Our oldest daughter, Alicia, has been practicing driving, getting ready to get her license. We recently drove to Bear Lake for a short trip and Alicia wanted to drive. I thought that this would be a good experience for her because of the mountain terrain that we would drive through.
I told her how important it was for her to keep an eye out for wildlife so that she could slow down if she was coming up on animals because of the unpredictable nature of these critters. Not too much after I said this, that a jack rabbit darted out from the side of the road and we hit it before Alicia could even react. Feeling slightly traumatized by the experience she asked me what she should have done. I told her to 'take them out' (emphasizing the fact that it was safer for us to hit it than to make a quick over correction that could cause us to crash).
A little voice came from the back seat from my little five-year old boy who said, "but what if it was a mother?" Not wanting Alicia to second guess her safe choice of not putting us head-on into oncoming traffic, I said, "Well, I guess there are a few orphans now."
In hind sight, I think that calloused approach may have traumatized the whole family, who all wanted to go back and find the survivors so that they could take care of them.
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