Six-year-old Lillian Crow bounces through the rows of items at her family's small market in Earlsboro, near Shawnee. She arrives at a table full of fresh fruit and vegetables, which are grown on their land.
"So vegetables don't have seeds, and fruit has seeds. So that's how you can tell tomatoes apart from vegetables," she explains confidently.
Unlike most first graders, Lillian loves tomatoes. She can't help but snag a handful off the table and stuff them in her mouth.
Crows Vegetable Farm has been in the family for generations. Lillian's dad, Brandon Crow, works on the farm full-time with his parents. He hopes one day that his kids will follow in his footsteps, developing a passion for the land as deep as his.
"A big thing that I get from working on the farm with my dad, and I spend so much time with him. He's basically, like, my best friend," Crow said. "And if I were given the opportunity to do that with either one of my kids, or both of my kids, I think that's something that is priceless."
For centuries, American farms have passed through families, often with great pride. But just because farms are often a family business doesn't mean farmers raising children don't face unique challenges.
Limited childcare availability can drive families out of rural areas
Historically, farming families have included large numbers of children simply because they needed more labor to get the job done. But today's farming landscape often relies on heavy and dangerous machinery, making it important for children to be out of the way.
That leaves farmers with a question that can feel impossible: Who will watch the kids?
"I will say it's a lot of bootstrapping and it's a lot of, like, people making it work, but it doesn't mean that it's a good option for them," said Florence Becot, a professor at Penn State University.
Becot studies the barriers farmers face while raising children. She said many rural communities lack accessible and affordable child care. She's heard from some farming families that they desire more kids, but it just doesn't seem financially possible. And she's found that even parents in high-paying careers, like medicine, sometimes have to leave rural areas because they can't find someone to watch their children.
"In rural areas, it's the availability, because sometimes it's not even there. So even if you had all the money in the world, it's not there," Becot said.
It's an obstacle the Crow family has learned to navigate. Crow's wife, Carra, took a job as a teacher where their kids go to school so her work schedule would line up with their educational needs. When their two kids were too young for school, they had help from family and made use of a Head Start program in the area. Plus, Crow said their farm doesn't use a lot of machinery, making it safer for the kids to play around the area.
But his wife's work as a teacher also helps tackle another challenge of farm life: a lack of health insurance.
Farms don't come with a benefits plan
Shoshanah Inwood is a rural sociologist and an associate professor at Ohio State University. She said most of the time, farming families rely on off-farm employment to reduce the cost of benefits like insurance.
"When we looked at the data for the farmers nationally, we saw that the majority of farmers are actually employed through an off-farm job," Inwood said.
Crow and his wife fit into that off-farm employment model. Crow's parents, however, don't. Both of Crow's parents work on the farm, which meant that they didn't have health insurance until the passage of the Affordable Care Act.
Though overall uninsured rates for farmers don't vary significantly from the general public, specific subsets of farming can be more vulnerable. Over 40% of dairy farmers, for example, didn't have health insurance in 2015. Inwood pointed to the unique challenges they face in caring for cows, which need to be milked twice a day, preventing farmers from holding 9-5 employment.
Because of a farm's reliance on off-farm employment, Inwood said it takes an entire family to make farm life sustainable.
"I think one of the things that we've kind of have fallen into a trap through over the years is the idea that there's only one farmer, right?" Inwood said. "And the reality is we actually have a whole agro-family system, and people have all different roles within that system."
Tradition doesn't always hold anymore
The idea that farmers always have kids might be a sort of trap, too.
To be sure, many farmers across the country — like the Crow family — still want to have children, and do hope those kids will want to take over the farm someday. But for some first-generation farmers, operating the business without having to care for children feels more fulfilling.
Morgan Gold is a farmer and social media content creator in rural Peacham, Vermont. He and his wife began their relationship on the grounds that they wouldn't have children. They lived in Washington, D.C. for a while, but Gold discovered a burgeoning passion for agriculture in his 30s. They took a leap of faith and opened Gold Shaw Farm in 2016 after purchasing property in the town of 700.
Gold knows what he's doing is nontraditional. But that's also a mentality, he said, that gives him an advantage in his work. When he began his farm, he started out by growing ducks and trees, which some of his neighbors saw as an unusual choice. Yet his efforts have led to success, and he's parlayed that mindset into other ventures. Gold Shaw Farm sells items online, and Gold has written a book about transitioning from corporate life to agriculture, which is slated to be released next year.
Perhaps most notable is his online presence, for which he has accrued over 5 million followers across platforms. On his social media pages, Gold documents life on the farm and how his business has grown over time. He doesn't think he'd be able to handle all those responsibilities if he had kids.
"It's nice because it frees us up to be able to pursue our passions and do crazy things like leave high-paying jobs in D.C. to move out to the middle-of-nowhere, Vermont and start a farm," Gold said. "And so the fact that we didn't have kids is partially how we were able to do what we're doing now."
Gold is a big proponent for first-generation farmers. Those who enter the industry without family ties may feel like they have made their career choice more freely. And not everyone's family has generational wealth.
"When you have that mentality, you're boxing out people who their previous generations never had that opportunity, whether it be by just pure circumstance or things like segregation and redlining," Gold said.
A lot to be proud of
Although Brandon Crow would want to see his kids take over the farm someday, he doesn't want them to not be passionate about their careers, either. When he was growing up, Crow didn't envision himself taking over the farm. He went to school at the University of Oklahoma, earning a business management degree. But once he got into the workforce, nothing felt as fulfilling as farm work, where he could spend all day outside.
Crow tries to balance exposing his kids to farm life with showing his support for their goals, no matter their career paths. For now, Lillian and nine-year-old Owen are too young to have their futures mapped out. Owen enjoys working at farmers' markets during the spring through fall season, where he helps customers find what they are looking for and operates the checkout.
"I'm so proud of him because he is a hard worker," Crow said. "So I'm very proud of him. And then I'm amazed at him. I'm amazed at how smart and well-spoken he is."
Maybe one day he'll be in charge of the whole operation. But for now, it's basketball season in Earlsboro, and he and his sister are free to just be kids.
