What Does God Call Our Children? 

The most common word for 'children' in our society today is the word 'kids'. However, is this a word that God has chosen to call our children? No. We don't see it anywhere in the Bible in relation to children. In fact, if you check the 1928 Webster's Dictionary you will not find this word for children. 'Kids' is a modern word which has been added in later years.

I have to confess that for a long time, I also used this word. I did not like the word and never felt that it was right, but I succumbed to the trend around me. Oh, how easy it is to do things just because everyone else is doing them, without thinking whether it is actually the best thing to do.

However, there came a time when I was challenged. A number of years ago I read an article about a sheep farmer in New Zealand. This farmer had diversified into raising goats as well as sheep and he noticed an interesting comparison. The ewes remained close to their lambs, watching them while they fed. He noticed however, that the goats would herd their young together in one spot on a knoll of a hill and leave them while they went off to forage for the day. They did not provide the same individual attention which the sheep gave to their offspring.

Inspiration clicked in my mind as I read this, but before I accepted it, I felt I should check out if it was really true. I asked my father who is an authority on sheep. He was the World Champion Sheep Shearer in his younger days and has shorn over a million sheep in his life time.

"Yes," he said, "Sheep will never go further than ear shot from the little lambs."

I was very challenged. Has 'kids' become the accepted word for children today because we have become a generation of 'goat mothers'? Instead of staying close to their lambs, thousands of mothers are dropping them off at nurseries and day care and going off to fulfill their own careers. This is 'goat mothering.' No wonder we call our children 'kids'!

THE CHARACTER OF GOATS

A lady in Australia, shared with me that she and her husband used to hunt wild goats for a living in out-back New SouthWales. She observed that in the face of danger the nanny goat would leave her little kids unprotected and run from danger to save herself. And yet the sheep, which is a docile animal, will protect its young. While walking around the ewes and lambs with my father in New Zealand a couple of years ago I noticed a little new-born lamb, struggling to its feet for the first time. I crept right up to it to get a picture. The mother ewe was scared of me and ran away a couple of yards, but because of her protective instinct over her lamb, she came right back to guard her baby, even though she was afraid! She was a protecting mother who would not leave her young.

Another thing this lady noticed was that the goats were cowards and would give up easily. When they caught the goats live, they would turn them over onto their backs. She said that the goats did not struggle. Their eight-year-old daughter was able to put her foot on the goat's neck and it waited until they came to tie it up.

A farmer's wife from New Zealand wrote to me, "Over many years we have raised lambs on our land and indeed the sheep are wonderful mothers. This year, for the first time, we had goats and baby kids. One Sunday, as we drove in the front gate we heard a loud bleating and stopped to check.

There, on top of the hill were young twins, brown and white and no mother anywhere at all. My eight year old son was very worried and kept going back to check. After two hours they were cold and getting weaker so we heated bricks, wrapped in newspaper, and went to warm them and prepare to feed these `orphans.' When we arrived, there to our amazement, was the mother, who was not dead, but had simply gone off to feed. She must have continued this neglect because not long after, the little white kid was taken by a fox." I'm sure we don't want to be classified as one of these goat mothers!

This is certainly not the kind of character we want to speak into our children either, is it? Do we really want them to be like 'kids'? We used to have a pet goat when we were children,and although we loved "Jilly" she was the biggest problem of our lives. We were always in trouble with neighbors as she would get into their gardens and eat their flowers, vegetables and trees -and their clothing hanging on the line! We weren't very popular! Goats by nature are independent, proud, rebellious, destructive and yet cowardly in the face of danger.