Get Real

I read a review today of "Black Beauty" by Anna Sewell on GoodReads.com .   The reviewer said it was one of the books that scarred him for life.  Like "The Yearling", "Where the Red Fern Grows", & "Old Yeller", the reviewer wrote that "...I have to assume that somewhere there is a Marquis de Sade school of children's literature...." & he would never give them to his children to read.  Others agreed with him & one mentioned they preferred "The Wizard of Oz". 

What exactly did they find wrong with these books?  Obviously, they were too realistic.  They want their kids to grow up in a happier world & not to experience such horrors through books.  Why not?  Childhood should be a happy time, but kids need to learn what real life is about before they're suddenly faced with it.  What better way to learn than through a good book?

Life isn't always nice.  Bad things happen to good people & good things happen to bad people.  Well loved animals & people die.  It's a fact of life, not one to shy away from or protect kids from too much.  It WILL happen to them.  They need to learn to deal with it & accept it.  It's not the journey's end, but the journey itself that is important.  That's what all of the books listed above are about - learning that no matter what life throws at you, you can survive.  You should not only live with it, but learn from it & still be a decent person contributing good things to the world.

Most people in the U.S. live incredibly sheltered lives now.  We're born & raised in artificial, relatively well-protected environments, & never realize just how far away from the 'real' world they are.  We're smothered with information carefully packaged to appeal to our sense of entertainment & short attention spans. Too many people don't know what a true commitment is now.  They switch jobs, spouses, & homes more often than some people used to bathe.  Disgusting, but true.  But which is more disgusting when you really think about it? 

Have you ever had to think about it?  Most kids don't understand responsibility or commitment now until they're a lot older because they don't have pets or other animals to take care of.  Growing up on a farm, we were surrounded by animals & learned from & with them.  We watched them from birth to death - sometimes nurturing them, sometimes killing them, but at all times realizing they were similar to us in many ways.  We invested a lot of time, money, & energy trying to make things go our way.  Sometimes it panned out perfectly, but often things didn't work out as well as we planned & we had to deal with it.  In any case, it was an ever-changing commitment & lesson in life. We had to think about our actions & the long term consequences of them.

The lessons of the farm aren't all that common to most people any more.  All too often, the only animals they see are on TV.  There puppies are cute & magically become well trained dogs that live forever.  They don't get lost & disappear, leaving you to forever wonder what became of them.  You don't have to make the painful decision of when to put them down or even just make sure you come home every day & give them the attention they need.  Every single day - no matter how much you'd like to go out & party - first you have to see to the animal's needs.

There are many wonderful lessons a kid learns from having a pet; commitment, responsibility, & empathy.  Sometimes that hurts & often it's a hassle, but they're all attributes we need to cultivate in our children.  No matter the pain they can bring, they tend to bring greater joy.  (I read somewhere that the average family doesn't keep a dog as long as they do their car.  How the hell can anyone do that?!!!  Our dogs are family.  It's not quite like having a kid, but close.)  Sure, you can't just do what you want when you want, but what better life lesson is there for being a productive person, good spouse, & loving parent?  It's work, a hard reality, not all fun & pleasure, like in a TV induced dream.

Sloppy, dream-like thinking is what led to stopping the slaughter of horses in the U.S. with disastrous consequences for the horses.  Thousands of horses are bred every year for racing, shows, & pleasure.  Only a few make the grade & often only for a short time.  Each one needs a lot of space & fairly expensive maintenance no matter whether they meet expectations or not.  Relatively few wind up like our horses, rescued from race track retirement, & living in luxury.   Far too many wind up living in poor conditions where they die of neglect or are still sold for slaughter.  Since there is no longer a slaughter house nearby, they're packed into trucks & hauled out of the country to meet the same end we've outlawed.  Some don't survive the trip & the laws regulating their proper treatment aren't ours.

Stopping horse slaughter has done nothing except take a bad situation for the horses & made it far worse by ignoring reality - we can't give every horse a dream home to live in until it dies naturally.  The resources aren't available & they are just one more commodity to far too many people.  This disconnect is a natural consequence of our high tech, sheltered lives.  Now, more than ever, people need to read classics like those listed above & honestly think through tough situations.  These books are classics for a very good reason - they show us a reality of our existence & make people think beyond their sheltered lives.  More, they do so through some heart-warming, well written examples.