I wonder what the child did take away from this experience.
She probably likes goats just as much as she did before, and humans a lot less.
And yeah, the mom probably didn’t do a very good job, here, but it’s not the mom who’s bearing the brunt of the suffering. And even if the girl did agree to what was going to happen in advance, she’s 9 years old, for crying out loud.
Not all of them get over it.
Don’t most farm families discourage the kids from naming the farm animals? And I think they also distinguish between the livestock (cows, goats, whatever) and the pets (dogs, cats, etc.).
Probably that you can eat a balanced vegetarian diet.
…not the Taliban. American. Very very American. And it doesn’t surprise me at all that this happened in the United States of America.
It depends; sometimes you’ll name a particularly clever hog or the bull stud (which, of course, you aren’t going to slaughter as long as he’s ‘producing’), but farm kids know what the ultimate fate of meat animals are going to be, and they don’t get too attached or affectionate toward them they way they might to a dog or donkey. However, it is clear that this girl was literally walking and caring for this animal like a pet, which is obviously not what the 4-H or fair officials intended, but again, there was an equitable way to deal with this situation that didn’t result in a 9 year old girl having her ‘pet’ taken by sheriff’s deputies for slaughter even if the mother in question was dilatory and negligent in anticipating and dealing with the situation.
Stranger
I agree that the fair officials could have and should have handled this differently. Yes, she shouldn’t have gotten as attached to the animal but given the situation, I agree that they could have just asked her mother to pay.
What seems un-American to you about this story?
The operative word in all this being child. This is a child. While IANAL, I have a vague sense that any contract a child might happen to enter into is voidable: a child does not have the legal capacity to agree to be bound. To the extent the mother might have agreed to be bound herself… so what? At base, this is a contract in which (1) a child is expected to do the work, (2) the ostensible purpose of the contract is to teach the child “responsibility,” and (3) the child is the one who is at the greatest risk of forming an emotional bond with the animal, and therefore the greatest risk of suffering harm (apart from the animal itself).
This entire scheme is frankly outrageous. Not only because of the risk of psychological harm to any child who, in spite of whatever they or their guardian might have agreed to, finds they have formed an emotional bond with the animal, but also because none of this is really about teaching a child responsibility. If it were just about “responsibility,” then monetary restitution would more than satisfy teaching that lesson. Responsibility is not merely adhering to one’s word irrespective of the consequences: true moral responsibility must allow for the possibility that circumstances, or one’s understanding of the circumstances, might change, and so cause one to deviate from strict adherence to one’s word, at which point there may well be consequences. But the consequence does not have to be specific performance: again, restitution would drive the lesson home well enough I think, to the extent one even needs to be driven home.
So if it’s not responsibility being taught here, what is it really? I submit, it is nothing less than teaching kids to get comfortable raising animals for slaughter. While I can certainly see how some kids might find the experience bearable, even helpful if the family business is something like ranching, I think it’s outrageous to set kids up for that kind of thing, no matter who signs the contract, and not have some allowance for the possibility that some children will, after having cared for an animal raised for slaughter for the first time, find that they are not cut out for that kind of work.
ETA:
Exxxxactly. And while mom here doesn’t get top marks for signing her kid up for this to begin with, I think the fact that she apparently tried very hard to spare her daughter this pain once she realized it would in fact be painful, counts for something. However ill-advised the venture was, mom at least had some basic empathy and compassion for her daughter. Faint praise when speaking of a mother’s feelings for her daughter, I know, but at least not as sociopathic as the fair organizers.
Probably tens of thousands of animals a year are raised via 4H. What happened here was from what I can tell a nearly unique situation. Normally the animals are raised and then they are eaten.
Let’s just suppose that’s true, and that there are not in fact many instances in which children form bonds with animals, plead for it to not be eaten, and are allowed to back out by proffering payment (and so never end up in the newspaper because, unlike here, the 4H people didn’t respond so sociopathically). How often is that because the child finds it a good constructive experience, and how often is it because the child finds it’s actually a very destructive experience, pleads for their animal to be spared, and just isn’t listened to?
Regardless, it seems entirely predictable to me that a child might form a bond with an animal they are expected to care for, and might in turn be devastated at sending it off to slaughter. It’s a foreseeable outcome. Recognizing that, I frankly don’t care how long this sort of thing has been going on, even without (noted) incident. It is outrageous and morally reprehensible to strictly hold a child, or a child’s parent, to a contract like this where the child is the one doing the work and (potentially) suffering the harm.
They shoot goats don’t they?
If the parties involved (financially) were fine with the purchase of the goat I feel like something is missing. In a world where you can’t get law enforcement to evict squatters from your own property I find it amazing they can find the time to hunt down a goat knowing it will traumatize a child. Maybe they should make it the 3H Club and remove the word “Heart”.
If it were me I’d show the officers the rope that the goat chewed threw and be done with it. The police can make up flyers for missing goat along with the phone number of the people demanding it back.
But but but…Then how could the fair organizers have been able to show that THEY HAVE THE AUTHORITAH! The lesson intended here seems to be “We are the authoritah, and you must do as you are told!”
There’s enough blame to go around for everyone, save the child or the goat itself.
I recommend, to ease your mind on this score, that you go talk to some actual 4-H people, adults and children, maybe go watch them interacting with the animals, and see what you think from actual experience with the program. It seems to me that you are basing your horror of the situation on stuff in your head rather than what happens in the real world.
There was this culinary documentary which featured a couple of farmers from Sardinia or one of those islands; these taciturn characters were so hard-boiled the tangible machismo was ludicrous. When it came time for sausages and blood pudding, each would butcher the other’s hogs. They would not do their own.
I have friends who had positive experiences with 4H, including selling their animals for slaughter. That doesn’t make this case any less horrible.
I get the impression that this girl was not “4-H people”, that this was a new experience for her and she didn’t realize that she should not have made an emotional connection with the animal.
I was being unfair to 4H and other grange traditions. It’s not that country folk were responsible this shit show, there were a variety of modern day fools behind it. Youth agricultural programs are a fine thing. I won 4th place for my pickling cucumbers at the county fair when I was kid. You don’t get a ribbon or even a slip of paper for 4th place but that was over 60 years ago and I still relish the memory.
Don’t know about most, but I know it’s not all Sometimes they label the frozen meat with the animal’s name: “We’re having sone steaks from Gary for dinner tonight? Great, he’s delicious!”
Actually, Gary was kind of stringy.
And finally, maybe you can recall the joke: “You don’t eat a pig like that all at once!”