Tips for using your stubbornness to improve your farm and your family relationships.
Grandma was crying at the end of the kitchen table, and hate was too mild of a word to describe the feelings the two sisters-in-law had for one another. They had been best friends in high school and had married two brothers, both of whom sat at the table in a seething anger. Grandpa had been a dominant patriarch – and since his death seven years ago, what was once a happy farm family now wasn’t. The two brothers couldn’t make decisions together, and one dysfunctional decision had led to another to the point that they had both a dysfunctional farm and dysfunctional family.
They said they had me out to their farm to mediate, but with the vicious words they were saying to each other, it was obvious they both intended to “divorce.” Brother from brother and sister-in-law from sister-in-law. The truth was: They just had me out to the farm to act as a judge as to who was in the right. They wanted proof and validation that they were in the right and their sibling was in the wrong so Granny would take their side.
Andy (Caygeon) Junkin January 23, 2023
