Mary E. Krenisky
Strayer University
Eng 115
October 16, 2014
In todays’ world growing up as a farm girl like Jessica Hemaur was not an easy way to grow up; being as young as she was proofs very challenging for a 10 year old waking up every morning at 5:00 a.m. to help her father feed the animals and milk the cows. Then off she went to school for a full day of activities with teachers and friends. Returning home later that evening must have felt dreadful “Oh my God she thought” of all the work that still lay ahead in her young mind. After doing the morning chores Nick, Melissa and Jessica would all go back to the house and continued with their normal routine which consisted of getting dressed, eating some breakfast and heading out the door to catch the bus to school.
She felt as if she was different from other kids in her class; she didn’t get to participate in school activities such as art, music, and sports. At some point through the eighth grade that year she managed to convince her parents to agree into let her play on the basketball team. She would still have to complete her work around the farm before and after these activities at school. She did not want any of the other kids from school to know she lived on a farm. Meanwhile, when all the other kids were just getting out of bed Jessica and her siblings had been up since 5:00 a.m. doing chores on the farm which her father owned.
After Jessica’s freshman year her father held a family meeting with Nick and Melissa in which he told them he wanted the farm to produce more revenue but, did not want his children to work on the farm unless they chose to do so. He encouraged them to go to school and get an education. Her friends always wondered how she stayed so cool under pressure and always managed to use her time wisely. She made it to work on time and never complained of anything. After joining all these activities she realized she was still different than all the rest of her friends and seemed to be more mature than the others, when she got home from work she sat down and reflected back in her past and realized growing up on a farm was not a fun experience and was even a dirty job at times, but it made her more tolerable to the work she was asked to do. Jessica hated growing up as a farm girl but it shaped her into the woman she became and made her appreciate what she had become in life.
It gives me a sense of direction in which I would either chose to continue life on the farm or if I would want to change my way of life to do something that I really wanted to do because not everyone lives the same kind of life style of living on the farm. From my experience growing up on a farm as a young girl I had to face some diversities and lots of challenges in life with others and my peers judging me for the way I grew up or how I lived. I remember times when it was so freezing cold the water would freeze in the bucket we all drank