What do we have in common?

[vava]

I am wondering what we all have in common apart from being vegan.

I remember when I was a kid - about 5 years - seeing a worm in the middle of a step my mum was going to walk on - I said stop and moved the worm and lovingly put it back where it was after she had gone up the steps.

Is this behaviour common to all children and then is is trained out of them? Do you all have similar experiences of having deep feelings towards animals when you were young?

Do we have some genetic disposition towards animal welfare and others have genetic dispositions towards human welfare etc. Tis all v puzzling to me. :dizzy:

[cobweb]

I sometimes wonder, too, vava - i used to think i was 'normal' for caring for animals so much, then one day it dawned on me that it's probably more 'normal' to care more for humans (as we are humans! :D).

It's not that i don't care about humans, but somehow it comes naturally to me to know how to 'talk' to animals, and what they need. I'm a great animal carer but not always so good with humans. I find that quite puzzling, too, especially when my brother, for instance, says he can't really empathise with animals. Hmm.........:satisfied:

There again, there are vegans who don't necessarily connect well with animals, aren't there? :confused:.

Confusing.

I like to think it's something to do with past lives, or purpose in life, something like that.

[Linxie]

I have always been animal mad right from a young age. I have never felt much of a connection towards children. And I have friends who are children mad and can't stand animals.

I'd be interested to know where this all comes from. I think it is definitely something I was born with. But my parents and sister are not really into animals or animals welfare at all.

I also think on the whole people that who are vegetarian/vegan/animal lovers are sensitive souls :)

[green woman]

I was concerned about animals from a very young age and remember wanting to be vegetarian but wasn't allowed to. I used to get very upset when I saw kids pulling wings off flies and cutting up worms etc or hearing about animal cruelty. I'm equally sensitive to human suffering.

[puffin]

I was brought up with animals, we always had a cat, dog, bird, or fish. My dad used to work in a glass factory and he made this giant tank and i used to spend ages looking at the fish. (it once leaked but that is a different story).
So yes i guess i have always loved animals.
I have a friend whos son stamps on snails because they eat his veggie patch :amazed_ani: i would go mental if my son tried to do anything like that. When i was around hers in the summer i showed her other son the bees around the lavender and one landed on the floor and he said "stamp stamp" i quickly dragged him away before he stuck his foot on the poor thing. So not all children have a caring nature towards animals.

[Gorilla]

no, i agree that some children seem to have an inherent cruel streak towards animals :undecided:

[horselesspaul]

I was pretty hideous to insects as a child, but kind enough to people..
We can all change.

[Gorilla]

of course people can change, :) i was considering vava's idea that caring for animals is an inherent trait in children that gets taught out of them. in some children's cases i think the opposite is true. but all kids are different.

[horselesspaul]

My two liner was a general comment about me Gorilla x (It's all about me..).
I was super nice to dogs, cats, rabbits, horses as a child but never saw insects as fellow beings until much later. I am a bit weird, however, innit.

[vava]

I am a bit weird, however, innit.

Narna comes to mind:o

[horselesspaul]

No doubt.
x

[Sluggie]

I don't have much of an affinity with animals (never kept any as pets, never wanted any). I don't think you need to be an animal lover to deplore cruelty towards them.

[vava]

I don't have much of an affinity with animals (never kept any as pets, never wanted any). I don't think you need to be an animal lover to deplore cruelty towards them.
is the way you feel about cruelty to animals the same or different to cruelty to humans Sluggie - nosey me:o

[Cherry]

Is this behaviour common to all children and then is is trained out of them? Do you all have similar experiences of having deep feelings towards animals when you were young? :

I feel that it is all mostly learned behaviour.

I think the 'stamp stamp' behaviour of children is usually learned from watching and copying adults. I remember stopping my nephew from stamping on woodlice but he was just copying his parents, who killed slugs in that way in their garden.

I've always been massively interested in 'life'.My parents tell me about when I was in my pram and used to pat the flowers in the garden, and when I was 3 I was fascinated by the giant snails in France and was once found arranging them into groups! :o (Hopefully they didn't mind too much!)

It seems reasonable to suggest that it's more likely that people who like nature make steps towards vegetarianism/veganism.

[Stu]

Haha, a child patting flowers sounds like the cutest thing ever!

I agree with what you said Cherry. Chiddlers learn through imitation. It makes sense in terms of growing up. We watch our parents, older siblings etc and copy them for two reasons:
1) to seek their approval, and more singnificantly
2) because we judge their behaviours to be functional (otherwise they wouldn't have them).

[Bunny]

This is a very interesting thread! :)

I have always liked animals a lot. I was never cruel to insects - I was frightened of a lot of them ;) . I can remember making a home for a wasp in a toothpaste box and being very sad when it died the next day anyway.

I am also very empathetic towards humans. I am often called a "do-gooder bleeding heart" (as if it's a bad thing) because I try to see the good in everyone. If I ever hear of a car crash or anything where people have been hurt/killed I find it very hard to forget about it. I will brood over it and feel terrible for a long time.

