The Farm House Tack solves horse debates

The horse girl world is wonderful… but it comes with some tricky situations your non-rider friends may not understand. That’s why The Farm House Tack staff has taken it upon ourselves to provide some humorous and heartwarming advice to horsegirl problems straight from riders on our podcast, Bit By Bit. 

In our latest episode of our mini-series, You Are Now Being Judged, we deal with a horse-owner who’s having a disagreement with her husband after the birth of their baby and a kid who wants to quit her horse riding lessons. Join Michelle, E-Commerce and Marketing Manager, and Allie, Content Creator, as we delve into all the juicy details. (Names and details have been changed in our stories for anonymity). 

Allie

So our first person is dealing with some relationship drama. Cheryl moved to her forever home on a small farm about 10 years ago. She loves it there and it’s the perfect place to be an adult amateur rider because they have access to shows trainer, vets, all the good stuff. 

The problem is with Cheryl’s husband. Cheryl married this man, and he wasn’t really an outdoor person, but he knew that horses were an important part of her life. He said he was fine with it and even agreed to living on the farm with her. 

Michelle

Nice! So win-win. As long as he understands and he’s good with it, I don’t see a problem.

Allie 

Right. But a few months ago, he sort of started changing his attitude. Keep in mind, they’ve been together for years, but what’s changed is that they’ve recently had a baby together.  

And all of a sudden, he doesn’t like the farm, he doesn’t like the work, even though Cheryl says she does everything around the farm, and he wants to move closer to his family, which would be like an hour away from where they live now. There’s no good barns there, so Cheryl feels like, you know, if they do move, they might be closer to his family, but she’ll still have to drive an hour to take care of her horses and do all of her chores, which just seems not reasonable.

His argument is really just, “I want to be closer to them, you know now that we have a kid. We need more people to help us take care of the kid.” But Cheryl says, “I’ve never told him we can’t see them. We typically go see them twice a week. And they’re always welcome to come here. They just don’t make the effort.”

So Cheryl really just doesn’t know what to do in this situation. She says they’ve never had a fight like this before, but obviously, her horses are a big priority too, so she really doesn’t know what to do in this situation. 

Michelle

I have so many questions. How old are his parents? Are they aged? Should they not be driving at night? Is it difficult for them to come see the child?

 And then I guess my second question would be, do you work full time? Does he work full-time? Do you both work full-time? What is the childcare situation like at home if you are both working full-time? If you are a stay-at-home mom, then I’m like, what’s the problem? 

Kids do change everything. They change every dynamic of all your relationships because that is now your main focal point. You know, they change your relationship with your horses and with your horse friends who don’t have kids. It changes everything. It’s a big life change for you and your partner. 

Another question that I might have to is like how involved are you with the daily care of your horses? Do you have them in training programs? I mean, that’s going make a huge difference. Because if they’re at home, but you ride them and compete them but have an organic sort of approach to horse care where they live out quite a bit, and you feed them on the fence or whatever (like me), then that’s different levels of care.

Allie

Yeah, that’s a good point. Honestly, if they are at a point where they could hire someone else or ask a friend to help them take care of the horses. I think that would probably be the easiest thing to fix in this situation. 

Michelle

I also feel like Cheryl and her husband are not communicating. There’s an elephant in the room that is in the form of a small child that needs to be addressed and nobody wants to address it. You just need to sit down and talk about what each other’s expectations are now that, you know, we have a bipedal on the ground. 

You know, maybe you need to sit down with a therapist or a close friend who will be unbiased and listen to both of you at the same time and that will, I think, enable both of you to be on your best behavior and not get emotionally invested in the conversation. You need to open that line of communication and start discussing, you know, what are our long-term goals for the next 10 years?

There needs to be some boundaries set for Cheryl. Like I need to you know for my own mental health I need to commit to riding two or three times a week. I need to commit to three lessons a month. I need to commit to doing one horse show a year or one horse show a month through the season, know or two horse shows a month, you know, whatever it is, and hammer that out with her husband.

Allie 

That makes a lot of sense because it’s going to be important for her to keep her sense of who she is to stay in her routine. 

Michelle

I wouldn’t expect her to just give up being an equestrian just because she now has a child. That’s very unrealistic. The people that I’ve known who have tried to do that have become very unhappy in their relationships because they feel like they’re being taken advantage of and that’s just not a healthy place to be.

I’m gonna pass on judgment here because I feel like there’s communication that needs to be had and that there are just too many unknown variables to be able to pass any kind of judgment. 

Allie 

Yeah, I just feel bad for everyone in this situation, honestly. So our next story is another one about kids and horses.

Kim has a daughter who’s 11. She’s been obsessed with the idea of riding horses the whole year, so Kim paid for kind of an introductory riding lesson with a family friend, just something to see like, hey, is this a real interest or is this just something cool you saw on TV? 

It went well for Kim’s daughter. She loved it. So they signed her up to continue lessons. And after about a year, she progressed beyond the level that her original teacher felt comfortable instructing her. So she switched to another younger girl who works at the same barn, but was more into competing, so she was able to teach at a higher level.

So the daughter is the oldest child and mom says she’s been a little clingy around girls who she gets along with that are a little bit like an older sister to her. So she’s very attached to this girl, Jenna, who teaches the lessons.

Jenna was a great teacher, but she had a fair amount of days where she and the daughter would focus on doing stuff around the barn that wasn’t necessarily riding, like cleaning the horses, cleaning the stalls. Mom says she’s not a horse person but the daughter says no all this stuff is important to bonding with the horses and being a part of the barn. 

Michelle

Not wrong. But are we doing this instead of lessons or?

