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City children

2K views 25 replies 12 participants last post by  Nutty Saddler 
#1 ·
Few months ago a coleague told me something about a kindergarten kid. The teacher asked them to draw some chicks
The kid drew some errr...frozen grill chicken. When question, he defended explaining that's how chicken looks like.

I did giggle when I heard that, but it's getting scary. A volonteer from the shelter told me that in the weekend when they do pony rides in the parks some kids ask "is this a real horse? is this horse alive?" when touching the animals.

I am a city kid too. But I did have the opportunity to have grandparents who lived in the countryside, it's only now that I realize how much this helped.

One of Animal Planet's spotlight ads show a farm in the middle of a city that preserves some rare breeds of domestic animals and also welcomes children to visit. Most of them have no idea how a goat or a turkey look like, alive.

Honestly I find it awfully weird and worrying for a child not to know how a goat looks like, or to think that apples grow in refrigerators.

Have you met such cases as well?
 
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#2 ·
I'm sorry for kids who have to live that way. I think they've alienated too much from nature - our original environment.
 
#3 ·
I worked for a company for 7 years that did pony rides, draft horse wagons, and petting zoos (goats/cows/pig/chickens/llama/camel/and more!) so I've seen this repeatedly and I just always did my best to tell them alot of facts on the animals!
 
#4 ·
I understand what you're saying, but to play devil's advocate, children always say/do silly things when they don't know about them. There are things that country children don't see everyday that if someone didn't tell them about it, they wouldn't know. It's just a part of growing up; eventually they'll figure out these things.
 
#5 ·
You sure?...Would be great if so.
One of my ex boyfriends was 24 yo when he first saw a cow, and my grand mom's place. Also embarrassed me totally by screaming out loud "OOOOH IT'S SO BIG I HAD NO IDEA THEY'RE SO BIG"..and it was a scrawny tiny cow really.
 
#6 ·
I just wonder when we go into the city and go "Wow! Look how tall that building is!" "Look at all the people!" etc. If they don't wonder if we are missing out on things and giving us that eye roll too???
 
#7 ·
I'm not surprised.

People are so far removed from their food sources and the natural world now, that it's frightening.

What I don't understand is even if they've never seen a live cow, horse, chicken, etc. there are books, magazines and the interwebz where they can find pictures and descriptions.

Our society is too insulated and soft. American children are at epidemic proportions for obesity, and their parents aren't far behind. We're raising a society of lumpy, lardy, techno geeks.

You know who puts up hay where I live? The middle aged and older women and men! The young people whine about how hot it is, how heavy the bales are, and omigawd the hay is prickly and there are bugs everywhere!!!

Not all children are like that, but a sad majority are, and it's the adults who are to blame.

Now it's all about 'play dates' and 'arranging' things. In my day, my parents shooed us out the door once our chores were done, we played outside all day only stopping to grab a sandwich for lunch, then back in for dinner, only to be outside again until the street lights came on.

Kids today would shrivel and die without their A/C, TV, and electronic gadgets.

I seriously fear for the future of this country.
 
#8 ·
Well I grew up in the city, and moved to the country as a teenager. There were alot of things that things that I wasn't aware of. The first time I saw a cow up close, I found them interesting looking. I didn't go on about it like your ex, but maybe he was just really excited.

If their parents don't put importance on it, the kids don't think about it until they are actually presented with it. I agree that it should be basic information for someone to know.

I'm still telling my husband things about country life that he never knew, but he also tells me about cars and culture things that I didn't know. :)
 
#9 ·
I am part of a generation that had both. Our parents were in the city, we were born in the city, but most of us had at least 1 relative living in the countryside

So we got to know a bit of countryside too.

But this generation...there are no more grandpa's at the country for me for example or for my potential offsprings.

I guess I'll end up taking them to a zoo as well.
 
#11 ·
I was born and raised on a farm and by age 10, I had gotten charged by a bull. Then I went to visit my aunt in Florida...never again. I was looking aorund so much that I would trip on a daily bases and clothes that we find cool in the country(cut off shorts)were like non -exsistent there. It was ackward. Though I don't know anybody like those city kids you were talking about, I do know some people who think an egg is a dairy product. We just live way to far out in the boonies to know any city kids lol.
 
