Animal Rights

"C'mon, princess, you're not that ugly. All right, you are ugly. But you're only like this at night. Shrek's ugly 24/7. "
-Donkey, from Shrek

Since it's a holiday weekend, there's about a gazillion small children running around at my grandparents' home. Today, when I stopped by, the rugrats swarmed me, all of them crying out, "Simon, come outside! We have to show you something!"

Outside, in a five gallon bucket, they'd managed to contain what looked something like a grey dust bunny. When I looked closely, I noticed two tiny ears and a tail. They'd "rescued" a mouse from a neighborhood cat.

My first reaction: "Whoever touched it, wash your hands NOW." My next thought: How do I humanely kill this thing without breaking the hearts of the five or six children surrounding me?

I instructed them to leave the mouse in the bucket WITHOUT TOUCHING IT. Then I told Grampo and my aunts, their mothers, about the find in the backyard. Then I went home. Not my kids, not my problem.

Despite my daring escape, I was left feeling a bit silly and somewhat mean. While I was trying to come up with a way to kill the damn thing, the kids reacted with such sympathy. "Let it go!" they cried. "Let's build it a fort!" one said. One of them even snuck some Cheez Whiz from the fridge to feed the little guy.

To them, this was like a dog or a cat rather than vermin. Perhaps they saw it as almost human, like a Disney film, while I saw disease and creepy crawlies.

Once again, as in my "Yes, Virginia" post, I'm left stunned and in awe at children's perspectives."