Parents: How Would You React?

[catzmeow]

My dad always cleaned game birds at the sink in our garage. I frequently came home from school to see pheasant breasts or whole quail soaking in saltwater brine, as well. And, by the time I was 12, I could clean a fish myself. It is kind of a fascinating thing. And, when you grow up close to your food, you certainly appreciate how good fresh food tastes in comparison to the factory processed dreck sold at grocery stores.

I'm abbynormal, aren't I?

 

[Ropey]

My dad always cleaned game birds at the sink in our garage. I frequently came home from school to see pheasant breasts or whole quail soaking in saltwater brine, as well. And, by the time I was 12, I could clean a fish myself. It is kind of a fascinating thing. And, when you grow up close to your food, you certainly appreciate how good fresh food tastes in comparison to the factory processed dreck sold at grocery stores.

I'm abbynormal, aren't I?

Hopefully you teach your kids these valuable and enjoyable things.

I was filleting my own fish, snaring and helping trap by 12 Now there's a school where we used to setup our snare lines. Not that it matters as there's just more bush (ready for setting lines) back of it. Pickerel filleted and tossed in buttered/onion tinfoil above the coals is one of the best tastes I can remember.

Well, until I go back to visit that is.

 

[Againsheila]

Look , children who mutilate animals dont turn out very well.

It was not your choice to teach them how to mutilate an animal

He was not teaching them how to mutilate an animal. He was teaching them how to skin an animal and get it ready for cooking.

One of the guys around here had a turkey in their backyard. Some idiot from the city showed up and told them they couldn't have a turkey as it was against the city rules. The guy answered by grabbing the turkey and breaking it's neck. The city worker was shocked...he said, "Well, if I can't have it as a pet, I might as well eat it."

Me I would like some chickens, but get this, you can have up to 3 chickens in this city but only if you also have a cat AND a dog....stupid rules if you ask me.

 

[bayoubill]

Could you explain where I "politicized" the event in my OP?

"I followed that by asking them if they knew where the meat they ate came from. They were unsure. I informed them it most likely came from a farm via an abbatoir, and I didn't pull any punches. I told them how the meat they saw on their table was killed and processed."

"After they'd gone inside she approached the fence and informed me that it's irresponsible to expose children to the stark reality of how meat ends-up on their table. I told her she was being absurd and it was genuinely irresponsible to shield children from the facts, however grissly."

"I kind of expected a reaction from our neighbours over what had transpired and I was proven right."

"Now, I realised what I'd done would provoke a reaction of sorts, and I affirmed that I believed what their kids had seen was a positive experience. To their credit they were polite, but replied with equal conviction that they believed it was innapropriate, although by then I was growing irritable at their naivity."

"meat comes from a little plastic tray wrapped in polythene. And should we allow that way of thinking/naivity to continue by 'protecting' them from the ugly facts/reality. I say that it should be impressed upon them from infancy how the meat they enjoy arrives on their table."

None of what you've quoted me on betrays any sign of political bias, whatsoever. When speaking to the children who'd approached me at their own leisure they weren't exposed to any political aganda or persuassion, just a short instruction as to how game and livestock are processed before they reach the table. Objections to methods of animal husbandry and meat processing come from both sides. There's no case to answer here.

I don't buy your attempt at insisting you took the high road...

you inserted your opinion on the issue by launching, unbidden, into a description of domestic meat production, in order to make a pointed contrast to your description of hunting for game...

inserting your opinion in such way does indeed politicize the issue...

you could have and should have simply stuck to your description of hunting for game...

 

[bayoubill]

Look , children who mutilate animals dont turn out very well.

It was not your choice to teach them how to mutilate an animal

I must say that, after having seen scores of dumb-shit motherfuckers talk outta their asses...

you certainly have a most eloquent anus...

 

[Truthmatters]

Look I know you think you are being all freedomy and shit but listen for a damned minute.


Children who are raised with hunting absorb this information slowly and by increments they can understand.


He took children he DID NOT KNOW VERY WELL and exposed them to concepts all at once that will be SEARED into their brains now.

This type of incident ALL AT ONCE can cause TOO much of an impression on a young child and TRIGGER a fascination with death and dismemberment.


That is a VERY serious thing to do to a child.


He may have just created a LFETIME problem for one of these children.

not even kids are more important than their right wing positions.

Parental rights mean nothing to them if they dont comport with their poltical views

 

[Rat in the Hat]

Look I know you think you are being all freedomy and shit but listen for a damned minute.


Children who are raised with hunting absorb this information slowly and by increments they can understand.


