The Haxtun-Fleming Herald - What can we reason but from what we know? -Alexander Pope

Calf and Kid. Ever notice they both sound, when pronounced, like both begin with the same letter? Given my spelling prowess (spell check said prowuse was wrong), I may have actually interchanged the first letters on both words a few times. That’s why Sue proofs (profs?) all these stories before you see them.

I believe there is a reason that these two words, calf and kid, sound so similar. When you get right down to basics, they are a lot alike. I have always said, “Everything I know about people, I learned from a cow.” Most of what I know about kids, I learned from watching calves. Only had four kids but hundreds of calves. It took that many calves to answer my questions about kid behavior.

Life begins basically the same for both, born very cute, cuddly and dependent on Mom. Only real difference comes right here. With cattle, Mom does it all, Dad lays in the willows. Humans feel Dad should participate more than that. Some Dads do a great job of joining in while some tend to be watchers from the willows. In my early years of fatherhood, a couple of “used” diapers sent me to the willows.

As the kids began to grow very quickly, the bull … er …. Father's role seems to demand more time in the willows. From there, we begin watching the calves and kids, exhibit very similar behavior.

Mom, previously very attentive and protective, one day puts the kids on the bus for Kindergarten where someone else will watch them. A few days into the little calves life, Moms leave a bunch of calves with a single cow or two to baby sit while they go off for water and to lick salt.

The next stage is primary school, first through third grade. Human calves make friends, join little groups and play together on the playground while little bovine kids do exactly the same. A couple of grades later, the youngsters of both groups are now self confident, wandering off to explore without parental supervision. Encouraged by the group’s confidence, they wander a bit too far, then notice Mom is farther away than they realized. First one sissy breaks into a run for mommy, quickly followed by the rest.

Around two months old, the calves are now “young adults” in their minds. You fill in how old humans are at that age.

Now their self-confidence is very high. “The world has never seen anyone as smart as we are," our quickly grownup red calves seem to say as they watch us with cocky arrogance. Soon, one, wanting to impress the others, decides to climb through a fence, just to see what’s on the other side. The others quickly get bored with his heroics and wander off. Mr. Big shot discovers he is all alone in a strange place. His reaction? He begins to bawl, loudly. In human words he would be saying, “I want my Mommy!” Sure enough, here comes mother to coax him back through the fence, gives him a snack and takes him back to the herd. See the similarities between kids and calves?

The only true difference I have found is, since cattle don’t build houses and thus don’t have basements. Their kids tend to grow up and move on. Doesn’t always work out like that for us humans. Kids and calves, it’s just in the spelling.