Allie

Yeah! So basically you’re paying to go do chores. 

Michelle

There are dismounted lessons like you learn to clean tack, you learn to tack up a horse, you learn to care for the horse. Those are usually saved for rainy days where don’t have other options. And those are very important lessons. Some of these things are very important if the person has expressed a serious interest in continuing on and learning actual horsemanship, but this is kind of sounding like it went down maybe a little bit of a rabbit hole. 

Allie 

Yes. One of these lessons that didn’t involve much riding did kind of turn out to be a problem for the daughter. Jenna took the daughter out to the pasture to meet a new horse that she had just gotten. Mom, Kim was waiting in the car like she usually does for the daughter to finish her lessons and then noticed that her daughter came back a little early. When she got in the car she was really upset, so the mom asked, you know what happened? Did lessons not go well today? And at first she just said, well I don’t want to ride anymore.

Mom says, okay, I’m not super surprised because she’s quit some of her other extracurricular activities. Like that’s pretty typical for a kid that age.

Michelle

It’s the age bracket where you’re trying, you’re just trying a little bit everything to figure out what you want to play with. 

Allie

Yeah. But mom says this is a hobby that’s kind of stuck longer than those other ones. So she was surprised. So the daughter eventually says, well Jenna doesn’t like me anymore. She won’t let me ride her new horse and she’s moving away. 

The daughter’s very upset that she’s losing her teacher but she’s also throwing kind of a fit about not being able to ride the horse. So Mom’s like okay well what’s wrong with the horse that you’ve been riding? Like why do you need to get on this horse? 

Michelle

‘Cause I’m 11 and I want to ride the new horse even if it’s going to kill me? I mean I know everything now because that’s that tween bracket. 

Allie

Yeah even if this horse is like giant yeah I can totally see this kid being like, that is a shiny new horse and I need to be on it.

Michelle

Yeah. It’s like a new toy and 11 doesn’t logic like that. 

Allie

No. Yeah. Especially not on the same day that the teacher is like, by the way, I’m moving. That’s a really tough, tough combination.

Michelle

Yeah maybe it was a conversation we should have had with Mom. I want to let you know, I’m going to have to tell your daughter I’m leaving. Not necessarily in front of the kid, but like maybe, you know, before the lesson. But I don’t know if it, you know, upper teens, early 20s, I would have had the adult sense to have that conversation either.

I’d think, I’ll keep in touch, see you on Facebook, whatever. Not realizing that, you know, you’re dealing with a child who looks up to you and, looks at you as kind of like a sister.

Allie

So the kid tells mom, “this new horse is a horse for real rider.” And Jenna just doesn’t think I’m ready. So I don’t want to keep doing my lessons anymore. 

After they got home, Kim said, I’m sorry, but we’ve paid for several more lessons. You’re going to need to continue what we’ve signed up for and the daughter just wouldn’t have any of it. She ran up to her room crying and won’t talk to the mom. So mom wants to know if she’s in the wrong in the situation for kind of making her daughter finish what she started. 

Michelle

She should finish what she starts unless she’s got like an acute fear that needs to be worked through. It just kind of sounds like she’s maybe having a little bit of a tantrum.

And she’s a teen. She’s gonna start having those. She’s got an opinion. Then I would probably have words with her. Like this is the last thing that we’re doing. You’ll have to start saving your money for whatever you want to try next.

If she’s only got a handful of lessons left, just take the lessons. And it sounds to me like she’s just hurt. It probably could have been handled better on Jenna’s part, but. It’s another one where I kind of just feel bad for everyone. I feel like, you know, we’ve got three people that everyone could have just handled things a little differently. 

I think mom is spot on by making her finish the lessons. Honestly maybe I would compromise with her. I mean know you’ve already spent the money at this location but if she’s just that uncomfortable there then be like fine, but you have to finish your lessons. You’ve got five more lessons you need to take them at another farm.

That way she’s continuing to ride. She’s not just giving up because of this emotional roller coaster she’s currently on. And you know, I know it might be financial hardship, but she also is meeting, you know, seeing something through to the end, but not in a situation where she feels uncomfortable. 

Allie 

Yeah, and that could make all the difference. Like maybe this kid would keep riding if she got to associate a better experience versus if this is her last time, I don’t know if I’m gonna want to do that anymore.

 I mean, my compromise would almost be that you don’t have to finish the lessons, but just go back for one more. Just to tie up whatever loosens where you need to, pet the horses again. ‘Cause you’re right. She doesn’t know how to deal with the situation. So she’s throwing a fit and that’s not a good way to leave anything. 

Michelle

Yeah. Exactly. Like I think this is a teaching opportunity for mom to teach her coping skills. You know, I think this kid just needs to talk it out. Mom is probably struggling to figure out how do I reach my kid. She’s upset and how do I reach her and help her get to the other side of this. Especially when I feel like she’s probably not telling her everything.

This seems like our first sort our big feelings moment. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Our first sort of big semi-adulty kind of hit it right in the feels. The shiny new penny with the horse, that’s think just childish. She just needs to understand that like, I think we all see the little Reels on Facebook and Instagram and TikTok where the 12-year-old comes up and it knows your horse better than you do because she’s there for it. I mean, it’s just that age bracket. 

When you’re in your teens, you just kind of know everything until you don’t. And then it’s a huge learning experience. but anyway.

Allie

 So mild judgment for Jenna, but I think everyone, I wish them all the best.

We hope you enjoyed our advice on these sticky horsey situations! Need more judgement in your life? We’ve got two more episodes chocked full of advice, juicy barn drama, and of course, perfect judgement from our Farm House Tack staff. Check out our mini-series, You Are Now Being Judged on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and more.