Testing ignore: Zondagsmijmering: Over de boerenzoon12

Not that it causes any discomfort at the moment it is asked—unlike that other classic: do you have a sweetheart yet?—for children usually have the answer ready—after all, it has been thrown at their feet countless times before—and sounds self-assured: 'astronaut', 'fighter pilot', 'mountain climber', 'professional footballer at Barcelona', or 'dragon slayer'. In terms of their vision of the future, children generally do not reveal themselves to be narrow-minded cowards and choose the sky as their limit.

That frequently asked question only becomes confronting when, so many years later, we have to realize what a wide chasm yawns between the once-cherished dream and the subsequent action. Somewhere along the line, things turned out differently than planned, and so nothing came of the dragon slaying, and we never set foot on the Camp Nou lawn.

Seemingly, my standard answer sounded simpler, less ambitious, more modest. It was my boyhood dream to become a farmer's son; I believe I have confessed this before. Farmers do not slay dragons or climb mountains, nor do they go higher than the attic above the barn—albeit to reach the highest peaks there as a young man.

Yet my ambition was dismissed as unattainable the very moment it was voiced; my father's choice of profession made its realization impossible.

That boyhood dream, however, was very Flemish. Two, rarely more than three, say four generations ago, we were all farmers, and it is still in our blood. A Fleming needs no more than a few pots of plants on his terrace to imagine himself as Farmer Wortel, sovereign ruler of his land. A strip of lawn in the garden suffices to see him reaching for a brochure at the ride-on mower stand in the DIY store on Sunday. Two raspberry bushes evoke the feeling of helping to end hunger in the world.

Farmers, God's right hands in managing creation, pull food from the ground with their own hands. We, twenty-first-century folk detached from the ground, lack that fundamental grandeur, and hence our, yes indeed, deeply rooted nostalgia for the life of the farmer.

Your humble servant is no exception to that rule; on the contrary. So he did not become a farmer's son, but now that we have traded the apron in the center of Antwerp for a house with a real garden, he is hardly to be found indoors these days, and at the plant nursery, when they see his Fiat—by now well-known there—pulling out the red carpet, the staff quickly hauls in new planting stock so that inventory problems do not curb his insatiable buying frenzy.

And what does a farmer, or someone who fancies himself one, do in the evening before night falls? Exactly, he inspects his farm with satisfaction and pride, pausing contentedly at every blossom or budding bud, gladly accompanied by his offspring.

Our little one seems to enjoy these outings. Could he smell it too? I mean spring, which has now officially arrived. By our estimation, he can smell it.

Mama gets an extra, somewhat exuberant hug when we head into the garden; he blinks his eyes because the sun is low, peers at the tree bark while his little legs tap excitedly, looks up at the fluttering but is too slow to follow the sprightly titmouse in flight, and then sees a first butterfly happily dancing on a gentle breeze. His little fists eagerly reach for a leaf or flower, sometimes with devastating consequences for what he has captured.

I don't know what he will answer if they ever ask him what he wants to be when he grows up, but he will already be a little bit of a farmer's son.

Enjoy the first Sunday of spring.

Photo: The little grasping hands reach out to spring.

Facebook , March 22, 2026