Ranch kids get a sort of education that is often unique to those who do not live on ranches. This is usually a great thing, but it can occasionally be more than they (or maybe their mothers) are ready to handle at their age.
Yesterday evening, my four year old son and his four year old cousin were playing with his farm. I wasn’t paying much attention, but overheard them talking about how calves were made. I thought, they are only four, I am just going to let this one play out. Some discussion ensued about the bulls being the dad and the cows being the mom. Then, my son says to his cousin, “I bet they went on a date. That’s what my dad did. He took my mom on a date and then we came. Right, Mom?” Clearly he has had this conversation with his dad before. Education.
Now on a more serious note. Death. A little later, I notice the pile of cows shown in this picture. I asked what these cows were doing and they told me this was the dead pile. Yikes. These particular cows had been killed by lightning, or so I was told. A few weeks ago we had a major snowstorm that really did kill a fair amount of calves. It was all hands on deck to save what we could, which meant the kids were right in the middle of it. It was great, because they could dry off the calves I brought out of the bathtub and snuggle them up in warm towels. But it also meant they witnessed the ones who didn’t make it. They are young enough to not completely understand death, but old enough to know something bad was happening. We had one die in the bathtub while my son and I were holding his head and petting him. He was devastated and through tears cried, “Why is God doing this to us??” It was heartbreaking. It was definitely a moment for a lesson, and I did the best I could, but death is confusing to most adults, I can’t really imagine how confusing it is for young children. It’s the part of ranch kid education I don’t like. I don’t think we should shelter them completely, but I do worry that they see too much, particularly this year. I don’t want them to be completely desensitized to death and lose their sense of empathy for animals. I try to teach them that we do everything we can to save them, but sometimes it just doesn’t have a happy ending. I try to teach them that just because one died doesn’t mean we can’t focus on the many that lived.
So I’d like to hear from you. How do you (or did you) handle this with your young kiddos? What are your thoughts on balancing this issue?
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