Last October, New York State for the first time held a three-day season for 14- and 15-year-olds to use guns to hunt deer. The State Department of Environmental Conservation had proposed the Youth Firearms Deer Hunt as a way to engage more young people in nature and outdoor recreation and to protect against deer overpopulation. The number of hunting licenses sold in New York has fallen by about one-quarter since peaking in the 1980s, the department said.

I wasn’t raised around guns and I’ve never fired one in my life. So when I read about the initiative, I wondered what might go through the mind of a kid on his first big-game hunt. I didn’t understand how someone could hand a 15-year-old a gun and say, “Now go kill something.”

The Cioccaris, the family I followed in this Op-Doc video, helped answer that question. For them, hunting is about self-sustenance and understanding where food comes from in the age of Food Inc. Hunting is about sitting around the dinner table and telling stories after a long day together in the cold. And it’s about how we often want to honor our parents by being more like them.