#12 · (Edited)
luckily where i live, it is basically countryside in the middle of nowhere in northern minnesota. i live by 3 cow farms and my neibors have a big farm of their own. (we live in this sort of community of finnish and norwegian agriculture farmers, cow farmers, and hobby farms.) i dont have to put up with the whiny city kids who scream whenever a bug flys within sight and compare how many bars their cell phones are getting. one time the neibors had company over and wanted to help bottle feed the baby cows and so i went over to watch. they were from the city and they were all like OMG it smells! and i didnt know the babies drank milk! i thought they ate plants! and look! the chickens are eating the ground! the owners had to politely explain how they were eating chicken feed and how most babies drink milk and everything. it scared me a little. there are those families that all the kids have their cell phones and ipods and sit inside and watch tv! ive seen 7 year olds with cell phones! my parents thought that was ubsurd! (as we have skype on my fathers work computer as our means of communication:lol:) there is nothing wrong with comming up with ways to improve life but it gets to a point when its too much! some people need to get outside more and learn about animals and the outdoors instead of how to beat the next video game level.
please excuse my long rant :oops::lol:
 
#13 ·
Coming from the UK I hear stories that are similar - once we heard of a shop selling peas in the pod, a shopper was overhead saying that they have seen them frozen and in cans but what idiot decided to put them in these stupid things.

I have also heard of a tourist asking the guide why they built Windsor castle so close to Heathrow Airport !
 
#18 ·
One thing that I have however noticed in my country, not sure if it happens in yours too.

Children from the countryside tend to be a tad more mature. I guess it's because along with any kids daily tasks (clean your room, do your homework, wash the dishes) probably come the outdoor chores which are more complex.

I also noticed how well mannered some of them are. Even if (or especially if?..) they come from poor families, where everyone has to struggle to make sure a decent dinner will be on the table.
As for city children, honestly I start seeing more and more hysterical and depressed children.

There was a study made in Romania. Apparently the average time that a parent spend with their child in urban areas is only 1 hour per day. 60 minutes :-(

I am trampling over my own city..ness (is this a word?) when trying to make myself useful at the horse shelter or simply at someone's yard. I'm full of good intentions lol but...
- if I approach a horse I end up on the wrong side
- if I try to milk a cow nothing happens - except the cow gets irritated and swooshes me away with her tail
- it took me 10 long minutes to catch a chicken, it took 2 minutes to catch the same chicken to a 6 (SIX!) years old little boy.

and so on.

However, I think it's one thing not to be familiar with public transport and another thing to think that peas grow on cans :/
 
#20 ·
One thing that I have however noticed in my country, not sure if it happens in yours too.

Children from the countryside tend to be a tad more mature. I guess it's because along with any kids daily tasks (clean your room, do your homework, wash the dishes) probably come the outdoor chores which are more complex.

I also noticed how well mannered some of them are. Even if (or especially if?..) they come from poor families, where everyone has to struggle to make sure a decent dinner will be on the table.
As for city children, honestly I start seeing more and more hysterical and depressed children.

There was a study made in Romania. Apparently the average time that a parent spend with their child in urban areas is only 1 hour per day. 60 minutes :-(

I am trampling over my own city..ness (is this a word?) when trying to make myself useful at the horse shelter or simply at someone's yard. I'm full of good intentions lol but...
- if I approach a horse I end up on the wrong side
- if I try to milk a cow nothing happens - except the cow gets irritated and swooshes me away with her tail
- it took me 10 long minutes to catch a chicken, it took 2 minutes to catch the same chicken to a 6 (SIX!) years old little boy.

and so on.

However, I think it's one thing not to be familiar with public transport and another thing to think that peas grow on cans :/
I've noticed this too. I went into the city and some girl was making fun of me cause I couldn't afford a lot. I finally told her, "I may not have money but obviously your money didn't buy you class. And my parents always taught me it wasn't appropriate to talk about money in public." She kept her mouth closed after that. I think like, you said, a lot of the work we do requires us to be responsible and mature. You can't be goofing around when you're up in the hay mow. I've assisted on many surgeries with my vet and he told me that he would never trust a city kid to be responsible enough to help him.
 
#19 ·
Few months ago a coleague told me something about a kindergarten kid. The teacher asked them to draw some chicks
The kid drew some errr...frozen grill chicken. When question, he defended explaining that's how chicken looks like.

I did giggle when I heard that, but it's getting scary. A volonteer from the shelter told me that in the weekend when they do pony rides in the parks some kids ask "is this a real horse? is this horse alive?" when touching the animals.

