Is work supposed to be fun?

I have long been fascinated with the attitudes people have toward work. This is especially of interest in relation to farm work. Some of us remember our experiences of work on the farm very favorably. But for others, the work on the farm was reason enough for them to leave the farm. Some people like to work, often finding the work they do to be very interesting. Their work allows them opportunity to put their skills to use in satisfying ways. Others, as I have observed, seem to see work as one of the necessary evils of life, to be done only because one has to make some money to live on. They seem to see the enjoyments of life, if any are to be had, as found in entertainments and recreational pursuits outside of work. The time off from work is seen as the most attractive part of it.

Although farm life doesn't have the same effect on all who grow up on farms, it seems to me that several things about life on the farm contribute to helping people find interest and meaning in the work they do. At least the farm gives those who grow up there opportunities to observe, to practice and to experiment, which encourages appreciation of the natural processes that our human lives depend on, and which encourages taking an interest in working with those natural processes. It seems to me that most children, if not all, start with an interest in learning to do things, in gaining skills, and that they have a wish to show that they can do things and show that they are gaining skills such as they see in the adults around them. What often happens is that the adults see the children as nuisances around work, rather than as potential workers who can be learning even before they are big enough to fully handle tasks.

I remember that one of the books that came into our house when our children were young was called

The Little Boy From Shickshinny." It was a Pennsylvania Dutch story about a little boy who when he found an interesting ladder to climb, someone was there to say, "No, No, don't climb, you're too little." Or, if he found a hammer, "No, No, you're too little, makes fingers smashed!" Or if he found a sharp tool, "No, No, you're too little, sharp tools make fingers off!" So, the little boy became a very grumpy little boy and spread his grumpiness to everyone around him, including the chickens and pigs and cows on the farm, and even, eventually, a bear! No, I won't try to finish that little story, but, the point is, sometimes people so limit the efforts of children to try and to help that by the time they get big enough, they have lost the interest. Obviously we want children to be protected from seriously injuring themselves, but they also need to be encouraged to take positive steps toward gaining skills that are helpful.

I think my parents were pretty good at finding things a growing boy could handle, and at the same time helping him learn new skills as time went on. I remember early in my life, when my Dad and Mom were working in the garden, I could drop some seeds into the rows that Dad had laid out with the horse and single shovel plow, and as I was "working" I was seeing myself when I would be big enough to handle the horse and the plow. When I was a pre-school boy, my Dad was building many of the farm buildings that we would use through the years; so he was often sawing boards and hammering nails. I wanted to help, and I remember his showing me how to handle the handsaw without sawing my fingers, and how to start and to drive a nail without hammering my fingers. OK, I may have hammered a finger now and then, but all my fingers survived, the bruises encouraged me to learn better, and I eventually became a pretty fair carpenter.

When we children were young, our parents not only had jobs for us to do, we were encouraged to play games, to learn baseball and basketball and checkers and Monopoly and Game of the States. But sometimes our play was not just fun and games, sometimes our play was an imitation of the work we saw people doing. For instance, we would play store. One of us would be the storekeeper, and one of us would be the shopper. When we played cars, one of us would be the filling station man, to fill-er-up, and check the oil and the radiator. (Filling stations used to have attendants who did those things.)

Then sometimes we would be road builders. I had a brick that was my bulldozer, and we had a wood block that was our big truck to haul dirt. My bulldozer would really dig, and our hauler would really haul dirt, and in our play we made a real road for our toy cars. When my brick was not being a bulldozer, it was my school bus which I drove to haul kids to school. As a bulldozer it was a Caterpillar diesel. As a school bus it was a Chevrolet. They make different sounds, you know. Our play was sometimes imitating work.

No, not all work is supposed to be fun, but most of it can be interesting!

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Editor's note: Jerry Nichols, a native of Pea Ridge, is an award-winning columnist, a retired Methodist minister with a passion for history. He is vice president of the Pea Ridge Historical Society. He can be contacted by e-mail at [email protected], or call 621-1621.