He took children he DID NOT KNOW VERY WELL and exposed them to concepts all at once that will be SEARED into their brains now.

This type of incident ALL AT ONCE can cause TOO much of an impression on a young child and TRIGGER a fascination with death and dismemberment.


That is a VERY serious thing to do to a child.


He may have just created a LFETIME problem for one of these children.

not even kids are more important than their right wing positions.

Parental rights mean nothing to them if they dont comport with their poltical views

You know, I've asked you this a thousand times, but maybe you'll answer for once.

What does "poltical" mean??

 

[Wry Catcher]

Let's change a little bit of the story. Let's assume instead of cleaning rabbits he was hanging to dry developed photographs of sexual acts he had shot during the day. Let's assume the children were curious and he explained how this is how they were created, pointing to a picture of a women being penetrated by a man. Then he showed them pictures of men engaging in cunnilingus and a women performing fellatio and explained these were ways their mommy and daddy played together.

Would this be okay for him to do?

 

[CrusaderFrank]

I'd move

 

[Rat in the Hat]

Let's change a little bit of the story. Let's assume instead of cleaning rabbits he was hanging to dry developed photographs of sexual acts he had shot during the day. Let's assume the children were curious and he explained how this is how they were created, pointing to a picture of a women being penetrated by a man. Then he showed them pictures of men engaging in cunnilingus and a women performing fellatio and explained these were ways their mommy and daddy played together.

Would this be okay for him to do?

In your scenario, the kids would have to enter his house without his knowledge or permission, and wander around until they found his darkroom. I think Swagger would have kicked them out instead of talk to them, then would have been the one to go visit their parents.

 

[UpAndAbout]

Those kids will be retelling that story to their own kids one day. Sounds like a terrific "teachable moment". Good for you.

Thanks, I'm glad you agree. Sadly some folk don't.

When I was in first grade I was babysat by an older couple (older than my mother at any rate) who had a small farm. i was witness to the shooting and butchering of a large pig one afternoon. I remember it like it was yesterday. I did not suffer any psychological damage from it. I remember thinking it was very interesting. I come from a family of farmers.

My daughter loves all animals and she loves meat and of course knows how it comes about. She just doesn't particularly want to SEE the animal killed, but sometimes it can't be avoided. A couple of years ago her neighbors across the street from her and her husband had a darling pig in a huge pen. She could see this pig jumping and playing, etc. Didn't think a thing about it. Until one day she noticed a large truck over there with somebody or other Slaughtering on the side of it. She knew then they have come for this pig. I reminded her as did her husband that she sure likes her bacon on the BLTs, etc., and sausage for breakfast. Well yes she did, but wishes she wouldn't have seen the pig playing so innocently is all. I KIND of agree. If we bought a calf to be raised for beef, I would NOT want to necessarily see it as a baby, would not name it, etc. Hunting in the wild of course you do not KNOW the animal ahead of time or raise it or feed it.

My grandmother had chickens. On more than one occasion as a child, I saw a headless one jumping around, who was to become our dinner. Nothing like fresh chicken.

 

[Big Fitz]

Then you should have sent them away.

THEY ARE NOT YOUR CHILDREN

Judas Priest, *****! then lock your children up till they're 26 and can be let out of their room if you don't want to let them learn about the uncomfortable realities of life! Better still, lobotomize them young lest they risk becoming something other than a brain dead zombie like yourself.



I need a drink. I just defended Swagger.

 

[bayoubill]

Let's change a little bit of the story. Let's assume instead of cleaning rabbits he was hanging to dry developed photographs of sexual acts he had shot during the day. Let's assume the children were curious and he explained how this is how they were created, pointing to a picture of a women being penetrated by a man. Then he showed them pictures of men engaging in cunnilingus and a women performing fellatio and explained these were ways their mommy and daddy played together.

Would this be okay for him to do?

the two scenarios are not nearly comparable by any stretch of the imagination...

but launching, as he did, into a detailed description of domestic meat production would compare to launching into a detailed description of the "birds and the bees"... both would be entirely inappropriate for an across-the-fence encounter with small children not his own...

 

[gallantwarrior]

Then you should have sent them away.

THEY ARE NOT YOUR CHILDREN

Judas Priest, *****! then lock your children up till they're 26 and can be let out of their room if you don't want to let them learn about the uncomfortable realities of life! Better still, lobotomize them young lest they risk becoming something other than a brain dead zombie like yourself.



I need a drink. I just defended Swagger.

Sounds like a good argument for retro-active abortions, when your children begin to recognize that the world is a very different place than the fairytale land you want them to think it is.

 

[Big Fitz]

Then you should have sent them away.

THEY ARE NOT YOUR CHILDREN

Judas Priest, *****! then lock your children up till they're 26 and can be let out of their room if you don't want to let them learn about the uncomfortable realities of life! Better still, lobotomize them young lest they risk becoming something other than a brain dead zombie like yourself.



I need a drink. I just defended Swagger.

Sounds like a good argument for retro-active abortions, when your children begin to recognize that the world is a very different place than the fairytale land you want them to think it is.

I'm sorry, I suffered a parity error or something. I cannot manage to make your statement link up to what I said. Or were you talking to truthiepoo?

 

[UpAndAbout]

Then you should have sent them away.

THEY ARE NOT YOUR CHILDREN

For Christ's sake he wasn't doing anything illegal. They should have been taught to mind their own damn business then. You'd have been okay if he was building a birdhouse or fixing the car, then huh? You DO realize that once upon a time that's how people GOT meat was by hunting it and every child had to know how to dress and clean it. YOU are making a mountain out of a molehill. Leave us and go entertain yourself with a chorus of "Kumbaya" or something.

 

[Mr.Nick]

Yesterday morning I took my .22 rimfire out to some local farmland where I have permission to shoot small game. I had a good day and brought back four pigeons and five rabbits. In the early evening next door's kids were playing in their garden while I was skinning and plucking what I'd shot. My neighbour's boundry is a flimsey trellis with vines woven through the woodwook. On the other side the children (all aged around 8-10) had noticed what I was doing and took an interest; though showed no sign of revulsion. They asked me if what I was skinning was real. At this point I realised this was an opportunity to impart valuable a lesson upon my young audience. I confirmed what I was handling was real and that I'd shot them. I followed that by asking them if they knew where the meat they ate came from. They were unsure. I informed them it most likely came from a farm via an abbatoir, and I didn't pull any punches. I told them how the meat they saw on their table was killed and processed. I also showed them the organs I'd removed from the carcasses. I then showed them the gun and how it works. They were enthralled. Towards the end of my ad-hoc lecture their childminder called them away. After they'd gone inside she approached the fence and informed me that it's irresponsible to expose children to the stark reality of how meat ends-up on their table. I told her she was being absurd and it was genuinely irresponsible to shield children from the facts, however grissly.

I kind of expected a reaction from our neighbours over what had transpired and I was proven right. At around 8 o'clock both parents knocked on our door. To cut a long story short they weren't overly objective to what their children had been told and seen, but said they'd prefer it if I'd send their curious kids away in future.

Now, I realised what I'd done would provoke a reaction of sorts, and I affirmed that I believed what their kids had seen was a positive experience. To their credit they were polite, but replied with equal conviction that they believed it was innapropriate, although by then I was growing irritable at their naivity. I reinforced my position by reminding them I was at liberty to do whatever I pleased within my own property as long as it's within the law: it isn't illegal to eviscerate a dead animal. We parted on civil terms. But this whole episode got me thinking over whether or not my neighnours' mentality presides among the majority: meat comes from a little plastic tray wrapped in polythene. And should we allow that way of thinking/naivity to continue by 'protecting' them from the ugly facts/reality. I say that it should be impressed upon them from infancy how the meat they enjoy arrives on their table. What about you?

Me and my buddy bagged a nice buck, my buddy lives on a busy main street and we cleaned it and carved it up in plain view of the street during rush hour traffic... Some people had some choice words..

It's funny because we were cutting the food up with a sawzall, chainsaw and knives...

I suppose I could see how butchering an animal could be difficult for some to watch happening but It is really nothing more than tasty food to me.

Humans love tasty meat - what can I say?

The hunt is fun and the food is great....

 

[Light]

I think he was totally within his rights in this situation. The children were curious as to what he was doing.......as most children would be. At the point where they came to him and started asking questions, that is the point where I think it was necessary to EXPLAIN what he was doing. Because of some of the comments made on this thread about "animal mutilation", it is important that he explain that he was cleaning and preparing the meat that he had just killed. Not mutilating an animal!! Those two things are indeed different and a child could very well think he was just cutting up some animal for the hell of it. The fact that he explains what he is doing and WHY he is doing it is important.
Explaining where meat comes from is not a political view or an opinion. Why shield a child from this fact of life? Is there any advantage for an 8-10 year child to separate chickens and cows from their chicken nuggets and cheeseburgers? NO! Children are a lot smarter and able to handle the truth better than some people on here seem to think.

 

[Marion Morrison]

As soon as I was old enough, I was tasked with running a grinder.