A extraordinarily thing happened the other day. Lots of teaching and pointing out things with my son about animals and life. He loves animals. A huge understatement. He has learned so many different animals in both Chinese and English.
He has amazed my wife and I about what he remembers sometimes. All the books he ever wants me to read has to include dinosaurs or farm animals. And going about a post I made not too long ago about visiting a far. Learning to appreciate these gentle souls.
My wife was pointing how a baby chicken came from an egg. It was nothing in particular from what we show or tell him. Something he often sees on TV or YouTube. We didn’t think anything of it and why should we.
The next day my wife asked my me to cook an egg for him to eat. When I brought out the egg to cook my son pointed to it and said not to eat it. He kept going “baby chicken” and pointing to the egg. Followed up by “baby owwwww”. He did not want to harm the baby chicken
Now some may write this off as a cute moment. But it nearly made me cry in the compassion my son had. He is only 3 and a half years old. Doesn’t know the entirety of what life is, where it came from, or what happens afterwards. But in his world and which others should learn from. The fact he knows he eats thag egg, it will have in turn inflicted pain on the baby chicken. It is a monumental point that it happened.
It shows how at the littlest of people and simplest understanding of life. That to cause pain to another animal is not good. And others might say yes that is true. But we do it everyday. People eating meat do inflict pain every bite.
My sweet boy can understand. And that’s what might be missing. That most people don’t see the pain inflicted anymore. The death and despair. Since its blocked and not shown on the product label. It comes in plastic package at a store not resembling anything of a life. Its easy to not think about it. The guts and blood resulting for our appetite for meat. Lets remember the truth. Pain and suffering is there. You just don’t want to see it. Learn from a child. Its not good. Simple as that.