I am a city kid too. But I did have the opportunity to have grandparents who lived in the countryside, it's only now that I realize how much this helped.

One of Animal Planet's spotlight ads show a farm in the middle of a city that preserves some rare breeds of domestic animals and also welcomes children to visit. Most of them have no idea how a goat or a turkey look like, alive.

Honestly I find it awfully weird and worrying for a child not to know how a goat looks like, or to think that apples grow in refrigerators.

Have you met such cases as well?
It's really scary! I try really hard to understand it from different angles, but I hate cities, I hate everything about them. I live now in a town of 300,000 people and it drives me CRAZY. My first trip to a city is when I was 16, we went to Louisville for a school trip. I think Louisville is a nice city compared to trashy places like DC, St. Louis, Chicago, etc. but at the time I was horrified of how big the buildings are, there were so many cars, random strangers just walking around everywhere?! Really?! Who wants to live like that! Then we spent a week in DC and I seriously would have rather hung myself.. I HATED every minute of it and I even tried to enjoy it. We went for a few days to the mountains in Virginia and I felt so at peace and at home...

But when you look at it from someone else's viewpoint, they can't imagine driving thirty miles to the nearest Wal Mart or being able to stand in the middle of the highway and see all of the four roads leading out of town (without getting hit by a car).. They can't imagine a town without a stop light.. I mean to us this is no biggy, it's totally normal and comfortable.. To them.. Well..

On a side note I love the look on my three year old's face when I tell him we ate a fish for dinner.. He caught a fish the other day and I said "Do you want to eat it?" And he's like "Yahhh!!!" Hehehehhehe! I'm making a little carnivore out of him. :)
 
#21 ·
I'm going to have to be careful to keep my big mouth shut here - I have lived in the country for most of my life but have worked in the city ( London ) , what I find most distressing is that there are more and more - lets call them - townies or city folk - who move to the countryside to get away from the city and then try to change the countryside to their liking , many times they get what they want because of their ' big money '

For example I know of someone who bought a holiday cottage in the Yorkshire dales - she only went there for two or three weeks a year herself , she complained to the local council that the local dairy herd made 100yrds or the road messy when they had to be moved from one of thier fields to the farm to be milked - she didn't care that this had been going on for hundreds of years , only that she was getting the wheels of her car dirty.

Another debated issue in the UK is the ban on fox hunting - I know what happens when a fox gets in a hen house or into a field of sheep with lambs - but the townies have got fox hunting banned because they are in the majority - they don't have a clue how the countryside works - only how they think it should work
 
#22 ·
Another debated issue in the UK is the ban on fox hunting - I know what happens when a fox gets in a hen house or into a field of sheep with lambs - but the townies have got fox hunting banned because they are in the majority - they don't have a clue how the countryside works - only how they think it should work
I don't want to stir a nest of angry bees, but would it not be more efficient to exterminate the surplus foxes by using traps or some equivalent method?
30 men on horses and 80 hounds chasing 1 single animal seems to me a tad over the top. Perhaps the fox itself is just a reason for the folks to ride in open air and enjoy a nice run....which I guess could be ok as well. But can't they just...shoot them?

We had a similar problem in some parts of Romania with...boars. they would come in small groups and destroy the crops, break fences, enter yards and eat whatever they'd find and they can be quite aggressive especially if there are piglets in their group.
The local hunters associations gathered and...shot them down and that was the last we've heard of those boars.
 
#26 ·
Fox Hunting - good or bad depends on your point of view -

The question that I think should be asked is that - even in a democratic country should the wishes of the majority be enforced on everyone - sometimes it is clear that the majority have little or no understanding of the real issues but get what they want because the government wants to stay in power, so they don't do what is right, only what is popular

I have nothing against ' city children ' ,but education is based on attaining a career that earns the most money - so there is little time or effort in teaching those that live in cities countryside life . More and more people live in the cities so the wishes of the city people is worth more in a politicians mind than those that live in the country

One day Washington and London ( and every other capital ) must wake up to the fact that you don't have to have an education to vote - so bad choices are being made to salve the electorate , interfering with how the countryside works is a prime example - how are city people , and city children ( who grow up to vote on such matters ) going to understand what the countryside needs to function , yet it is their point of view that is listened to because theirs is the biggest voice

When are countryside affairs and issues going to be left in the hands of the people who live in the country
 
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