I have always been like this as far as I can remember. I have always felt things very deeply and always seen every side of a story. It makes for a difficult and sometimes painful life! :P

[Bunny]

Oh, I forgot to add... I have three children and although they are not vegan or even totally veggie (father problems), they have an inherent respect for all life. I teach them about things like that by trying to get them to think about their actions. I recently rescued two guinea pigs and the children are fully aware that they are not play things and have been so gentle and respectful towards them. They are only young (the children, not the piggies) and I think they are doing well. :)

[cobweb]

what i think is fascinating is that 2 children in the same family can be so different, so i don't think it can be all down to 'learned behaviour'.

there's only a year between my brother and i but we are quite different. I remember getting really upset as a child if i found a dead Bee, and i was always drawn towards animals, whereas my brother was always a little wary of them.

eta; i will never forget a little boy who came to pay at our house (a friend of my son's at the time), when he went into the garden he went over to Buster, our Rabbit, and smacked him! :amazed_ani:. It was only after i saw a glimpse of his home life that i realised he thought this is what bigger people did to smaller ones :mad:. Actually, posting that has made me feel extremely sad.

[Bunny]

eta; i will never forget a little boy who came to pay at our house (a friend of my son's at the time), when he went into the garden he went over to Buster, our Rabbit, and smacked him! :amazed_ani:. It was only after i saw a glimpse of his home life that i realised he thought this is what bigger people did to smaller ones :mad:. Actually, posting that has made me feel extremely sad.


And me :( . I teach, and the home lives of some of the worst behaved children are so bad, you can't help but give them a bit of leeway.

[cobweb]

It makes your heart bleed for them, doesn't it, Bunny? :(. This boy, when he came into our house, he saw the fruit bowl and went over to it, all excited. He said "is that fruit real?". He couldn't believe when i said he could pick whatever he liked from it, bless him. Someone told me later that his mum used to send him to school with a packet of sweets to eat on the way for his 'breakfast'. That makes me so mad, i bet it would have been cheaper to buy him a banana :sad:.

[Bunny]

It makes me mad too! (Perhaps this is what we all have in common?!) My eldest girl (age 7) asked me to put extra in her lunch box as there was a little girl who came in to school with only one slice of bread. It was one of those difficult things - on the one hand I wanted to encourage such fantastic behaviour, on the other hand I can't afford to feed more than my own three!

When I go to Aldi (cheap Alpro desserts!) I often see people with trolleys full of crisps, sweets and crap, all moaning about how much food costs. Food?!!!!

[cobweb]

you know i think we've got it, Bunny, perhaps what all vegans have in common is the justice thing - wanting things to be 'just' and right, and caring when they're not.

[Sluggie]

is the way you feel about cruelty to animals the same or different to cruelty to humans Sluggie - nosey me:o
Pretty much the same, I would say, although I probably have a slightly stronger emotional reaction towards human victims, especially children. My feelings towards the perpetrator would be no different if the victim was human or animal.

[mariana]

I also remember being really upset as a child when people tried to kill bugs. I remember once my friend was over playing in the yard with me and she wanted to kill the ants on the sidewalk and I got very upset and started crying but finally was able to convince her not to. I also remember fighting with my dad quite a bit because I was scared of spiders when I was little and so I asked him to take them out of the house and not kill them and he always wanted to squish them. Sometimes we'd fight for an hour but in the end I'd always win...seems he could have saved a lot of time by just taking them outside when I first asked!

Bunny, I know what you mean...sometimes if I hear bad news about a crash or attack or something it takes a long time to get over it...makes it hard to read the news sometimes.

This is a very interesting thread! :)

I have always liked animals a lot. I was never cruel to insects - I was frightened of a lot of them ;) . I can remember making a home for a wasp in a toothpaste box and being very sad when it died the next day anyway.

I am also very empathetic towards humans. I am often called a "do-gooder bleeding heart" (as if it's a bad thing) because I try to see the good in everyone. If I ever hear of a car crash or anything where people have been hurt/killed I find it very hard to forget about it. I will brood over it and feel terrible for a long time.

I have always been like this as far as I can remember. I have always felt things very deeply and always seen every side of a story. It makes for a difficult and sometimes painful life! :P

[BlackCats]

I was always very sensitive as a child and got upset really easily about anything horrible I saw on TV like an animal being hurt in a film or something. When I was a child I remember seeing a bit of the film Platoon where the soldiers went into the village and shot the pig and feeling so ill and upset (although I wasn't vegetarian until I was 17.)

I always get so angry and sad whenever I read anything about abuse to animals or children. I was with my friend the other day and she was talking about her neighbour who is in her forties but has the mental age of a 12 year old and she says 'I love you' when she says goodbye to my friend on the phone and it made me feel so upset.:o:( I also get really sad if I see an older person on their own and I wonder if they are very lonely. I just am very sensitive to most things and it bothers me that I am, I would like to be more detached. I also don't like appearing that way to my omni friends as I would like to appear more scientific about why I am vegan, for the environmental and health reasons. I don't like giving the impression that I'm vegan because I love cats and I don't want to eat and abuse animals because they are cute.:rolleyes: