Let's All Honk!

As a child care director, I attend leadership conferences.  This gives me a chance to network with other directors and exchange ideas as well as helping me to improve my directing skills.  (Like many directors, I became a director with two weeks notice and little administrative experience, so I learned by fumbling along)  A popular theme in administrative meetings right now is imitating geese and flying in a V.  The discussions cover how geese help each other, share the burden, and stay with the geese who are having trouble.  These are great ideas, but I think that we could improve by following other aspects of geese.

I know that many think of geese are a nuisance, but I love them.  I love watching the large V as they fly overhead on their way south or north.  My heart lifts when I hear them honking because I know that they are signaling a change in the seasons.  I love seeing them in the cornfields as they break their journey and look for corn that was missed in the harvest.  I love the special times that I spy snow geese near the Canadian geese.  My favorite time, however, is when the goslings hatch and start to venture out with their parents.

Recently, I was driving through a business park while taking a short cut on my way to pick up the center's weekly order at Sam's Club.  As I rounded a curve, I noticed that traffic was stopped in both lanes.  Was it an accident?  A breakdown?  A traffic stop?  No - it was a Canadian goose strutting across the road followed by eight fuzzy yellow goslings.  They were stepping across the street in a perfect line while about a dozen cars sat and waited for them to pass.  Even better, another goose was at the end of the line, marching sedately behind all of the others.  As the last gosling cleared the curb, he stopped in the middle of the lane, raised his head, and honked at all of the cars.  I chuckled about him all day long.

Why should we copy the geese?  They knew where their children were at all times, and kept them protected between the two adults.  I am not talking about turning everyone into the helicopter parents who never give their children freedom to grow or to make mistakes, but about those parents (and, unfortunately, caregivers) who never seem to know where their children are much of the time.  I cannot be the only one who has watched a little one wander around the mall while their parent is on their cell phone.  How does a parent leave a child in a Burger King when the family leaves?  How can a child care provider leave a child on the playground when everyone goes inside?  How can a bus driver leave a child on the bus for six hours while the bus sits in the garage?  The geese seem to do it better than many humans manage to do. 

Several days ago I was in Wegmans doing the week's grocery stopping.  A young child (4 or 5) was upset because his little brother had his toy and would not give it back.  The mother kept telling him to be quiet because his brother was using the toy.  The boy, who was becoming quite upset, went into the produce preperation area, which was empty for the evening.  The mother, whose child was now out of sight in an area that was filled with big knives for cutting up fruit and who knows what else, reacted by saying, "Good-bye, Bobby" and pushing the cart out of the produce area and into the grocery area.  Fortunately, the older brother, who was about seven, came back, brought the boy out of the preparation area, and followed the mother.  This is one child who would have benefited from being raised by a goose.