I (Jack) TOTALLY dig sharks! I think they're amazing creatures. Because of that, and because Elijah is equally fascinated by them, we talk about them a lot. Usually, we talk about their predatory capabilities... you know, their ability to hunt and track struggling prey over miles of water, the design of their bodies which requires that they keep moving to breathe, their placoid scale "armor", their total lack of body fat, their electromagnetic receptor "pits" in their noses and nicotating eyelids that protect and guide them the last few instances before they take a lethal bite out of something, and, of course, the power behind their fearsome bites that make them for good reason the single most unchallenged predators in the oceans. 
But for some reason, this morning, Elijah (while watching Finding Nemo for the "n"th time) asked about how sharks "marry" each other and have families. I explained that with most sharks, the males don't stick around after courtship. In fact, i explained, most of the time, the males leave shortly after they meet the females and do not help to care for the young at all. Elijah was incredulous. "You mean... they don't help the mommies to take care of the babies at all?!?!?" "Nope... in fact, God programmed them to leave because many male sharks would probably eat their young if they stuck around." He folded his little arms and with a very indignant expression on his face, pointed at me and said, "Well! I think that they means that they are BAD FATHERS!!! How dare they just leave like that!" I agreed. Even apex predators don't get off the hook (pun intended) on this one.
From the mouths of babes, eh?
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