BellaOnline Forums Relationships Married No Kids Love for Animals, Indifference to Children?

Which part?

I have 2 cats, always grew up with dogs that either my parents or grandparents had. I cannot bear seeing an animal in pain and I think that animal abuse is just horrific. I don't know how people can look at this innocent little animal and still go ahead and cross that line and hurt an animal. I get upset when I accidentally step on my cats tail! Animal abuse or hurt animals make my stomach sick

However, I also have a sensitivity to children. Even though I am not a parent, there is no way I could ever see a child hurt or in harm's way and turn a blind eye. This is a human being we are talking about. There are many kids I love, my twin god-daughters for example. I like when they visit (and I like when they go home!). I like spending time with them. If they get hurt or cry I hold them and sooth them. They are sometimes the most adorable little girls I want to just eat them up! I do not understand how people can abuse to be cruel to little kids either. It is just as sickening to me.

The kids on my street are always in the middle of the road. If I "saved" them, they'd go right back into the road afterwards!

Cindy

Child cruelty is sickening to me, too. My only point from the story was that I didn't want to hear about it anymore.

Perhaps I titled the post incorrectly, because it's not like I don't feel anything for children or that I could shrug it off if I saw one get hurt. God knows if I ever saw a parent beat a child, I'd become She-Ra in .4 seconds. I just wanted the BF to shut up about him killing off lizards.

I would definitely save the dog over the child.

I find nothing wrong with this.

Something that happened at work yesterday bothered me a lot. A coworker came in and said "Two of my dogs ran away, I'm down to just one now". (She also has two kids). We had heavy storms last week, and while the dogs were in the house during the storms, they were apparently a bit freaked out when she put them back in her yard and one dug out and the other followed. I asked her if they had collars with tags on (one did) and if they were microchipped (they weren't) and had she called the local pounds (she had called one, but she's near about three cities, so there are others she could call) had she put up "lost posters" (she hadn't). She was just so nonchalant about it. I couldn't believe it. I'd be frantic if my dogs were lost, and I'd be pounding the streets looking for them, not calmly coming to work. She kind of blames the dog for digging out and running away, this seems to happen a lot, but she won't keep the dogs inside when they're gone or take measures to prevent it. I just don't get it.

Cindy

I agree with Skeeter and Feebee--any animal or human who is innocent/vulnerable and gets abused, hurt, etc. breaks my heart. Although I generally have way more of a soft spot for animals I don't dislike children, but it does really annoy me the second I see a child, no matter how young, act bratty. So I'm much less inclined to save a brat over a cute little puppy or kitten!

I have a good friend who gets very upset when she hears about animals suffering or being mistreated. I think she would run off the road to avoid hitting a mouse! She would have hated hearing the lizard story.

Angela, could you help your boyfriend find some more environmentally friendly ways to get rid of the bugs? If the poor lizards are dying, imagine what it could be doing to him, or his neighbors while he's spraying that stuff? (Unless he's wearing a hazmat hood, he's breathing some of it in!)

Cindy

I think I'll do that, Cookie...I'll look up some stuff on the Internet today and shoot him an e-mail.

Of course, this morning, he called me and said he was able to go out on his back patio and not get bitten by one mosquito. Great, I thought, while secretly wishing a bird would have boo-booed on him in his moment of mosquito-free glory. He did mention, however, that he had heard about some mosquito-ridding devices that attach to a fence and that he would look into them.

If you couched that question in terms of "if a dog was drowning in the river" and "someone's kid is drowning in the river" and would I jump in and save them?

The dog - absolutely. The kid - er, probably not. I'd throw it a Berocca :-) I don't think I'd risk my life for something I didn't like.

If there was a hell, I'm sure I'd be going there for saying that. Parents are probably screaming "but someone would save your child!" Well, that's why I don't have any. So we won't ever be having this conversation...