AMERICAN HUNTER
Before the kids came along, Executive Editor Adam Heggenstaller’s wife was an avid hunter. He wasn’t sure they would ever hunt together again, until she uttered the words, “Think we could hunt turkeys next week?” Find out what happened.
By Adam Heggenstaller (RSS) – March 31, 2014
The new shotgun had leaned in the back of the safe unfired for three years. I had given it to my wife, Kristen, for Christmas just before she became pregnant with our first child. In the weeks that followed we talked about shooting clays and hunting ducks and killing turkeys.
But priorities change. Two kids in two years saw to that. Now conversations revolved around diapers instead of decoys, and although many mornings we were wide awake long before dawn, we greeted the sun with our backs against a rocking chair rather than a red oak. I still managed to find time to hunt amid the whirlwind, but in Kristen’s mind the responsibilities of motherhood ruled out forays into the field.
That bothered me a little. Kristen was a great mother, but she was also an avid hunter—or at least she was before the kids came along. Her choice to stay at home instead of occasionally joining me in the woods, even when grandparents were quick to volunteer for babysitting, made me worry she was losing interest. Would we ever hunt together again?