Apple of Grandparent's eyes!

I'm sure I've talked about this before, but I can't find the blog entry, so I'll just repeat myself a bit.. unless the blog entry I am thinking about was actually one of the zillions that I have written in my head, but not quite managed to get into cyberspace.  In which case I will only be repeating myself to me and not you!

We live in the Japanese countryside.  My husband is the eldest (and only) son in a farming family.  He works at the city office because farming for a living is no longer a viable option in this area.  He chose the job because it meant he could still fulfill his eldest son responsibilities by living in the same area as his parents and helping with the farming etc. in the weekends, with the unspoken assumption that he will take over all the responsibilities when he retires.  

My son is the eldest (and only) son in our family.  There is an unspoken assumption on the part of my parents-in-law that he will follow in the footsteps of his father, grandfather, great grandfather etc. and stay on the land.  Unfortunately there is a very vocal mother around though that has made it clear that he will not be expected to stay around this area if he chooses to go and pursue other dreams.  In fact I would be really disappointed if he didn't leave the area for at least a few years (or decades) to go and see what else there is in the world before deciding on where he wants to settle.  His latest dream is to become a police officer - he said he is sick of watching all the people being murdered etc. and he wants to try and catch the bad people so that others can feel safe.  I told him he should be a teacher and therefore try and educate people so that they don't do bad things in the first place... but I'm off on a tangent! 

Lately he has been asking to help out with the "men's" work around the place.  His latest entertainment is using the weed eater... supervised of course!  This is making his grandparents very, very happy..... I can already see them visualising the future farmer.... while I visualise the future wanderer... who eventually sees the light that this is the best place to be and comes home to roost just about the time I am needing help with my nappies!  It will be interesting to see which path his life eventually takes......