don’t hold anyone hostage

a few days ago, my neighbor mentioned that she’s seen two baby fawns on our side of the woods, she thinks they are eating her vegetables b/c they’ve lost their mother.

i told her i’d recently seen a sizeable female in that same area on our driveway, during the afternoon while talking on the phone.  

after talking with my neighbor, i went to the trusty old google machine and asked it what to do if you think you have a motherless fawn. i found a lovely link with lots of good information.

according to the site i found, it’s a common thing for humans to think the babies have been left without their mom but isn’t always the case. i printed it out and gave it to my neighbor.

the very idea of a wild animal choosing your area of land to have babies is thrilling to me.

seriously, i know it’s really THEIR land and we’ve invaded their space. if they feel safe enough to birth babies in the garage or anywhere near our noise and smells, i take that as a friendly gesture that they at the very least feel safe around here.

the site i found took me down a few different alleys of thought.  the main one of parenting humans compared to rescuing fawns.

in the excerpt below from the site, i found it very similar to my ideas on parenting, in the sense that we must raise them for the environment in which they’ll live, and how to survive in the event i get hit by a truck. 

Staying on the Wild Side

By Patricia Henley
Assistant News Editor

Marjorie McKenzie Davis never coos to the orphaned babies she raises, doesn’t sing lullabies or babble baby-talk, and never gazes lovingly into their big, beautiful eyes. Instead, she keeps silent while she feeds and cares for them, and leaves them to their own devices as much as possible.

That’s because Davis hopes her young charges turn into completely wild adults.

"They have to retain their fear of humans," Davis explains. The human voice is not something they are going to hear in the wild. She doesn’t want it to sound at all familiar, or be associated with food and comfort.

in the quote, she notes that she remains silent.  she knows they won’t have baby talk out in the wild blue yonder.  she is, literally putting a fawn’s future above her own immediate needs.

that’s a heavy sentence, or for some it may be.  go ahead and read it a few times if you need to.

the urge to ooh and ahh over a baby anything is completely natural and instinctual for me.  honestly, i’m not sure i would be able to keep my mouth sounds quiet if i were trying to help baby fawns along,  maybe after some training i could work my way up to it.

the oohing and ahhing is my need, not the fawns.  my need to adore it, love it, and squeeze it (but not like george) is almost unbearable.

i have to keep this in mind with our kids, that i’m raising them to become the best THEM they can be rather than to try and make them become all the things i couldn’t be.  sadly, something many parents do.  they think kids are their second chance at successful lives. 

a good example of this, the movie, grey gardens (a remake of the 1075 documentary) on “big edie and little edie bouvier beale”.

sadly, “little edie” bouvier beale’s life was literally wasted b/c she absolutely could not live her own life (she wasn’t taught survival skills) and her mother was more than happy to rob little edie of her own life for her own selfish comfort.

too many parents unknowingly (and knowingly) raise their children to be emotionally dependent on them for their entire lives so the parent never lose their sense of purpose in life.  they literally suck the life out of their kids.

raising children, fawns, lizards or whatever to be the best them they can be is the very definition of unconditional love.