, a few times). Six has taken this in very enthusiastically and we have many little plants growing at home, and are observing them keenly, and she regards herself as somewhat of a gardener, if not a farmer.

I’m hoping she won’t start to think she should be cooking and cleaning instead.

Once again, though. I thought you two did a brilliant job with the play. I would not speak up about this if I didn’t think it was worth saying, and it in no way detracts from the amazing job that you have done all year, and with this fantastic production.

I was pleased and proud to be there.

Kind regards,

Mothership.

I received a very short, polite reply some 24 hours later thanking me for my views and saying that if they did the play again (which presumably they will as they requested donations for the costumes to be kept for future years) they would take this into account and that they had been trying to think of alternative names for ‘farmers’ wives’.

I restrained myself from writing back and offering my services as playwright and lyricist although I am fairly brimming with fabulous ideas. I intuited, with my almost psychic emotional antennae, that they wanted me to STFU so I graciously left it at that and when I went in yesterday for my usual hour of volunteering in class we all pretended that I hadn’t said anything.

*if you listen closely, however, you can hear the muffled scream of Mothership’s brain – HOW ABOUT JUST FARMER? HOW ABOUT AN EASY RHYMING COUPLET COLLECTING EGGS AND FEEDING CHICKENS? OR SHEARING SHEEP OR SOWING SEED? OR FIGHTING LAWSUITS AGAINST MONSANTO?*

Six heard me loud and clear,though. Poor child doesn’t have a choice 😉