# Stupid-ass parents who refuse to watch their children, and critters who pay the price **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [August 9, 2006, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-ass-parents-who-refuse-to-watch-their-children-and-critters-who-pay-the-price/367939 "2006-08-09T00:28:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![badbadrubberpiggy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/57b2e6/32.png) [@badbadrubberpiggy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/badbadrubberpiggy)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2006, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-ass-parents-who-refuse-to-watch-their-children-and-critters-who-pay-the-price/367939/41 "2006-08-09T16:39:06Z")
[QUOTE=WhyNot] [URL=[Page or Document Not Found](http://www.azdhs.gov/lab/micro/rabies.htm)] The brain test is used for animals that exibit behavioral or medical sign of rabies, or animals that cannot be safely captured and quarantined. So I have no idea why the law would be written that the animals could be put down, as opposed to quarantined and observed. **Is it simply because they’re meerkats, and not dogs**? [/QUOTE] (bolding mine) I would think it’s a combination of that, and fear of a lawsuit by the parents. It might be in the zoo’s best interest to kill & test the meerkats immedietly rather than waiting, if the alternative is a lot of money lost & bad publicity. I guess it would just depend on the zoo’s resources. ---
**Author:** ![Walter\_Windchill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Walter\_Windchill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walter_Windchill)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2006, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-ass-parents-who-refuse-to-watch-their-children-and-critters-who-pay-the-price/367939/42 "2006-08-09T17:02:59Z")
The newspaper artical indicated that Minnesota law requires killing and testing exotic animals if the bite “victim” does not undergo tests. > [@](#): > > The meerkats — two adults and their three babies born in spring — were vaccinated for rabies, but state health protocol required that they be killed and tested because the girl’s parents didn’t want her to undergo a series of six painful rabies shots. So it looks like Zoo didn’t have a choice. The question is why the girl and her parents DID have a choice. To my mind, they absolutely should have been required to face the consequences fo their own actions/negligence. ---
**Author:** ![Lightnin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightnin/32/180_2.png) [@Lightnin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightnin)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2006, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-ass-parents-who-refuse-to-watch-their-children-and-critters-who-pay-the-price/367939/43 "2006-08-09T17:05:45Z")
Me, my ex, and my son (at three years old!) received rabies shots back in 1990 or so. We’d taken in a kitten over the weekend, which turned out to have rabies. I was the only one who we knew had been exposed… but we decided to give my son the series just in case- once you start showing symptoms, it’s pretty much too late. Better safe than sorry. Before that incident, I’d been fairly needle-phobic, but afterwards they held no terror for me. It wasn’t too painful at all- I’m sure Little Miss Precious could’ve handled the pain. Hell, if she gets her vaccinations, she’s had needle shots which are just as bad. Tangentially related: A friend of mine worked at the Health Department back in Austin, where they do the rabies testing for the entire state of Texas. They only need to examine the brain, so there wasn’t any reason to ship them the entire body- they’d only get the head of the animal to be tested. Quite often, she’d receive a package containing the head of the critter for testing… with no ice. She said those were always her least favorite days. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2006, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-ass-parents-who-refuse-to-watch-their-children-and-critters-who-pay-the-price/367939/44 "2006-08-09T17:08:21Z")
Imagine how these parents are going to handle it when their little precious starts getting Sex Ed classes next year. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2006, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-ass-parents-who-refuse-to-watch-their-children-and-critters-who-pay-the-price/367939/45 "2006-08-09T17:15:48Z")
[QUOTE=WhyNot] [In Arizona, at least, standard turn around is 24 hours on the lab test.](http://www.azdhs.gov/lab/micro/rabies.htm) Emergency testing can be done if there is good reason to believe the animal is rabid. ( **Sailboat** , the brain testing is very, very reliable and can identify rabies at any point when it’s contagious. 10 minutes after exposure, it’s not contagious. It’s not contagious for weeks or months after infection.) [/QUOTE] Well, that’s what I thought…BUT…you’re talking about the virus reproducing in the body of the meerkat and reaching a level that’s infectious, right? Let me propose a crazy thought-experiment. [QUOTE=crazy thought experiment] Let’s say a thoroughly rabid rat, her saliva teeming with highly infectious rabies virus at many times the minimum viral load that can cause infection, bites meerkat X in the ass. Rabies is transmissible through saliva into the bloodstream during a bite, right? Now it will be weeks before meerkat X has incubated up a transmissible batch of rabies virus in HIS saliva, if I understand correctly. But what if meerkat X, pained by the spit-slobbered bite-wound, turns around and licks that wound…getting a nice big gob of rat spit, full of _rat_-incubated rabies, not meerkat-incubated rabies, in his mouth and all over his glistening teeth…and at that point, Idiot Child grabs meerkat X by surprise (meerkat X was turned around licking his own asswound). Meerkat X bites Idiot Child with a mouth just crawling with active, transmissible, child-killing rabies virus…it just doesn’t happen to have been as a result of meerkat X’s infection; it’s rat spit. [/QUOTE] _In theory_ that could happen. _In theory_ the only way to be SURE you’ve done all you can\* to protect I. C. is to give Idiot Child injections. Throw in a free vasectomy and tubal ligation for Mr. and Mrs. Idiot as long as you’re scrubbed up. \*Yes, in theory the vaccination could be a bad batch, but at least you asked for the injections. Since the parents did not ask for the injections, I conclude that doing the maximum to protect I. C. is not at the top of the agenda. That being established, I then argue that, as long as we’re putting the Idiot Child at risk _out of compassion,_ we exercise a smidge _more_ compassion and leave the meerkats alive. Sailboat ---
