A Pill, A Doll Or A Gun?

A Pill, A Doll Or A Gun?

A recent issue of Time magazine has three stories about children. The cover is an update on Ritalin; the sports section has a story about kids and hunting; and the business section features this year's blockbuster toy, the Furby, an "interactive" fuzzball that "develops" into a "playmate."

The Ritalin story asks if pharmaceutical companies are turning children into psychotropic druggies for the convenience of harried parents. The hunting story questions whether gun manufacturers are turning children into stone-cold killers to keep a blood sport alive—and keep selling guns. And the Furby piece laughs in its sleeve at ditzy parents clamoring to satisfy hysterical children with this year's fad.

All three stories raise interesting issues about parenting. But I found the hunting piece explored the most significant ethical issues about a parent's deepest values.

To be sure, bad hunters will teach rotten values. Like people should kill animals for fun, and that pleasure comes from the end of a gun.

But good hunters insist that they do not kill for pleasure, and that whatever satisfaction derived from downing a deer is mingled with sadness and respect.

A good hunter must be attentive and patient—values that need to be learned, and not passed on by taking a pill. A good hunter learns that gratification is found slowly, and not achieved instantly by tickling an Elmo.

Of course, for those who eat neither meat nor seafood, who wear neither leather nor fur, hunting (and fishing) is irredeemably immoral. If that is your belief, you have my respect.

But hunters do have a moral understanding, a respect for life that those who buy their meat wrapped in plastic from a supermarket freezer do not.

I eat the tuna I catch with a profound gratitude that can't come out of a can.

Fishing and hunting—done right—takes patience and skill. The struggle is painful, and yes, of course it is more painful for the prey. But in the end, the creature whose life you take has a nobility, and gives you food for which you must truly give thanks.

There is no nobility in a pill, which offers only a chemical patience.

Nor is there any real human connection that comes from a furry toy that literally plays with your emotions.

Unarguably, there are children, for whatever reason, who need Ritalin to find some peace within. And, undoubtedly, Furbies can teach some young children that caring for inanimate objects will create good consequences.

But at best these are freeze-dried feelings. And at worst, sad substitutes for emotions grounded in human values.