A moment in my daughter's future
This short story didn’t quite make the final cut of my Nuffield report - The Home Paddock: A strategy for values-led redesign of the domestic food system. In it, I imagine an important conversation in my daughter’s future.
She hit submit and waited.
“Exciting…” said the careers counsellor opposite her. “Remember, this questionnaire is just a guide – something to help us get started”.
CATEGORY MANAGER - 92% MATCH.
She felt… nothing. “Ah, what is a category manager?”
“It depends on the industry. I can see you’re not particularly excited about it though – let’s try a different approach. Tell me about yourself – what do you like to do, what inspires you?”
She shuffled in her seat. ‘What kind of question is that’ she thought. ‘I’m 18, I don’t know.’ The pause dragged on long enough to get uncomfortable. She broke first.
“I guess I like the outdoors...”
“Great” said the counsellor. “Can you give me an example of something you did recently in nature”.
She perked up a bit. “Well there’s a farm outside of town I go to with my family alot. We help the farmer to plant trees, count birds, check predator traps - that sort of thing. It’s nice.”
“Interesting – how about a job in conservation?”
“Maybe… I don’t know… I like science too. There’ this other farm that I went to a few times for a school biology project. It was about natural cycles. I had follow a carrot from my kitchen, through the green waste & compost system, out to this farm and back again as another carrot! That was really cool.
“Plenty of opportunities to explore in science.”
“I know, but I’m not sure if I’m the lab-coat type. I think I’m a people-person. I want to help others if I can. Like this women down the street from me. She runs our neighbourhood farm. She knows everyone in the street and is always coming around with our kai box or organising afternoon plantings, harvests or just get-togethers at the farm. Everyone likes her because she helps and lets us hang out at the farm. A few times I’ve gone down there angry about something and she just gives me a pitchfork and says “take it out on the compost pile!”
“You could be a community organiser, or a psychologist?” asked the counsellor, struggling to get a word in now.
“I’ve actually thought about being a psychologist! I did a work experience week with a family friend who does that on a farm. It was a really busy week, but cool. We walked around with these horses, talked about things that were happening in our life, built a chicken coop together and had these long meals with food we picked ourselves! I didn’t know that’s what psychology was, but it’s something I could see myself doing I think.”
“It’s always nice when you cook fresh, healthy food isn’t it?”
“Definitely. I started cooking pretty young actually. We learned a lot of the basics at school and the people at our local food hub are always showing us how to cook with new cuts of meat or different types of veges when we go down there. I really like the recipes they email us too – my favourite are ‘meals for brain power’ section. And this other ti-”
“Wow – there’s a lot in there!” cut-in the counsellor. “Give me a second to recap here. You’re looking for a career that’s a bunch of jobs put together. Something that helps people to be healthy, come together and connect with nature. It needs some down-in-the-dirt science too, and sounds like it really has to matter – have a really strong purpose”.
She lit up. “Yes! That sounds great. What is it? What should I be?”.
“A farmer.”