Last Summer Mary and I celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary and our kids surprised us with a Serengeti Safari! What awesome kids!!! We took the trip the past two weeks and couldn’t have had a better time. There are no words to describe what we saw!
I am sure all of you have seen the “migration” of the wildebeests, zebra, and others Serengeti animals on National Geographic and Animal Planet. We were blessed to see about 200,000 to 250,000 of these animals run past our vehicle one afternoon. What a rush! National Geographic always shows the last wildebeest getting grabbed by a crock and pulled into the stream and finally into the crocks digestive tract. We did not go to that crossing, but still the experience was breath-taking.
I’ll let you visit that again on TV; as there is no way I could describe everything we saw. But, I do want to use a couple of posts to tell you about the trip and try to share my thoughts on how animal behavior relates to our “human experience”.
Let’s start with the Impalas and Gazelles. These animals, like our deer, live in large families dominated by a single male. Each year the young males fight him in an attempt to take over the herd. He wins and sends the “boys” out of the herd to forage on their own until one of them gets stronger than the “old buck” and kicks him out!
I will talk more about these displaced, “looser” males later in the week, but now I want you to consider how we react to the power struggle our teen boys have with their parents, especially their dads. As teens get older and stronger they start to challenge the establishment, including the family! Many times this behavior angers the dads until they “kick” the boys out of the house physically or emotionally separate themselves from their sons. Often times it isn’t until the boy establishes his own life and household that he is accepted back into the family.
The four footed animals have only one challenge to separate them from their sons – mating rights; humans have many, many more. In the end it comes down to power and authority, but kids also see their parents being challenged by taxes, bosses, income or lack of income, bills, budgeting, and getting along with spouses, other family members, and neighbors. Family diet, housing, clothing, anger and other emotions are all matters which can be challenges. Animals have a simple dictatorship; human families live is a more complex, social community.
Any or all of these issues create turmoil and power struggles which lead to the alienation between teens and their parents. Teens who are physically or emotionally separated from their families fail to learn how to deal with the above challenges! Some of them will join gangs or form unhealthy relationships with other like kids to learn how to become adults! Teens need family structure and actually crave being a part of a family. They don’t want to rebel! Most admit they want more time with Mom and Dad.
Contrary to what many parents are taught, “rebellion” is not a normal part of adolescence! Proper mutual respect between parents and their children can prevent this tragedy! Expecting rebellious teens will get you rebellious teens! It’s a real tragedy to deny oneself of the joy of parenting teens.
Talk and listen to what kids have to say from earliest childhood. Keep TV and other media out of the way of family dialog. Be a parent, not a friends to your kids. There are many other things a parent can do to help teens gradually become responsible adults, (you can read about them is Messengers in Denim or other parenting books). But this discussion is not about that, it’s about the similarities I noted between how many animal families live and how too many human families follow a similar course
Today’s lesson then: Be a dad, not a dominate male.
You know that I sometimes see things differently than others, but I wanted you to know what I was thinking as we were in our “little cage” riding around God’s Zoo looking at his creations.
I will talk about some other animals including elephants in another post or two!