T.K. Jar­rels, resides in Oak­land, CA — by way of Cincin­nati, OH.  She is bio­log­i­cal Mama to 3 (though affec­tion­ately called “Mama”, by many more), and proud Grand­Mama, of 4.  Her arti­cle con­tri­bu­tion was inspired by her love of watch­ing Ani­mal Planet.  She ini­tially tuned in to Ani­mal Planet to enter­tain her grand­chil­dren, but it has become a favorite of hers.  T.K. has learned, from observ­ing ani­mal rela­tion­ships, that there is much that can  be learned about the part­ner­ships, we form as humans.

Years ago an elderly co-worker of the Jew­ish faith told me there are three things that every Jew must do;  be edu­cated, study nature, and, if it’s your last to give, make sure you give it to another Jew.  Well, the thing that stuck in my mind was to study nature.  Since that time, that’s exactly what I have done.

Today, I’m a firm believer that God wants us to study nature in order to learn about our­selves.  I believe the dif­fer­ent ani­mals in the world are a reflec­tion of the dif­fer­ent human beings in the world.

If you want to learn how to be a good mother, study the mon­keys.  They are extremely nur­tur­ing, show­ing an abun­dance of love and affec­tion.  They like to touch and groom their babies.  There are many humans who never get this type of atten­tion.   If they did, who knows? Maybe our world wouldn’t be ram­pant with atroc­i­ties and crime.

The Tas­man­ian Devil is a per­fect exam­ple of how an adult child can bring you down if you con­tinue to carry that child through life.  The mother has many eggs but nor­mally one or two sur­vive.  In time the babies grow to the size of the mother and they viciously abuse her by demand­ing to be car­ried every­where she goes, includ­ing while hunt­ing for food.  Even­tu­ally the mother has to sneak away and never come back, because she can’t han­dle the weight or the abuse.

When a new lion takes over a pride, his first task is to kill all the babies that were not sired by him.  There are humans who resent exist­ing off­spring when they start new rela­tion­ships.  Watch out for them.  The lioness will try to fight the lion for her off­spring, most of the time los­ing, yet fight­ing.  There are humans who know that their off­spring are hated by their new con­quest, yet will hold on to that per­son to the detri­ment of their child.

I love watch­ing how ani­mals deal with sex.  The female does not sub­mit to just any male who comes along and lets her know he desires her.  He has to be fit, strong, and mature.  The female rhino makes the male run after her for miles and hours to show that he is fit to mate with her.  If he falls by the way­side dur­ing the gru­el­ing task, she waits for the next con­tender. Many humans don’t hold them­selves in such esteem.

I also love how the whales are monog­a­mous.  They stay with each other forever.

When a baby is learn­ing how to walk and falls in the process, that baby auto­mat­i­cally gets back up and tries again.  That instinct is some­thing that many of us sup­press when we get older, with, “I can’t,” or, “It’s too hard”. Watch­ing babies learn how to walk should be stud­ied in classrooms.

I could go on and on, but why should I?  Make it a point to study nature your­self, and I guar­an­tee you, you’ll never get enough of fig­ur­ing out what you need to know about us as humans.