LET'S talk about controlling parents.

With regards to Miranda's column, "Farm women are not islands", (WT, Oct 13), I believe there are two sides to every story.

Yes, indeed, the mother may want her son to pursue his extensive social and professional network, but could it also be that she also likes to brag to her social network that her son and daughter-in-law are great successes.

The mother, who may live  many kilometres from her closest neighbour, may not think farming life is all that it's cracked up to be.

Maybe she married into this lifestyle and once lived in the city with her own extensive social and professional network.

How often do we see reality TV that show the city girl wanting to meet a country boy, only to snare her man and then shift him back to the big smoke to continue with her extensive social and professional network?

Yes, farming is a very hard lifestyle.

It is a lonely lifestyle, but it can also be rewarding.

Some parents do raise their children to be followers and they are expected to always do what the parents want them to, be it to take over the family farm or go to university.

The children are always expected to work hard and never ask questions.

So, then, why can't parents understand when their adult children have no ambition in life and that they lack drive and have no direction or goals?

Parents, please stand back and let your children's life take its own direction, be it to take on the family farm or leave to pursue their own dreams and goals.

Maybe this mother's son wants to come back to the farm, but feels pressured not to, even though she has not said anything directly to him.

Mothers do have a way of projecting their own thoughts and ideas on to their children without coming right out and saying it.

No one should feel obligated to remain where they don't want to be and parents should not offer their adult children, or any children for that matter, things that have strings attached.

So, hopefully, when the annual Rural Women's Network gathers this weekend they will think deeply and do a lot of soul searching with that question: "How did I end up here?"

And I hope they see that it was their own personal choice, not that of their parents or partners or siblings or grandparents.

Let's face it, life's hard enough without living a life you didn't want in a place you don't want to be in.

Jo Turner, Hamilton