I have
heard it said that
children are the true
litmus test of
human nature. The fact that they
squabble,
bicker and
fight over the slightest increase or decrease in
comfort would seem to indicate that we have usurped our place in the
circle of life.
When I was much younger and children’s
toys were still made out of
metal I witnessed a
young boy playing in the
sandbox at a day care facility. He was happily digging holes with a small garden
trowel. A young girl approached and attempted to remove the trowel from his grasp for her own pleasure. Before anyone could react the boy jerked the tool back and lashed out at her. He brutally
clubbed her over the head twice before she fell to the ground and
attendants managed to stop his tirade. The first blow from the edge of the trowel had deeply
lacerated her brow down the front of her
forehead. The second blow glanced off the side of her
skull and nearly removed her
ear.
This all happened at a
day care center run by the local
church. Presumably the people who brought their kids here practiced a little more
restraint and provided a better example for their
children. And yet, here was a boy less than six years old who had nearly killed a girl in a fit of rage over the loss of a
toy.
This kid wasn't really old enough to have picked up
murder yet, I'm sure he didn't understand the repercussions of his attack. His actions were almost entirely
instinctual. He had fallen
prey to his
human nature, which is really no different than lion nature or monkey nature. We are first and foremost
mammals. Any distance from our
animal instincts has only developed in the last thirty or forty thousand years. Previous to that we were just as
wild as any other animal for millions of years. It's great that as a
species we are finally starting to overcome these tendencies towards
animalistic brutality, but unfortunately our children will always display the worst of these habits until they begin to adopt the behavior of a
nurturing environment and start to function as a productive member of society.