WHOLLY FAMILY

Male and female He created them: Outdoor lessons teach eternal truths

By Mary Moore | Sept. 17, 2009 | The Catholic Sun

This weekend our family took our annual trip up to the Rim country for camping and fishing and like activity. As with each trip we have made there, what begins as an escape from the city quickly becomes a welcome lesson in nature and God’s amazing design.

This weekend, in addition to our usual lessons in botany, zoology and ecology, we were reminded of God’s beautiful designs in human biology. Indeed, male and female He created them.

With each outdoor activity my husband and I observed God’s creativity as much in our children as in the beauty of nature. Left to her own devices, my oldest daughter is entirely feminine, but given the rugged terrain of our environment and the younger brother with whom she must entertain herself in it, she had to adapt her femininity to some not-so-typically feminine situations.

Within seconds of our arrival at the cabin, our kids left my husband and me to unpack the van while they ran off to discover what would be their cosmos of adventure for the next three days. Within minutes, they were collecting large snails washed up by the recent rain and overfilled creek.

The snails were soon lined up for races, by my son’s design, though as you might imagine it promised to be less eventful than a NASCAR event. For my daughter, who gladly joined in the critter search and rescue, each found vermin received a name and status in a makeshift family. The largest snail, christened “King,” she assigned the responsibility of “Cutie,” a snail one-eighth King’s size. And alongside them was a rather shy one she named “Peek-a-boo” with paradoxically bold racing skills. Post race, Peek-a-boo received laurels and all of them received a new home in a bush near our back door where they could be checked often by our curious little Jack Hannas.

Later, as our son researched the best spot to cast his treble-hooked mealworms in order to catch the biggest possible rainbow trout, his elder sister rolled up her pant legs and crossed the creek all the while composing songs about the many adventures of the snail family. On the other side of the creek, she befriended two little girls who courageously lowered their lines of bacon fat to lure small lobster-like crayfish which they would inevitably befriend, introduce to other crawdads, name and release.

Natural differences

The roles were carved out and epitomized throughout the entire weekend. Every stick found was, for our son, a weapon or tool and for our daughter, a bridge to help wounded animals cross dangerous half-inch rapids. The youngest charge in our crew, a two-and-a-half year-old, followed quickly in her big sister’s shoes, petting and caring for critters in proper maternal manner.

The bestowing of names and roles upon creatures for our daughters, and racing and hunting the same vermin for our son, are not the result of taught behaviors. I have never guided our children toward categorical groups of toys. They have quite naturally been drawn, each by their own nature, to those suitable to their respective maleness or femaleness, or at least reconciled the ones that were atypical of their nature into something fitting to it. I know from dozens of conversations with other parents that mine are not an exception in this.

I find great relief and assurance of a loving God in the knowledge that I am not responsible for teaching my children their nature as male and female, only directing it toward its full potential, in which each will reflect unique and complementary aspects of God in whose divine image they were created.

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Mary Moore is a columnist for The Catholic Sun who lives in Mesa. Please send comments to letters@catholicsun.org.