We’re a hunting family. My 3-year-old daughter’s favorite color is camo. She owns more toy rifles than baby dolls, and when asked if she wanted to go to Chuck E. Cheese for her birthday, she excitedly asked if we could go to Bass Pro Shops instead.

In my house, we have a healthy respect for the outdoors and the game that we hunt, and it came as no surprise to me one morning on the way to daycare when Mag’s little voice chimed out from the backseat, “Mommy, why do we shoot deer and bear and turkeys?”

What a question!

I thought for a second, scrambling for a way to turn this into some kind of deep spiritual learning experience for her impressionable young mind. What I came up with was, “Well honey, God gave us all the animals to hunt and eat for food.”

I had no time to congratulate myself on the wisdom of my brilliant answer, because Mag dropped this little bomb on me in response: “Well, Miss Cynthia [her daycare teacher] says God doesn’t like us to hurt animals!”

I wish I could say I had a well-thought-out response ready and delivered it in a calm manner, but I was too dumbfounded. I stuttered out a vague correction and then pulled into the daycare parking lot and let the subject drop — for now.

I haven’t talked to the teacher yet, and I don’t know if I will. But the incident did get me to thinking about how many influences our kids face every day, in places (like a church-sponsored daycare) where you’d least expect it. A little research even turned up a section of the Humane Society’s Web site that gives resources to teachers and educators to push the animal-rights agenda in their classrooms.

The antis are starting ’em young!

I’m not worried about my child; she gets enough exposure to the outdoors, hunting, trapping and wild game meat at home that the anti-hunting outside influences won’t phase her much. What I worry more about are the “neutral” kids who aren’t taught one way or the other at home, and are easily swayed to the animal-rights side and turn into sullen, vegetarian teenagers and then tree-hugging, save-the-polar-bear adults.

You don’t need me to tell you that it’s becoming more and more of a challenge to keep our hunting traditions alive these days. So take a kid hunting or fishing or camping. Support organizations like the National Bowhunter Education Foundation (www.nbef.org) and the National Archery in the Schools Program (www.nasparchery.com). Find a way to educate the next generation that animals are to be respected, but that they are not humans and do not have the same rights.

The good news on the daycare situation: I stopped in for a visit a few weeks later during snack time — venison nachos!