With one picture, a friend reminded me of my barely concealed longing for a horse when he sent this to me. Oh, cruel, wicked friend!
Oddly, that kid looks a lot like I did when I was young and cute (yes, I had freckles when I was a wee one).
But this picture makes me wonder what is it about girls and horses? about boys and dogs? Is this nearly universal, or do we only see this in America? Is this a recent phenomenon (within the previous 50 years or so)?
I do have my hypotheses regarding the girl-horse/boy-dog topics, but I was wondering what you all think.
- Log in to post comments
Must... resist... bait...
Aw what the hell. You KNOW you're cuter now, grr'sci'. Don't give us that malarkey.
Ok, cutie, just think of all the stall mucking you have missed. You also have missed knee biting and toe stomping.
Now, life is fair! For the pony :-P
I think it has to do with the empathy that a horse has, as well as the opportunity to be tall, fast, and beautiful. Owning a horse is also a serious adult responsibility, and young people need to be needed.
Here is a link to Arizona State's therapeutic riding program, where they have found working horses to be the best intervention for kids with ADD and emotional disorders:http://researchmag.asu.edu/stories/horse.html.
I suspect that humans are hardwired for interaction with our companion animals. To be without animals is to be, somehow, less human.
I don't think I was ever particularly interested in dogs. Birds, though, are another story.
I grew up with both, began riding when I was three or four years old. I'm a hetero female and I love dogs, could take or leave horses. Look at children's lit: Girls have horses, boys have dogs. We're indoctrinated from our earliest years.
I'm convinced that my best wild bird interactions have been because I've been out walking with my dogs. I think birds are very curious when they see a human walking with dogs.
When I was a lass, I was way into horses. Nobody's ever asked me why before. I remember why: horses combined beauty and power. By combinging beauty and power, horses represented a combination of two things which girls (and women) are often told by our society that they must choose between.
That was what was so enthralling about them. These enormous, powerful beasts that were tame enough to be ridden, so you could make their power and beauty your own, or so the fantasy went. They were the mounts of warriors and as beautiful as a ballerina.
For me, being a girl was about powerlessness: female+small+notpretty. The fantasy of having a horse was the fantasy of possessing the traits I wanted for myself.
My daughter doesn't give a damn about horses. Or dogs. Actually both kind of scare her. What she REALLY REALLY wants is a kitten. Really. It's all kitties, all the time over here... we can't have one because my wife is allergic and our landlord doesn't allow them. Oh well.