When I tell people that I grew up on cow-calf ranches in west Texas and southeastern New Mexico they often then commend me for leaving the area and going out into the world to make my own mark. I think there are a few interesting assumptions layered within a response such as this.
- That I grew up on a family operation.
- That leaving a family ranch behind to choose a different life is commendable or preferable or brave.
To be clear, I am not offended by either of these assumptions. This spring I attended RMC’s succession planning intensive, Ranching for Generations, in Oklahoma City where Dave Pratt facilitated families navigating farm and ranch succession. The experience, combined with recently celebrating Father’s Day, has me pondering legacy; what it is, our assumptions about it, and how it is built.
Status quo is something that is boldly present in every community, though it seems to hold a more particularly raucous power within agriculture. I think this may be because agricultural professions are so often tied to identity and one’s sense of self; “this is not just my business, it’s my lifestyle and how I raise my family,” and “this isn’t a job, it’s who I am.” I don’t think these are at all bad sentiments. In fact, they can be incredibly motivational to building something truly great! But it does raise the question: when we are building such strong emotional ties in farming and ranching, what are the emotions tied to?
Is it the land? The acres themselves, teeming with life, upon which dad, or maybe a many-generations-removed ancestor walked, their boots unknowingly stamping the future of their bloodline in the soil. The barns they built, the wire they stretched, the porches they sat on to watch storms roll in.
Is it genetics? Granddad’s cattle that he spent years culling into a regionally respected and coveted herd that not only performs well but represents and carries on the name of someone you love. If this is the legacy you perceive and carry with you, do you also carry the fear and potential guilt of ending the legacy by doing something different? The trepidation of severing ties with what your family did and disrespecting their accomplishments. Or maybe it’s not even about your family, maybe it’s about you. Who are you if you don’t carry on the family legacy?
If any of this resonates with you, you’re not alone. This is not just a frequent quality of family farms and ranches; it is very, very human. And I think it’s exceptionally beautiful and powerful. The pride of carrying on what was done not only before, but for us, can not be valued in dollars or words. Not coming from a family ranch, I cannot say that I fully understand those emotional ties, having not experienced them in that exact capacity myself.
In the same vein, not coming from a family ranch, I think I can speak well to the non-tangible traits of a legacy that transcend acres, animals, or anything tangible.
My father is what you would call a professional ranch manager. He managed big ranches in desert country for forty years before retiring last fall. Now when I visit home, I don’t return to the childhood ranch house where I grew up, or get to drive the same dirt roads that I still know by heart from driving the feed route every winter, or hear the creak of the gates in the pens where I learned to drag calves. Instead I visit a spot of land in the mountains of New Mexico, new to us all as of 12 months ago. And I’ve never felt more proud of anything than I do of that spot of land because it represents a life hard-lived, hard-worked, and well-spent. It represents accomplishing a lifelong dream coming to fruition. I don’t particularly mourn not returning to the ranch of my childhood because my emotional ties are not there, they are with my parents and what they accomplished, what they’ve done and sacrificed to accomplish it.
My mother’s family didn’t come from ranching at all. In fact, the truth could not hardly be more divergent. Their story in short is this: my Opa, growing up in war-torn Germany and joining the American military to escape it; my grandmother the daughter of a pub-owner, unable to drive or speak English upon immigration to the states. Both of my grandparents held a night and a day job each my mother’s entire childhood, were intentional and devoted to a dream that was greater than what they were born into, and in their efforts to achieve it left behind so much more than the real estate business and life of security they built together. Upon their passing, nobody would have ever known of the poverty and strife they were born into. Because they, like my parents, built a legacy.
What is that legacy? Is it some land and a couple hundred cows in the middle of New Mexico? Is it a small real estate business in San Antonio, Texas? I don’t think so, and from the small glimpse into my family’s past that I’ve offered you, I don’t think you do, either.
Let’s revisit the two assumptions people tend to make when I say I grew up in a ranching family but I’m not working on a family ranch. The second assumption is that I did well by not returning. If the hypothetical family ranch were my family’s legacy, then I draw the conclusion that such a legacy is assumed to be a burden, more than it is a gift.
I find this to ring unfortunately true in many but not all cases; the obligation to carry a burden that many generations have toiled to carry and perpetuate. Sowed with good intentions and fueled by a dream, but perhaps a burden nonetheless.
This begs the question: can we redefine the legacy? Can we carry it on, and fulfill this deep-seeded need to be a part of something greater, and relieve ourselves of the burden?
I believe so. Because I believe that legacy transcends anything tangible, by a long shot.
Some may look at my family and say our legacy is hard work. Hard work was necessary, but it is not what my brother or I value as much as what the hard work was for.
My family’s legacy is doing more for their children than what was done for them. It’s working intentionally for a goal with a purpose. It’s honoring what we were born into, while we forge onward to do something our parents never dreamed of – an opportunity we are afforded, because they, too, forged a path.
I think I’m likely more proud of my father and his accomplishments and his life’s work than he ever could be, and I carry his values, his stories, and all that he built with me each and every day. They fuel me to do even more and even better for my son than my parents did for me. Which is a monumental task but one I am inspired to accomplish, because that is my family’s legacy. Not a burden, but an inspiration rooted in love for those who forged the way.
I encourage you to explore your family’s legacy and define those intangible pieces that surpass time, property lines and bloodlines. You may find something special there that brings a new vigor to your “why.” If you’re interested, there’s a great essay on legacy in Dave Pratt’s book Healthy Land, Happy Families and Profitable Businesses called “Two Legacies” that may help you have this conversation or explore the concept even deeper.
