Re: horses and children

I have exactly the same concerns, I've never been that interested in kids but i had never been with a guy who I wanted to have kids with (even the 7.5 year relationship I was in, the thought of kids never entered my mind). Now I have met my current boyfriends and things are different with him to any other man I;'ve ever been with and I would like the opportunity to have kids. I have however watched my friend, who keeps her horses with Coco, have 2 kids one 5 and one is 2 and the horses have takem a back seat, partly coz she know's I will pick up the slack (which really annoys me), partly coz her old boy is old and didn't need much exercise and is now retired and partly because her kids are her life and she really doesn't have much interest in anything else in life which is a shame. She sends her husband to do the horses most of the tiem as she is with the kids. 

My opinion is you can do it but you need to be able to juggel and you need to want to. I never want to be in a position that I either have to neglect Coco's needs or my kids needs and whenever my boyfreind talks about  us having kids I make it very clear I would like kids with him too but it will be 50%/50% as Coco is a permanent fixture in my life so he will need to have the kids while I ride and that is non negotiable. Coco is my responsibility, he is my baby and I will not neglect him, if I have kids they will have 2 parent who will have to share the child care to fit around our lives fairly!

With regard to looking after the horses, well it may not be a popular view in everyones eyes now but my folks have always said to me that you do have to adapt your life to your kids but the kids also have to learn to live around your life and I do think too many parents these days pander to their kids every whim and wish which doesn't teach them much about the 'not so fun' things in life that still have to be done, good weather , bad weather, Christmas day, birthdays etc. I always remember Christmas Day there was no present opening until the dogs had been walked, the horses had been fed and we'd all got back showered and then Christmas Day started about 11am! If I do have kids they would come down to the horses with me while I feed and muck out on a daily basis as that is life. It really winds me up when my friend say's she couldn't do any poo picking today as the fields were too muddy and she had the kids with her... um buy them warm wet weather gear and let them play in the field, yard, mud, puddles while you poo pick? Honestly my friend cant really be bothered any more and it s much more fun for her to take the kids to the public farm down the road to see the animals with her freinds and other kids than spend time with her own horses with her kids.

On the flip side another friend of mine has always had her horse sincer her daughter was a baby and often speaks about her daughter being in the pram or one of those back pack things in the field/yard while she mucked out. That her daughter soon learned that winging and wining that she was bored was irrelevant, the horses needed to be fed and looked after every day and that was life. Her daughter has now grown into an amazing 14 year old, BSJA often competing against big 15 - 16hh horses around big courses 3 - 4ft on her 13.2hh welsh mare and leaving them for dust, she is an incredible rider who bought the pony as a 3 year old and brough it on on her own turning it into an incredible pony.

Re: horses and children

I think I'm lucky having my horses at home so I can poo pick and muck out and prep feeds in advance when kids nap/ watch telly/ play in sand pit etc. The horses get fed and hoof picked on a strict timetable but everything else is flexible. My husband and I work it so that saturday is his, I can ride and he will have the kids, but only when it fits around his sporting commitments. On sunday we swap. If there's something special I really want to do on a sat and it clashes with his hockey match I can try to get my mum to help or miss it. It works for us.

Re: horses and children

All of this has got me remembering my late much loved great grandmother.  She and my great grandfather were farm workers and lived in a tied cottage at the farm where they worked.  He was a dairyman and did most of the farm duties, she also did a lot of the hands on farm work around the yard and also worked in the farmhouse, the farmer and his wife had no children of their own so they were short on staff etc.  My great grandmother Rachel had 3 children in the 1920's all with 2 years between eah other, she took only the day off to have the child and went straight back out to work again the next day taking the baby with her who would sleep in the pram in the byre while she milked the herd by hand on an old wooden stool.  The baby would be then wrapped in a huge tartan shawl or "plaid" and attached to her hip bound by the shawl while she did everything else she had to do, or else would sleep away in the pram.  She tended to the baby amongst doing the chores and the children all grew up on the farm getting their own chores to do as they got older.  It was maybe a hard life compared with the "soft" lives we live now, but that old lady of only 4ft 11ins lived until she was 99, and of her 3 children both the daughters are still alive, one of whom is my grandmother, they are 85 and 87 years old respectively and still fit, and it's all put down to the way they were raised in the open air on the farm.  They all have happy memories of the childhood they shared, from raising orphaned piglets and lambs in the cottage to going on the hay cart.  You just have to look to the ancestors for the inspiration and ideas to get you through, and they don't stay little for all that long I suppose, not that I have any!