You Never Know...Revisited in 2023
...what lessons will come your way.
Technically, we are on break this week. I've been dealing with some health issues and one great benefit of homeschooling is that no one is breathing down my neck telling me when I have to "do" school. I know that my children are learning all of the time. I may have had a goal to finish "official" lessons by Memorial Day, but that isn't going to happen and I am fine with it.
Today we went on a field trip. I'll admit to not knowing much about the farm we went to, other than that a few other area groups had gone and liked it. I should have done more research. I knew they raised calves, and well, I am almost didn't go because of that. But I figured my children would enjoy seeing the animals.
I am naive. Raising calves means the calves are taken from the mothers and raised at this facility on bottled formula. They stand (and lie down) in their own filth. My youngest couldn't even believe that it was true, that the calves were taken from their mommies and not fed mommy's milk. Really, this has nothing to do with my personal ethics; it is something deeper than that. Mammal babies belong with their mothers; it is the way of nature. I know they can't do it in the factory farm setting, but it was just heartbreaking. It was absurd to hear Farmer "Amy" talking about how they bottle feed the calves so the cows can share their milk with "people".
It did spark some good conversations on the way home, about factory farming, natural (attachment) parenting, eating animals, etc.
Technically, we are on break this week. I've been dealing with some health issues and one great benefit of homeschooling is that no one is breathing down my neck telling me when I have to "do" school. I know that my children are learning all of the time. I may have had a goal to finish "official" lessons by Memorial Day, but that isn't going to happen and I am fine with it.
Today we went on a field trip. I'll admit to not knowing much about the farm we went to, other than that a few other area groups had gone and liked it. I should have done more research. I knew they raised calves, and well, I am almost didn't go because of that. But I figured my children would enjoy seeing the animals.
I am naive. Raising calves means the calves are taken from the mothers and raised at this facility on bottled formula. They stand (and lie down) in their own filth. My youngest couldn't even believe that it was true, that the calves were taken from their mommies and not fed mommy's milk. Really, this has nothing to do with my personal ethics; it is something deeper than that. Mammal babies belong with their mothers; it is the way of nature. I know they can't do it in the factory farm setting, but it was just heartbreaking. It was absurd to hear Farmer "Amy" talking about how they bottle feed the calves so the cows can share their milk with "people".
It did spark some good conversations on the way home, about factory farming, natural (attachment) parenting, eating animals, etc.
(2023 notes: I have since learned that many good homesteaders do share milk between the calf and their families in an ethical manner. This wasn’t that — these calves were on a completely different farm than their mothers.)
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