A TV shepherdess with nine children has blamed parents for today’s ‘snowflake’ generation of youngsters who cannot look after themselves.
Amanda Owen, the 46-year-old star of popular series Our Yorkshire Farm – which follows her life farming sheep with her husband, Clive, in a remote farm on the Yorkshire Dales – suggested today’s youngsters had ‘no sense of independence’ or work ethic.
Owen, who revealed she gave birth to her eighth child on her own after deciding she could handle the task on her own, said she has instilled a sense of independence in their children.
‘I thought sod it, I’ll do it myself’: Our Yorkshire Farm star Amanda Owen revealed she gave birth to her eighth child at home on the floor while her husband was asleep upstairs
Full brood: The TV farmer, 45, who has become famous because of the Channel 5 show about her family’s life in rural Yorkshire, shares nine children with her husband Clive
‘The snowflake generation, they can’t do anything,’ Owen told the Radio Times.
‘They don’t know anything about how to look after themselves, or a work ethic, all of that has gone out of the window. It’s our fault as parents.
‘If you put your child on a pedestal, with no sense of independence, and think you have got to entertain them the whole time, what can you expect?
‘I rebuff swaddling children, because I want to see them go on and do well and be themselves, whatever that is. I feel like it is their life and all I do is prepare them.
‘What we do on the farm, hopefully, is preparation for the big world. The lessons they get here will stand them in good stead.’
The Channel 5 star, whose husband in 21 years her senior, said she had wanted her children to make the most of the independence she has allowed, including when it comes to home-schooling.
She added: ‘We logged in for about a week. Then I threw it back to them.
‘Children have to be independent. I can’t be a helicopter parent. We read the papers and they show me some of their projects, but I have yet to be at a single parents’ evening. I did pretty poorly at my exams, but look at what I have achieved since then.’
Owen also revealed that she did not wake her husband Clive up when she went into labour and gave birth to her eighth child at home on the floor with her dog for company.
By the time she came to deliver daughter Clemmy, now five, she had already decided she could handle the incredible task on her own.
‘Our local maternity hospital is in Middlesbrough, which is 69 miles away, and on these roads, that takes a long time. So by baby number eight, I thought sod it, I’ll do it myself.’
‘I knew the baby was in the right position, so when I felt the familiar feelings I went downstairs and had the baby in front of the fire with my terrier as a birthing partner.’
Free spirits! The mother-of-nine said she has instilled on that same sense of independence in their children (Owen is pictured with some of her children on the Moors)
She added: ‘Clive wasn’t desperate to be at the birth, he was asleep upstairs. I went and woke him up with the baby.’
Owen grew up in a traditional three-bed house with her parents and one sibling in the large market town of Huddersfield.
At 6ft 2in she was encouraged to follow the same career path as her model mother, but she hated the clothes and make-up that she had to wear.
Then one day, she chanced upon a book about shepherding.
‘It was the pictures, the landscape, the haggard faces of the men gathering in the fells, and the dogs… I thought “that’s my dream”,’ she said on the Channel 5 show.
‘In fact I couldn’t believe that kind of life really existed,’ she added.
Owen left her comfortable town life to work on farms around the country, but it’s when she knocked on the door of Ravenseat Farm that she found her calling.
‘I was destined to come here – I’m absolutely sure of it,’ she said on the show, which airs this Thursday.
Out now: The full interview with Amanda Owens is available in the latest edition of Radio Times
Clive lived on the 2,000-acre plot of land and, despite 21-year age gap, the couple quickly fell in love. Since marrying in 2000, they have had eight children together.
Many of them help out on the farm when they are not at school – or travelling to and from as the journey takes one-and-a-half hours each way.
‘In order to make a big family work they all need to tow the line. It’s not about child labour – it’s about pulling together,’ said Owen.
Their traditional way of life helps keep costs down, too.
With the nearest shop so far away – and the risk during winter that they could be snowed in for weeks – Owen buys food in bulk, and manages to feed her large family for just £130 a week.
Their water is free, channelled from the stream on the moor, and they heat the house and water with a roaring fire, which burns every day no matter what the weather.
The biggest utilities bill is electricity, which costs £160 per month.
They pay for their annual tenancy in the stone farmhouse with the profits made from farming – although this can be a struggle with 2,000 kilos of sheep’s wool going for just £65.
On a good day they will sheer 130 sheep and Owen jokes that, having had baby Clemmie just five weeks ago, it is great post-natal exercise.
But if sheep shearing is a million miles away from a yummy mummy yoga class, then the way Owen gave birth is on another planet.
‘When I had all the signs that I was going into labour I decided I was just going to stay here and not say anything to anybody.
‘The midwife wouldn’t come because I’m too far from the hospital – so it was just a question of “I’ll just get on and do it myself”.’
Owen gave birth to baby Clemmie on her own on the floor in front of the farmhouse fire.
‘Of all the births I’ve had this one has to have been the best – it was the most relaxing, the most quiet, the most peaceful,’ she said.
Although she wasn’t sure she could say the same for Clive, who was ‘very, very shocked’ when she woke him up to meet their baby girl.
Of course there’s no such thing as maternity leave on a farm, so Owen gets back out in the field for her ‘stick-and-dog’ shepherding with Clemmie strapped to her front.
But with eight children – four of which are under fives – more than 1,000 sheep, plus cows, chickens and even a peacock, Owen still doesn’t think they’ve finished adding to their brood.
When asked if they planned to have more children she answered, ‘We don’t make plans – we make it up as we go along, and that’s what keeps us smiling.’
They’re keen, too, to pass their farming legacy down to the children – with Clive saying the sooner they can take over the better, although he’s not bothered about retiring to a bungalow any time soon.
Owen wants her children to follow in their footsteps as long as it makes them happy, despite it being hard financially.
‘I followed my dream – which at the time was frowned on as a ridiculous idea – and here I am now,’ she said.
‘I’m not saying I’m successful in financial terms but I’m successful in that I’m really happy with the choices I’ve made. I’m living the life I dreamed of living.’
The full interview is in Radio Times, out now.