**Author:** ![Walter\_Windchill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Walter\_Windchill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walter_Windchill)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2006, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-ass-parents-who-refuse-to-watch-their-children-and-critters-who-pay-the-price/367939/46 "2006-08-09T17:25:47Z")
[QUOTE=Ethilrist] Imagine how these parents are going to handle it when their little precious starts getting Sex Ed classes next year. [/QUOTE] Please explain the connection. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2006, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-ass-parents-who-refuse-to-watch-their-children-and-critters-who-pay-the-price/367939/47 "2006-08-09T18:09:23Z")
[QUOTE=Walter Windchill] Please explain the connection. [/QUOTE] They are patently incapable of accepting any responsibility for their daughters’ actions, or for the results of the way they’re bringing her up. I would wager a guess that they will either (a) get hacked off at the school for how it’s taught, believing that they could have done a better job, (b) blame the school if their daughter ends up pregnant as a teen, or (c) refuse to allow her to take such a class, claiming that that’s not the school’s responsibility, do a really horrible job of it, and _still_ blame the school for not teaching their daughter what she needed to know. ---
**Author:** ![DiosaBellissima](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a8b319/32.png) [@DiosaBellissima](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DiosaBellissima)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2006, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-ass-parents-who-refuse-to-watch-their-children-and-critters-who-pay-the-price/367939/48 "2006-08-09T18:42:57Z")
I pretty much lack empathy for most people to an almost unhealthy degree, so I recognize that trait in me. That said: mom and dad should have to pay for the cats to be killed, tested, and replaced. All three of them should be forced to watch the cats killed, especially the kid. If the kid screams and wants to leave, they should hold her down and make her watch. She needs to learn what happens when you fuck around and act like a little shit. Of course, if mummy and daddy would have just let her get the shots, all of the above would be avoidable. Of course, if it was my kid: I would have made her get the shots. If the cats still had to be put down due to the law, I would enslave my child to the zoo during all of her free time, until the debt is paid off; all while taking her allowance and making her give it to the zoo. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2006, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-ass-parents-who-refuse-to-watch-their-children-and-critters-who-pay-the-price/367939/49 "2006-08-09T19:25:47Z")
[QUOTE=DiosaBellissima] I pretty much lack empathy for most people to an almost unhealthy degree, so I recognize that trait in me. That said: mom and dad should have to pay for the cats to be killed, tested, and replaced. All three of them should be forced to watch the cats killed, especially the kid. If the kid screams and wants to leave, they should hold her down and make her watch. She needs to learn what happens when you fuck around and act like a little shit. Of course, if mummy and daddy would have just let her get the shots, all of the above would be avoidable. Of course, if it was my kid: I would have made her get the shots. If the cats still had to be put down due to the law, I would enslave my child to the zoo during all of her free time, until the debt is paid off; all while taking her allowance and making her give it to the zoo. [/QUOTE] Excellent approach. And come on, so-called “parents”, we’re talking about a disease that if allowed to progress untreated has 100% mortality, and one _ **mean, nasty** _ death it is. If the indication for meerkat bite is rabies shots, you get rabies shots, end of argument. ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2006, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-ass-parents-who-refuse-to-watch-their-children-and-critters-who-pay-the-price/367939/50 "2006-08-09T19:31:08Z")
[QUOTE=DiosaBellissima] That said: mom and dad should have to pay for the cats to be killed, tested, and replaced. All three of them should be forced to watch the cats killed, especially the kid. If the kid screams and wants to leave, they should hold her down and make her watch. [/QUOTE] And make them stay through the cutting off of the heads. And make them personally deliver the heads to the testing lab. Maybe the subsequent therapy bills for Little Miss Precious will keep the parents so broke they won’t be able to afford to breed again. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2006, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-ass-parents-who-refuse-to-watch-their-children-and-critters-who-pay-the-price/367939/51 "2006-08-09T20:18:42Z")
[QUOTE=Ethilrist] They are patently incapable of accepting any responsibility for their daughters’ actions, or for the results of the way they’re bringing her up. [/QUOTE] There’s a particularly disturbing statement in this story: > [@](#): > > Gergen said the decision to euthanize the five animals was required after **the girl declined** to undergo a six-shot series of injections for rabies. The child’s parents **also** do not want her treated unless it is necessary, Gergen said. Please tell me that there is some other way to parse this other than that they asked the 9-year-old to make the decision. Do they also ask her if she wants to go to the pediatrician or if she wants to eat her vegetables instead of cake and ice cream? ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2006, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-ass-parents-who-refuse-to-watch-their-children-and-critters-who-pay-the-price/367939/52 "2006-08-09T20:21:53Z")
