My grandmother used to keep several cats. When I was a child, I enjoyed visiting her
house and playing with them.
One day I moved my hand about quickly on the floor as if it
were a mouse. The cat suddenly pounced
on my hand and bit deeply. That was the
end of the game. I probably ran away and
cried.
But the painful experience was a little lesson in life. Pretending to catch a small, fast moving
object is not just a fun game for a cat.
It is also a form of training, maintaining the cat’s ability to
catch and kill small animals.
Adult cats teach their young how to hunt and kill by playing
these sorts of games. But what games do
humans teach their children? And is
there a deeper meaning to how we play with our own young?
I was thinking about this recently when my wife was struggling
to get our one year old son to eat the dinner she had prepared. She tried to make eating solid food fun for
him by turning it into a game. She
pretended to give him some food and then quickly put it into her own mouth. She encouraged him to do the same thing. So he offered food to her and then quickly
put it into his own mouth instead. When
my wife starts to play this game, my son sometimes grabs and eats his food as
fast as possible in order to prevent his mother from stealing it.
So in one sense the game has been a success. He enjoys mealtimes more and eats more.
But it also occurred to me that we have taught him how to
steal. We have taught him how to protect
his own property from theft. And
we have taught him the value of lying, of pretending to do something in order
to trick another person and gain an advantage.
Is this all just a coincidence, or are these useful life skills that humans
teach their young so that they can survive in a harsh world?
Vocabulary:
to pounce – to jump on something with speed
to maintain – of a skill, to keep at a high level; to
prevent from declining
to struggle to do something – to make an effort to do
something, but find it difficult
theft - stealing
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