Families need role models to teach value of hard work

Country life is hard, rough and tumble, then Youtube bans your channel.

My latest binge-watch on Youtube was about a ranching family with like nine children from age 16 down to 2. The ranch house was something like 17 miles off the pavement and the ranch itself was bordered with or nearby the famed Area 51 where the government is supposedly hiding alien beings and testing alien aircraft and the like.

At the turnoff to the ranch was a famed “black mailbox” where Area 51 fans and assorted weirdos left various kinds of messages and weird offerings to extraterrestrials.

These kids all enjoyed the ranch life and living in the middle of nowhere and they loved learning to do ranch chores and the videos showed them working hard as a family. Sometimes kids barely big enough to see over the steering wheel and reach a clutch pedal were driving the diesel big rig that hauled water to cattle in various locations on the ranch.

They regularly cowboyed and had to find ways to saddle and ride the ranch horses. While Mom and Dad and the older kids worked, the videos would show the little kids playing in a feedlot alley and running barefoot in just a diaper through the cow lot.

Next thing I know the channel is off. Apparently folks complained because the kids were working and doing things that all country kids do if given the chance.

I know if my dad had filmed me all day long city folks of today would not appreciate the way we lived. I was raised right by God-fearing parents who weren’t afraid of hard work and they taught their children to work hard too.

I fell in love with the channel watching those kids because they were all so determined at what they were doing and ready to step up and take on new chores even when they had to be helped or reined in a little. It was refreshing to see kids being taught to work and not allowed to spend all their time on social media or in front of a TV.

I’m not saying we all ought to put our kids on a Youtube channel and show them working but somehow families need good role models to remind them how things used to be and the value of working together every day as a family.

My faith was buoyed this past week when, while mowing my front yard my neighbor brought his young son across the street pushing his mower. He introduced me to the son and asked if it would be OK if he mowed a portion of my front yard. I said it would be appreciated. He explained that it was a favor to a neighbor and I didn’t need to pay him anything.

Now that’s great parenting. Thanks Brad and Sam!

Karl Terry writes for Clovis Media Inc. Contact him at:

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