I know, what a weird title? I really didn’t know how else to describe our household. My thought was I am a hunter so naturally my kids will grow up with it and become hunters too right? Not so fast.

My name is Brian Bauer, my beautiful wife and I have three wonderful children. Sara "my anti hunter” age 11, Emma "my hunting partner” age 9, and Nicholas who is too young to determine his interests. I started hunting with my cousins Joe and Dave when I was 14. My father was never into hunting, but my cousins Joe and Dave were and they to get me started in hunting. As I have grown, I’ve learned to appreciate so much about hunting. The peaceful surroundings, clean fresh air, and the getaway from the 9 to 5 everyday life. These experiences are what I’ve always wanted to share with my kids. The harvesting of an animal is a bonus.

 

From the day Sara was born, she was always into animals. All of her toys were animals. She really had no interest in babies or dolls. Wherever we went that had animals, she was spending all of her time petting and playing with them. It was almost as if she was drawn to them and them to her. She loved animals. I love that about her. Vicki and I have always believed our kids can lead the way on what they are interested in. If they want to pursue something further like swimming, softball, band, and etc. well, then that's where we go. We wouldn’t pressure them into liking what we liked. I believe we do a good job introducing them to a lot of things, and they then take it from there. 

I wasn’t sure how Sara was going to feel about her dad being a hunter once she was old enough to understand. I love hunting and the outdoors so much and I feel like it’s my job to show her that hunters are not bad. I want to give her every opportunity to join in on the experience if she would like too. I wasn’t sure of the best way to introduce her to hunting. When I attended the Archery Trade show I even posed this very question to none other than Tiffany Lakosky looking for advice. She is a woman who is greatly respected in the hunting world, and I was hoping to gather all of the ideas I could. I received some advice that was very similar to what I was already doing.

 

Once the girls were old enough I decided to bring the girls along for some pre- season scouting. They loved it! The fresh air, birds chirping, and any wildlife we were lucky to come across. I was on the right track, they were beginning to see that there was so many more things that come with harvesting an animal. We also set up targets in the backyard where we shot BB guns and our bows. I got the girls their own bows and they love them. It is a great way for us to spend time together. 

As time went on, I saw that Sara was enjoying herself, however, she still had questions. The hardest question of all was "Daddy how can you take a life of an animal?" I explained that I feel bad every time I harvest an animal and that I respect that animal. I also said that I take the animals life to provide food for our family and it is not wasted. The first time I brought a deer home after a hunt she had a hard time with it. I was able to show her how we use the deer. I think she accepted it more but still didn’t like it. Emma on the other hand was all about it. Emma could not wait to go hunting with her dad. I’ve taken her a few times and we have a lot of fun. So far, we haven’t had the opportunity to harvest a deer, although we did have a buck come in one evening that got her heart racing. That to me is what it's all about.

 

My point of writing this article is to say it is ok if you don’t hunt. People that are not hunters may actually be raised by hunters. Follow where your heart takes you and be happy in life. We should all take time to understand each side of things. In the end, Sara accepts and respects the fact that I hunt, and I respect the fact she doesn’t. She still helps with my preseason scouting and I enjoy that a lot. We make time to shoot our bows in the backyard. It’s ok to be different, to be yourself, deep down Sara just isn't a hunter and that’s ok with me. I‘m proud of her for following her heart. There are so many other things we do together that we enjoy. In closing, in case you’re wondering, we tried fishing, she cried when I tried to hook a worm on the hook. We ended up using left over pizza. Happy Hunting!