I noticed that two of the three Google ads I see at the bottom of this thread are for military boarding schools… :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![badbadrubberpiggy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/57b2e6/32.png) [@badbadrubberpiggy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/badbadrubberpiggy)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2006, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-ass-parents-who-refuse-to-watch-their-children-and-critters-who-pay-the-price/367939/53 "2006-08-09T20:26:27Z")
[QUOTE=Steve MB] I noticed that two of the three Google ads I see at the bottom of this thread are for military boarding schools… :dubious: [/QUOTE] I’m getting ads for Upper Limb Prosthetics & Elecitric Fences. I guess I can see that. If the parents raised her in such a way that she thinks it’s OK to climb up and stick her hands in a wild animal’s cage, then I doubt they have any qualms about letter her decide wether or not she wants to be vaccinated. I’d guess that she’s not used to being told “no”. Perhaps she’s an Indigo child :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Lissa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lissa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissa)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2006, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-ass-parents-who-refuse-to-watch-their-children-and-critters-who-pay-the-price/367939/54 "2006-08-09T23:10:02Z")
[QUOTE=EddyTeddyFreddy] Maybe the subsequent therapy bills for Little Miss Precious will keep the parents so broke they won’t be able to afford to breed again. [/QUOTE] Since when has not being able to afford babies stopped people from having them? ---
**Author:** ![Sublight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Sublight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublight)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2006, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-ass-parents-who-refuse-to-watch-their-children-and-critters-who-pay-the-price/367939/55 "2006-08-10T01:01:12Z")
[QUOTE=featherlou] I mis-read this as “that child will be put **down** ” - :eek: Wow - you’re even harder-line than I am! 😃 [/QUOTE] Don’t worry dear, we took Jazmyne Dakota to a nice farm where she can run and play and be happy. ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2006, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-ass-parents-who-refuse-to-watch-their-children-and-critters-who-pay-the-price/367939/56 "2006-08-10T01:13:41Z")
[QUOTE=Lissa] Since when has not being able to afford babies stopped people from having them? [/QUOTE] Point taken. Okay, then howzabout a public flogging for the parents, and a day in the stocks for the kid? ---
**Author:** ![Lissa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lissa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissa)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2006, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-ass-parents-who-refuse-to-watch-their-children-and-critters-who-pay-the-price/367939/57 "2006-08-10T01:33:52Z")
[QUOTE=EddyTeddyFreddy] Point taken. Okay, then howzabout a public flogging for the parents, and a day in the stocks for the kid? [/QUOTE] Sentence the kid to wear a t-shirt that reads: “My Stupidity Killed a Family of Meekrats. Ask Me How!” And make the parents wear a t-shirt that reads: “Our Neglect Got Our Child Injured and Zoo Animals Killed”. Force them to wear those for about six months. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2006, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-ass-parents-who-refuse-to-watch-their-children-and-critters-who-pay-the-price/367939/58 "2006-08-10T01:36:46Z")
[QUOTE=Lissa] Sentence the kid to wear a t-shirt that reads: “My Stupidity Killed a Family of Meekrats. Ask Me How!” [/QUOTE] Then show a movie about meerkats to every 5th grader at her school. Children can be vicious little creatures, and they need to be unleashed for the Public Good every now and then. ---
**Author:** ![danceswithcats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9e8a1a/32.png) [@danceswithcats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/danceswithcats)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2006, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-ass-parents-who-refuse-to-watch-their-children-and-critters-who-pay-the-price/367939/59 "2006-08-10T02:26:30Z")
Sometimes I wonder if my stance on parenting is draconian, as my parents would have had me get the shots, then kicked my ass for going where I shouldn’t have, and summers thereafter would’ve been spent shoveling meerkat shit as an indentured servant to the zoo. Apparently many of you think like Mom and Dad. 🙂 The thread you’re thinking of, **mhendo** [is this one, discussing the euthanasia of two bears at Maymont Park in Virginia](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=360298) this February after a child was bitten. Similar scenario, similar dismal outcome. ---
**Author:** ![BoxofNothing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e19b73/32.png) [@BoxofNothing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BoxofNothing)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2006, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-ass-parents-who-refuse-to-watch-their-children-and-critters-who-pay-the-price/367939/60 "2006-08-10T02:29:26Z")
[QUOTE=Lissa] “My Stupidity Killed a Family of Meekrats. Ask Me How!” [/QUOTE] LOL. But seriously, how can one tell if, say, a squireel were rabid? I’ve had one chase me away. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-ass-parents-who-refuse-to-watch-their-children-and-critters-who-pay-the-price/367939.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-ass-parents-who-refuse-to-watch-their-children-and-critters-who-pay-the-price/367939.md?page=4)