The Tuttle Farm of Dover, New Hampshire is up for sale. Not that a farm for sale is all that newsworthy save for the fact that the Tuttle Farm is one of the oldest family farms in America, under continuous operation since—get this–1632. For 379 years eleven generations of the Tuttle family have owned and operated the parcel of land which has varied in size from the original 20 acres to a peak of 240 acres in the mid twentieth century. Among reasons for selling the farm, the current owner Will Tuttle cites—amazingly—the lack of interest of the twelfth generation of Tuttle’s who are too entrenched in their careers to take over!
I am trying to think up a career that one could possibly have that would outweigh a family tradition that has survived the span of centuries and the life of nations. But I can’t lean too heavily on the Tuttle offspring since most of our American culture has sold out to one form of idolatry or another. We might ask ourselves what traditions have we secured even for a single generation consider these fading traditions sacrificed to the god of career:
- Raising your own children
- Growing your own produce
- Cooking your own meals
- Repairing a broken household item
- Sewing and mending
- Buying something with money you actually possess
- Eating together as a family
- Praying before a meal
- Observing the Sabbath
- Time, to do anything
Too much stock is put into one’s career; most careers that are in demand today did not exist a generation ago and probably won’t exist a generation from now. The software, laws, proposals and policies we write will be discarded and forgotten soon enough. And the ones that will grieve your passing won’t be the people you impressed at a cocktail party with your advanced degrees and impressive titles on a business card. At any rate, what could be more impressive than a 379 year old tradition?