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Occupational Stress in agriculture and in cranberry the industry. Three Lessons I've Learned 1. Try to be careful 2. Learn from my mistakes 3. Self-disclosure is healthier than keeping secrets. by Hal Brown, LICSW It's human nature to want to have others think well of us. We learn as children to please our parents, and if our parents are too difficult or impossible to please, we often grow up with feelings of inferiority. Men in our culture tend to hide these feelings, even from themselves, and women tend to be more open and self-disclosing. Women are also more critical of themselves while men are more likely to blame others for their inadequacies. Since shifting the focus of the Unlikely Cranberry Farmers web site, and as of October 1998, changing the name to reflect this to "Cranberry Stressline", I am offering what I've learned in some thirty years as a rural mental health psychotherapist to those in the cranberry farming community. Sure, there will be pretty pictures and information about cranberry growing on the web site for the world at large. I am hardly a real cranberry grower myself - I'm the husband of a third generation farmer who, indeed, has cranberry juice in her veins. I practice psychotherapy, I write, I do errands, and handle frost nights. It is healthier to admit one's mistakes than to hide them. Yet the cranberry grower's community is a small one, and people talk and they gossip. When we had a truckload of berries sent back from Ocean Spray this year because Betty put the wrong date of the last herbicide application down on a slip, other growers knew this before we did because of gossip at the receiving plant, and talk on two-way truck radios. But everyone thought we sent a bad load of berries in, because what didn't go out on the airwaves was that the berries were fine, and were sent back only because of our clerical error. We live with it. These things happen. But do they happen to other growers? Everyone suspects they do. But because there's a competition to be the best, and a human need to at least appear infallible, growers and others in the cranberry industry sometimes are very tight lipped about their mistakes. The consequence of this is that when a mishap occurs, they feel shame. They look around, see other growers who seem to be immune from human failings and even fate, and they measure themselves against this impossible standard. For example, a grower neglects to turn on his sprinklers on a frost night, and rather than admit to making what could be a costly mistake, he might claim that on his bogs, the temperature never went below tolerance. Other growers, who may want to irrigate anyway, have been rumored to turn on a sprinkler system near a well traveled road on a night when frost isn't expected, just to put fear into the hearts of all the growers who drive by in the morning with the thought that the temperature never dropped low enough to risk frost damage. Another example Cranberry growers often work the hardest to keep the bogs near the roads free of weeds, because that is the acreage other growers drive by and see. I admit, we do this too. We even hand-pull weeds that don't really effect the yield, but just look unsightly. Off the roads they may have a nightmare collection of every weed known to cranberry farming. Try as they might to maintain pristine bogs using scientific herbicide applications and flooding methods, there's no substitute for a crew of a dozen hand weeders (at $120 an hour); and not too many growers can afford that. A brand new bog made with washed sand may remain weed free for a while, but eventually all cranberry bogs will have weeds. Why can't we get real? Granted, nobody likes to have others judge them harshly. I am hearing second and third hand that people in the cranberry industry are puzzled as to why I would be so candid about the mistakes I've made. Some people are even angry at me. But like I write in the Cranberry growing psychotherapist's perspective, I am a psychotherapist and know a thing or two about the consequences of keeping secrets, whether they are family secrets or business secrets. Self-disclosure isn't easy. It isn't comfortable to deal with people who judge you harshly or question your competence, most especially as regards your calling in life. Certainly, it stings when somebody I respect criticizes my ability or knowledge as a psychotherapist. I always try to evaluate the source, as well as the criticism itself, when this happens, and suggest cranberry growers and other farmers do the same. Self-criticism is good, self-flagellation is bad Some people are too hard on themselves. They don't need anyone to criticize them because they are always finding fault with themselves. They look around and get the impression that everyone else is doing a better job than they are. They think they're the only one's who make mistakes, get stuck in ditches, have too many fruit worms or have bogs orange with dodder. Perhaps they need to be a little more scientific in their approach to pesticide application, or less tight with money when it come to hiring weeders for a few days. Maybe they need to find a grower who seems to be doing everything right and talk to them. Growers need mentors, but a mentor is hard to find because first and foremost a good teacher needs to be honest about their own experiences. And cranberry growers are notorious benders of the truth when it comes to talking about their crops and various problems on their bogs. We are personally lucky because Betty's father is always reminding us that other's have made the same mistakes we have, or worse. (Although sometimes it seems he's led a charmed life as a grower that fate's fickle wrath has missed.) We also have our best friends in the cranberry business who, after kidding us a little, reveal that they too have made all the mistake we have, and then some. Why are cranberry growers so close-mouthed? In large part, cranberry growers and others who work with and for them, are among the proudest group of people I've every met. Pride is good. The cranberry industry was literally built on the backs of today's growers' parents and grandparents. These hardy souls cleared bogs with shovels and wheel barrows, protected against frost before weather satellites and sprinkler systems, fought insects before IPM, and lived through the cranberry price crash caused by a bogus cancer scare. They had no idea that thanks to Ocean Spray's marketing and the amazing taste and health benefits of this tart little berry, the cranberry would become anything more than a Thanksgiving tradition and a side dish for turkey. Given all they have to be proud of, why don't so many farmers admit that like everyone else, they succumb to being human? In point of fact, as I evaluate the mistakes I've personally made as a neophyte cranberry farmer, some have been caused by errors of judgment and lack of knowledge, but a goodly number have been caused by inattention, carelessness and sleep deprivation. If cranberry growers would be more candid about accidents, mishaps, errors and so on, everyone would benefit, not the least their own children who look to them as role models. Because, when it comes down to what is really important, it isn't your feeling ashamed because you aren't as good a cranberry grower as you'd like to be. It is the example you set for the next generation. No matter what field your children go into, it is vital that they feel good about themselves, and that they learn from you not to feel shame when they make mistakes. After all, how else do we all learn but through trial and error? And what better way to learn and grow than to see our parents and role models admit to, and learn from, their own mistakes.
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