Rescuing turtles
Today I was quite surprised to see a turtle in the landscaping bed of our building! It was pretty large, about 8-10 inches wide, which is good size for the turtles around here. It seemed to be digging a hole, probably to lay eggs, but the location was terrible! The problem is all the kids around. There's no way they'd leave the eggs alone, and I'm sure they would be destroyed. I picked up the turtle, carefully, and set it under our little bridge so it could go somewhere else. By the time I walked 10 feet it had popped it's head out and jumped back into the stream. I just hope it finds a more suitable place to lay eggs, if that's what it was doing.
It's sad that I can't trust the neighborhood children, but they've proven themselves not friendly to wild animals. For instance, one day I came home and they were shooting rocks and water at the bees pollenating the tree out front. Just this week the six year old killed a small snake. He was proud of himself too! It just makes me sad. I've never liked killing things, and that dislike has grown as I've grown more aware of life. These children have no idea. I just don't think it's natural for six year olds to even think of killing a snake, much less do it with no one around to encourage them or tell. He did it all on his own. It's just sad. How do we raise children that don't have the urge to kill things smaller than they are? I need to figure this out before we have children. Especially since Carrie keeps having dreams that we have a boy. I don't believe there are many intrinsic differences between genders, but society is pretty good about telling boys to be 'manly' and kill animals. I don't want that. I need to instill compassion. Maybe I can figure out how to start with these neighborhood children...
It's sad that I can't trust the neighborhood children, but they've proven themselves not friendly to wild animals. For instance, one day I came home and they were shooting rocks and water at the bees pollenating the tree out front. Just this week the six year old killed a small snake. He was proud of himself too! It just makes me sad. I've never liked killing things, and that dislike has grown as I've grown more aware of life. These children have no idea. I just don't think it's natural for six year olds to even think of killing a snake, much less do it with no one around to encourage them or tell. He did it all on his own. It's just sad. How do we raise children that don't have the urge to kill things smaller than they are? I need to figure this out before we have children. Especially since Carrie keeps having dreams that we have a boy. I don't believe there are many intrinsic differences between genders, but society is pretty good about telling boys to be 'manly' and kill animals. I don't want that. I need to instill compassion. Maybe I can figure out how to start with these neighborhood children...
posted by Jaxson at 20:46
4 Comments:
hmm...I often wondered the same things about the difference in genders. Now I have two boys and a girl and it never ceases to amaze me the inherant differences in them. From the time my oldest son was a toddler, whatever he picked up became a weapon-a sword, a knife, a gun. And I was a parent who did not let him watch TV, so I know the behavior did not come from there. My son plays rough with his stuffed animals. They fight, they have wars. But he is still compassionate, sensitive and loving-not a violent child outside the play arena. My daughter, who is 2 1/2? Total opposite with the toys. Loves her stuffed animals, gives them hugs. Wraps them up like babies in dishtowels and pats them on the head. The kid who killed the snake? Who knows-not my kid. But probably just showing off, as kids do. Hopefully just showing off.
Good luck with your own children!! It's a whole new world.
~L.
It's definately going to be interesting. They've done research and found that how masculine or feminine your child is, no matter what their sex, it determined by the timing of hormones during pregnancy. It's pretty interesting!
yeah i wonder where the killing the snake thing comes from too.. but i think it's a big learning issue.
i used to teach kids guidance/spiritual classes, they were really young like, kindergarden, 1st and 2nd graders -- & we'd try to discuss things before we tried to teach them things (or teach them through discussion or something), and you could tell how their responses came from what they learned in school and from their parents. (or what they didn't learn). anyway. we would spend time on things like picking on animals and I really don't see how the average kid wouldn't pick on ants etc. if they weren't taught about it.
so anyway I think discussing and teaching makes a big difference. we would try to add to what they learn in school like "share your toys" to something like "share your toys because we need to be caring and respectful of others." so the idea or respecting people, or ants :) was fairly new.
-Leila (as if you couldn't tell from my broken sentences :p)
Yeah, it's wierd. Partly, there is a natural curiosity to want to know things. And a lack of understanding that you can kill. But then when kids kill, knowingly and on purpose, it really makes me wonder where they learned that. We really need to get on the ball and start raising children in an entirely new way if we want to survive as a society.
I bet it was really interesting to teach those kids though. I'm just not sure how much I can say since they aren't my kids obviously. I just need to find the balls to speak up I think.
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