conuly

Here, people will let their kids chase the pigeons in the town center, or scream at them or try and stomp on them. I despise that. The pigeons are usually fast enough to get away anyway but I wonder what this teaches the child about respecting life?

I used to have a neighbor (we shared a wall and a yard) who claimed that her son was exquisitely sensitive to suffering from all life forms because he'd apparently screamed about blood once when trees were being cut down.

This "exquisitely sensitive" son tormented my cat any time he saw her. He had no respect for her at all in any form.

His mother's response was "I can't make him care." She ignored the fact that she and his father made disparaging and dehumanizing (defelinizing?) remarks about my cat every time they saw her. And she ignored the fact that it might be part of a parent's job to make sure their children aren't running around harming animals. I'm not even talking about "tried and failed" here, this was an "I'm not even going to bother trying" situation.

My cat now has a permanent fear of children, knows the word for "kitty" in two languages, and will run far in the opposite direction if she hears it.