"I'm raising boys and not cows."

In speaking of his father’s strategy for raising him well and upright, Elder Loren C. Dunn shared the following:

“While we were growing up in a small community, my father saw the need for my brother and me to learn the principle of work. As a result, he put us to work on a small farm on the edge of town where he had been raised. He ran the local newspaper, so he could not spend much time with us. … And sometimes we made mistakes.

“Our small farm was surrounded by other farms, and one of the farmers went in to see my father one day to tell him the things he thought we were doing wrong. My father listened to him carefully and then said, ‘Jim, you don’t understand. You see, I’m raising boys and not cows’ ”.

The blessings of work is the building of character in us and a bond with those with which we work hard. We truly believed that when we moved into our new home out in the country, our boys would benefit from the many opportunities they would have to work.

This year has brought us many wonderful things including the blessing of better behaved, more rounded, more confident boys. Some of their chores include:

- Taking out the chicken bucket (filled with kitchen scraps) daily.

- Collecting eggs (it’s Easter everyday!)

- Feeding and watering the poultry, rabbits, and dairy goats.

- hunting squirrels and/or maintaining the squirrel trap

- homework

- taking out trash and recycling daily, taking out trash and recycling cans to curb about 1/8 mile down the driveway and back weekly

- cleaning rooms in the house with me (and sometimes without me)

- doing their own laundry

- help make dinner or dessert (at least twice a week)

- clean the rabbitry, rake out the goat pen, let poultry out in the mornings and put them away in the evening

-fill the wood box and make fires in the winter

And because hard work should be balanced with relaxation and play, the boys also:

- Hunt ground squirrels

- Go hiking on the ranch trials

- Camp out in the orchard, tell ghost stories, and make S’mores over the campfire.

- Climb trees, hunt for fossils and cool rocks, let their imaginations go wild in creating make believe games together

- Get lost in books for hours/weeks

- Take a short ride on the neighbors horse

- Create and play with Legos (LOVE Legos!), wooden railroad tracks, and Lincoln logs.

- Play computer games (yes, my boys are somewhat normal)

The boys may need (lots of) reminders and direction in doing their chores; they may not do a perfect job and they certainly make mistakes; I may do their jobs differently than they if their jobs were mine but, I am happy to say I am finally learning to let them, allow them to work, make mistakes, build character. I am finally learning how to grow boys.