Turkey Talk

It is usual that the people that punch our buttons the most are (in order) Parents, Spouse, Children. There are reasons for it (and I will not trouble you with why that is true at this time), just suffice to say we get plenty of practice in being healthy functional adults when we are with the ones we love.

“I don’t WANT to sit there” my daughter protested. “I won’t be able to see!” I was suggesting my 10 year old sit behind a scraggly bush 40 yards from the hen decoy. Her Christmas .22 was being employed to hunt turkeys on Willow Creek in Mason and a gobbler had already sounded once from the tree. The decoy was straight in front of us and a live oak behind us would contribute to breaking up our outline.

This was the second run in I had had with the princess that morning. The first had been when we took her rifle and my shotgun out of the Jeep. “Why are you bringing that?” she asked? “In case you need help when you shoot a gobbler,” I replied. “I do not need your help, you are not to shoot my bird” my confident 10 year old proclaimed.

So our dawn pre-hunt discussion had deteriorated to an argument about where the best place to sit would be. I tried to be as patient as I could. I really did. I explained that if she sat beside the bush the bird would see her. If one landed she could see through the bare bush with enough clarity to get a bead on the bird. “No” she said, “I am sitting over there.” I had had it.

“Marie- Do you know a lot about turkey hunting?” I demanded of her on her first venture out. She paused only a moment and countered with “I know quite a bit!” It is impossible to argue with a headstrong 10 year old and feel like you are winning. It was time to trump. I was preparing to threaten to call the whole thing off, and tell her we were done hunting when I got an assist. Two gobblers called from the roost not 100 yards away. In a voice as excited as I could muster, I told her to sit down, “here they come.” Sit down she did and sure enough, one strike of my slate caller brought a jake down on the far side of the decoy. As he walked to the bird he sensed something wasn’t right and he took a right angle to the decoy and us at about 50 yards. I whispered to my daughter that this was probably the best shot she would get and to take it if she wanted it. She lifted the bolt action with open sights and sent a long rifle hollow point at the bird. You could see the impact but the bird really started moving. Forgetting her earlier demands, she implored me to “shoot him again Daddy shoot him again!” A load of 4’s from the Benelli rolled him as my daughter squealed at bagging the bird.

If those birds had not gobbled when they did I hate to think how the day would have turned out. When I run out of patience or get too tired I lose all creativity, and in some cases, sensibility dealing with my kids. When I get to that point I play the power card. This comes out as “because I said so” or “because that’s just the way it is.” Spanking falls into this category. Now I am not totally against spanking, but what I will say is that at least 75% of the time a parent resorts to hitting their kid it is because they can’t figure out another way to get their point across.

Both my kids have been real different. I have had to adapt and grow as a parent and the growth was necessary. It seems like we all want to let down when we get home from work, but what I say, is that when we get with our kids, the work begins. The work of parenting, of trying to do our part to raise them and be in relationship with them.

I will give you that it is hard to recognize a defiant child as simply one asking for love but it is the truth. And I can’t take their behavior personally, I must recognize it for what it is, an attempt to get attention. Negative attention is still attention so if I want the behavior to improve, I have to be smarter than a 5^th grader in meeting their behavior. And continue to hope for an assist from the odd turkey.