NADLER: When cruelty wears a child’s face
SAVED
Sheryl Nadler,Special to the Hamilton Spectator
Carter the injured pigeon in his temporary home after being rescued.
Hamilton Spectator
BySheryl Nadler
Yesterday, I watched a video of a beagle-type dog pushing a smaller beagle-type dog down the street in a child-sized grocery cart and I thought to myself: Yes. The world needs more of this. Obviously.
The world needs more awesome videos of dog-helping-dog-get-around, more videos of awesome dogs wearing sunglasses, more awesome dog videos of dogs being awesome, period. Cat videos are fine, I suppose, but I think we can all agree the dog videos are far superior. I don't want to start a species war, so let's just leave it at that.
And the world needs less? Man-getting-stabbed-in-the-face in my neighbourhood, as was reported by CH a couple of days ago. Not that I want anyone to get stabbed anywhere else, mind you. I'm just pointing out that this particular incident reportedly happened in my neck of the woods, literally hitting a little too close to home.
Know what else hit too close to home? The pack of neighbourhood kids who, (under the watch of their parents, no less) caught a helpless pigeon, breaking its wing and nearly killing it, a couple of weeks ago. Think they might benefit from watching one or two videos that humanize animals?
I caught the tail end of this show a couple of weeks ago in a park in my hood. At first I couldn't believe it was happening. One kid was screaming, "I want to kill it!" while the others helped to coral the poor, flightless bird. As I stepped toward them, the main perpetrator, a boy of about seven or eight, was called away by an adult who had been sitting on a nearby bench watching the whole incident. They promptly left the park and the other kids were called to a nearby stoop for a timeout.
But the damage had been done. I sat next to the pigeon, whose wing was obviously broken and whose feathers had been plucked. And I looked across the street at the kids who seemed perfectly sullen at being pulled out of the park. Then I marched across the street, said hello to their parents, and tore a strip off the kids.
It's really not my style, yelling at kids. But their protests — it wasn't their fault, they didn't do anything, yadayadayada — just confirmed what I already knew: they had no idea what they'd done or the consequences of their actions. They were sitting there, stewing about how unfair it was to be pulled away from the fun park. Not because they'd injured a helpless animal, leaving it to die.
The father obviously gave it to me for giving it to his kids. Because when it comes to raising children, only the parent is allowed to decide what their kid shall deem right or wrong. Society has no say, right? And he didn't even know that I don't have kids. Because if he had, you know I most certainly would not be allowed to have an opinion on the matter. I don't have kids, therefore I don't understand. I only hear that 17 times a week.
Know what I do understand? That when I told friends (who live in Hamilton, by the way) about the parents' reaction (because it really is the parents' reaction to this that is most appalling), their response was, "Bah! Hamilton!"
So I ask you, Hamilton … is this OK with you? To have this reputation? Do we put the self-esteem of every child before the greater good of society? Is this OK?
As for the pigeon, thankfully, the wildlife rehabilitators at the Askey Animal Hospital in Burlington were able to take it in and, at last check, were mending it back to health.
And the kids? Who knows?
Sheryl@sherylnadler.com
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