Walking down the sidewalk the other day, Logan saw a snake that wasn't moving. It was a common garter snake. We took a stick and moved it off into the grass. It gave me a chance to explain that they weren't dangerous. Mostly, they just ate bugs.
Logan said, "so, they're defenseless like the muskrat?"
Yeah, pretty much.
"But they're beneficial because they eat bugs?"
Yeah, that's pretty much right.
Didn't give it much more thought until today. Logan was playing with a friend and was walking home with his buddy when his buddy saw the same snake in the same place.
I was in the house, and what I heard was, "X is grabbing the snake by its head and he's gonna take it home! I told him to leave it alone, but he wouldn't listen!"
I tried to tell him that, well, it's a garter snake. However, he saw what he thought was a person being cruel to an animal.
I really wasn't able to come up with a good way to explain that it's sorta okay in this case. I mean, it's a reptile. His buddy didn't seem intent on harming it. Was just curious and wanted to play with it. I just couldn't put together a coherent line of reasoning that would explain it.
Meanwhile, tears were welling up in his eyes. He felt like he was seeing an injustice being acted out and he was doing everything he could think of to try and stop it.
So, I went outside to see if I could talk his friend into letting the snake go in the ravine behind my house.
That's probably where we should have put the thing to begin with when we saw it a couple of days ago.
When we went out, his buddy had obviously dropped the thing and ran home. We got a box, loaded the snake into it and took it behind my house and let it go in the wooded ravine. It will be left to its own devices there, to either eat bugs and live to the end of its natural days, or be eaten by a hawk, owl or maybe even the muskrat.
I tried to explain that reptiles don't have brains like mammals. I really wasn't able to make a good case for why you shouldn't really care that much that the neighbor is messing with a garter snake.
That's not what he saw, though. Logan is a sensitive kid with a strong sense of justice. To him, messing with people and things that aren't causing any problems is just mean. I guess it is.
We went to Kroger because I ran out of milk. So, he told me that he is really bothered when people mess with animals. Apparently when he was at his grandparents, they were watching an outdoor channel with some sort of bear-hunting episode. He was bothered by it.
He just couldn't understand why people would needlessly shoot an animal.
Ah, the luxuries of growing up in the suburbs. Kids on farms grow up and accept this sort of thing with a shrug. To Logan, any living thing is like the family pet.
I tried explaining hunting to him and how it was necessary because man clears out the natural predators and overpopulation can happen.
I am sure he understood, intellectually. I doubt he grasped it, emotionally.
This kid is just a marvel to me. I have always had a goal of trying to make his childhood better than mine was. I guess it never dawned on me that he might end up being a much better person as a result.
His compassion, responsibility, all his positive traits are just a marvel to me. I really got lucky with this kid.
Someday, I guess he'll understand the distinction between a reptile and the family dog. Until then, I'm pretty proud of him just like he is.
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