Hwy85RanchWife
New member
- Joined
- Mar 5, 2026
- Messages
- 1
This is just something I needed to write/get off my chest in a safe space where I don't know anyone. Maybe it will resonate with some of you. Not looking for sympathy. Just wanted to see if anyone else has felt this perspective or maybe, even someone can give me some insight into why this seems to happen.
Prior to the 19th century, when individuals were expected to serve the table and prepare food and environment for a meal, they were referred to as servants or slaves. These individuals were not considered equal with those that kept them. They were to do the bidding quietly and efficiently. Following the industrial revolution and into the 20th and 21st century, we have now declared they deserve a fair wage and freedom and they are now called waiters. These individuals are still expected to serve and meet the needs of diners, though at least now they can “make a living” doing this.
So why, in this day and age are we still treating family members in agriculture, at best, like waiters but at the least like slaves? There are individuals that are quietly, consistently and efficiently showing up and serving the table. They are preparing the meals, making sure the dishes are clean and sometimes, in a very literal sense setting the food in front of the diners, but they are not being invited to the table. They do not have a seat at the table. They may have decades of experience with serving, preparing, and doing the menial tasks required to pull off a harvest or branding, but they are still not eating with those that they serve.
They are not asked their opinions, and if they are offered freely the opinions are, again, at best ignored at worst derided. They are not given fair pay or even equal compensation in the form of respect, time off, consideration or some other way of letting them know their work is valuable and contributory.
Then, when divorce, death or health intervenes and those people are gone, everyone wonders what happened. They wonder why the ranch wife who married into the family leaves after the children have been raised. They wonder, why the person who has raised children, contributed, fought a health issue is no longer “around much” when it comes to farm and ranch work.
These people, often women, are tired of waiting for their seat, and have decided that they will no longer serve at a table they are not welcome at.
I would venture to guess that there is a higher number of these women that “married in”. If they stick around long enough, then they get sucked into the cycle. If they hold out, then when they finally become the matriarch at 65 or 70, they suddenly lose all sense of empathy and remembering what it was like to be that young and middle aged woman who didn’t feel valued or seen. They begin to give opinions freely because all of a sudden they are at liberty to do so. They offer unasked for advice to their own daughters-in-law or cannot conceive of retirement, even though there are sometimes up to two generations waiting for the opportunity to live and work in agriculture. They become exactly what they struggled with when they were first married into the family. So the cycle continues. Marriages crack under this pressure and two people once in love and willing to work through struggles side-by-side become strangers living in the same house. Not because there wasn’t love, but because the decades of serving a table that one of you is welcome at and the other is not has finally worn down the bonds of love, trust and service.
Those who are serving the table don’t want millions. They aren’t concerned about getting rich or being in charge, all they want is a seat. To occasionally be included in the conversation but after 2-3 decades of fighting for their place at the table, they give up. They quit trying because they know it won’t matter, someone else will always be given their seat, no matter how hard they work, how much knowledge they acquire or how skilled they become. The most they can hope for is that their children will be given a seat….and maybe stop the cycle.
Prior to the 19th century, when individuals were expected to serve the table and prepare food and environment for a meal, they were referred to as servants or slaves. These individuals were not considered equal with those that kept them. They were to do the bidding quietly and efficiently. Following the industrial revolution and into the 20th and 21st century, we have now declared they deserve a fair wage and freedom and they are now called waiters. These individuals are still expected to serve and meet the needs of diners, though at least now they can “make a living” doing this.
So why, in this day and age are we still treating family members in agriculture, at best, like waiters but at the least like slaves? There are individuals that are quietly, consistently and efficiently showing up and serving the table. They are preparing the meals, making sure the dishes are clean and sometimes, in a very literal sense setting the food in front of the diners, but they are not being invited to the table. They do not have a seat at the table. They may have decades of experience with serving, preparing, and doing the menial tasks required to pull off a harvest or branding, but they are still not eating with those that they serve.
They are not asked their opinions, and if they are offered freely the opinions are, again, at best ignored at worst derided. They are not given fair pay or even equal compensation in the form of respect, time off, consideration or some other way of letting them know their work is valuable and contributory.
Then, when divorce, death or health intervenes and those people are gone, everyone wonders what happened. They wonder why the ranch wife who married into the family leaves after the children have been raised. They wonder, why the person who has raised children, contributed, fought a health issue is no longer “around much” when it comes to farm and ranch work.
These people, often women, are tired of waiting for their seat, and have decided that they will no longer serve at a table they are not welcome at.
I would venture to guess that there is a higher number of these women that “married in”. If they stick around long enough, then they get sucked into the cycle. If they hold out, then when they finally become the matriarch at 65 or 70, they suddenly lose all sense of empathy and remembering what it was like to be that young and middle aged woman who didn’t feel valued or seen. They begin to give opinions freely because all of a sudden they are at liberty to do so. They offer unasked for advice to their own daughters-in-law or cannot conceive of retirement, even though there are sometimes up to two generations waiting for the opportunity to live and work in agriculture. They become exactly what they struggled with when they were first married into the family. So the cycle continues. Marriages crack under this pressure and two people once in love and willing to work through struggles side-by-side become strangers living in the same house. Not because there wasn’t love, but because the decades of serving a table that one of you is welcome at and the other is not has finally worn down the bonds of love, trust and service.
Those who are serving the table don’t want millions. They aren’t concerned about getting rich or being in charge, all they want is a seat. To occasionally be included in the conversation but after 2-3 decades of fighting for their place at the table, they give up. They quit trying because they know it won’t matter, someone else will always be given their seat, no matter how hard they work, how much knowledge they acquire or how skilled they become. The most they can hope for is that their children will be given a seat….and maybe stop the cycle.
