teaching our young

I remember my mother telling me how my diaper clad brother had run out into the road when he was just a toddler.  My dad strode out rapidly after him and grabbed his arm with one hand and with the other firmly planted onto his young son's rump gave him a not so soft lift into the air.  This was my brother's introduction into "don't run into the street".  

Somehow, all children are taught by their parents not to wander out into the road.  Then when they progress into teenagers all of a sudden they become indestructible, teenagers love to challenge physics.  They are found to race across the street narrowly escaping traffic.  

As they grow into young adults the thrill of narrowly escaping traffic has worn off, but randomly crossing the street at will has not.   Watch for this especially if you are near a college campus. 

We walk and rarely worry about traffic (please remember we live in a town of 700).  Recently however, I was driving with a friend and had the opportunity to witness a mommy deer and a her baby at the side of the road.  If you knew how many deer were killed on our highway you would think that the deer don't worry about traffic either.

The baby started to take a step out into the road and the mom quickly knocked her in the head with her front hoof.  Hmmm.  This story sounds familiar.  

I guess that like humans they challenge the law of physics as they become teens (if they live that long) and then as adults they just forget to look all together.   

Maybe somebody should remind those pesky deer of the lessons that their mommies tried to teach them when they were little.  Then maybe we wouldn't have so many of them splattered all over the road.