Dinosaurs: The Education of a Grandma

Another Way for week of October 29, 2021

Dinosaurs: The Education of a Grandma

Do your children or grandchildren love dinosaurs? Or maybe you are also fascinated with those ancient creatures?

Our five grandsons have a love affair with dinosaurs. They have dozens of play dinosaur creatures and books, and know the names and how to pronounce and spell some of them! The oldest of these boys is just-turned-eight and the youngest is three.

Grandma knows very little about dinosaurs. What I do know, I’ve learned in just the last couple years. My boys have gotten a kick out of quizzing me about the dinosaur names they know and I came up with a cheat sheet to help me remember the Ptero something or other, the Velociraptors, and more. Some are the scientific names (italicized).

Personally, I never cared much for the monstrous creatures. They seemed to me like creatures out of bad dreams or the scary Halloween costumes you may be seeing this weekend. Dolls and teddy bears were more to my liking, and my daughters largely felt the same way.

I think my first real introduction to dinosaurs as a child, was at the Field Museum in Chicago, Illinois. We went there on a sixth grade field trip. The Chicago museum was named for a business magnet of the day who was the major museum benefactor: Marshall Field (also had a department store that became Macy’s). The museum was established in the 1890s, about the time my grandmother was born. One hundred years ago it moved to its current location in May 1921, where “crowds lined up for miles to visit the Field Museum on opening day” according to FieldMuseum.org.

That museum eventually became home for “Sue,” the “largest and most complete Tyrannosaurus rex ever discovered.” She was found by a woman named Sue in South Dakota, and added to the Chicago collection of dinosaurs in 2000. I’ve never seen it. I do remember seeing a creature now called Gorgeous George (now that I can say and remember). From 1956 to 1992, a cousin of T. rex called Daspletosaurus (or as it was known at the time, Gorgosaurus) was the Field Museum’s dinosaur centerpiece. (More at https://www.fieldmuseum.org/blog/sue-t-rex-there-was-gorgeous-george )

Our grandsons talk about the Ankylosaurus, Brachiosaurus, Stegosaurus, Triceratops,  Tyrannosaurus, Diplodocus and Pterodactylus (which they will be quick to remind you was a winged reptile, not a dino) to name only a small fraction of their favorites. They talk about plant eaters, meat eaters, (some as small as a chicken) and omnivores, or will tell you the region where a particular species lived and what it ate. I’m told that crocodiles are a remnant of the dinosaur periods. Two of my grandsons have become “dino snobs,” as their mother calls them, looking down on their three-year-old brother for loving a simple T-Rex when there are more obscure dinos, like Rugops.

Why are these creatures so endlessly fascinating to children? My grandsons check out every book in the library they can find on the subject, and have practically memorized entire sections of their dinosaur books at home. My oldest daughter says she and her husband are sick of “dinosaur talk” (and arguments) taking over dinner and just about any family outing. But as a stranger at a playground recently pointed out to her, having a passion for a subject is a great thing in kids. It inspires them to read, research, and learn more.

I think as a child I was taught that dinosaurs couldn’t possibly have lived on earth millions of years ago, and so I thought of them as silly and impossible. Many Christians at that time thought the world wasn’t older than 5000 years at most. The paleontologists who have dug up bones and pieced together huge dinosaurs and studied the planet’s history have showed me that our God and Creator is truly as big and amazing as the universe. We know so, so little of this vast universe, created by God over eons. Like many other questions we have, we can leave them in God’s hands, who reigns in unimagined realms.

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Do your kiddos have this fascination/addiction/love affair?

If not dinos, what with? I’m all ears. Or perhaps beaks, teeth, scary eyes!

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Another Way is a column by Melodie Davis, in syndication since 1987. She is the author of nine books. Another Way columns are posted at FindingHarmonyBlog.com a week after newspaper publication.