 Despite Ron being a very private person , including getting his birthdate redacted from all public documents , his background does occasionally come up . He was born in a small town to Tamara Swanson ( referred to as " Tammy 0 " by Ron ) and a father unnamed in the series . He grew up on a farm in a small town and is shown to have enjoyed woodworking from an early age , building his first chair at age five . Ron is opposed to child labor laws , stating he got his first job at a sheet metal factory at age nine and , in two weeks , was running the floor . Ron says that at age eleven , he was offered a higher paying job at the tannery and attempted to do both jobs while going to middle school before realizing it would be better to only work at the sheet metal factory . Ron claimed that , at age 12 , he went to prom and was working at a quarry . Ron moved in with his first wife , Tammy 1 , who worked at the hospital he was born at and was his math and Sunday school teacher , when he was fifteen ; he has said that although the circumstances were considered scandalous , people were too afraid of her to say anything . Ron said that at age eighteen , his father wanted him to work at the steel mill , but he chose to go to college instead . 
