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But why can’t I kill the ants?

Rosemary was playing with a mirror and a light the other day. She was getting the light to bounce off the mirror onto the ceiling to shine her new friend Dangly who, by the way, is a spider. While congratulating her on discovering refraction (oh, who am I kidding, I have no idea whether that was refraction, reflection or regurgitation), I pointed out that you have to be careful not to hurt small creatures when doing that and that some people have killed ants by burning them to a crisp using a magnifying glass and the sun.

Oops, giving exact instructions for insecticide may not have been my best idea. Especially as her response was, ‘But I kill ants.’

‘We don’t do that, Rosemary. It’s not nice to kill insects.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because it’s cruel.’

‘But I don’t like ants.’

‘Would you like it if someone at school came up to you and said, “I don’t like you” then chopped your head off?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t mind.’

‘We just don’t do it, Rosemary. It’s not nice.’

‘But the teacher said it’s OK to kill ants. She said we can just tread on red ants, because they’ll bite us and hurt us.’

‘Really? I’m not sure that’s true. Anyway, I don’t like it.’

‘Because you’re vegetarian. I’m not vegetarian.’

‘No… But you’re not eating the ants, are you?’

‘No, but I eat chicken sometimes’

‘OK. Whatever.’

Yes, the ‘whatever’ was me. I have absolutely no idea how to get across that it’s cruel to kill ants and spiders and so on. I have no idea how to get across any of my own personal moral code without stepping on other people’s (i.e. Chris’) moral codes and also making sure she has the opportunity to make up her own mind about stuff like being vegetarian. And killing ants. Or snails. (Yeah, I didn’t have any pictures of ants, and I don’t like using other people’s photos – she does have a friend who likes to squish snails, so it’s kind of relevant.)

So, is it cruel to kill ants? And spiders? And cute little lambs? Do you expect your children to follow your own moral (and/or religious) code, or work it out for themselves? How do you address this kind of stuff?

14 Responses to "But why can’t I kill the ants?"

Eva says:

15 May 2011 at 3:10 pm

has she watched ants or a bugs life? Anthropamorphising (sory no idea how to spell it) may help she doesn’t want to hurt Dangly or Wesely.

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1. Tasha says:
  
  15 May 2011 at 7:59 pm
  
  Think she tried it a year or so ago, but got bored. She might be more open to it now, though.
  
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TheMadHouse says:

15 May 2011 at 3:25 pm

I was just going to say what Eva did, the boys do sometimes kill animals and we are guilty of killing slugs, so do send the wrong message sometimes!

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1. Tasha says:
  
  15 May 2011 at 8:01 pm
  
  I have been known to kill spiders, though never in front of the girls, and have come to terms with their existence now and pretty much ignore them. Even the big hairy ones. I just kind of feel that if they start feeling it’s OK to kill ants because they don’t like them, then it’s a downward spiral from there on. Though perhaps that’s a tad extreme.
  
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Belle says:

15 May 2011 at 3:29 pm

Our house was invaded by ants this year and I hate to kill even insects, but I did it. I don’t like killing spiders in my house, but I do or I couldn’t sleep all night. I think it is wrong to kill animals to eat them. I wish the whole world was vegetarian. I

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1. Tasha says:
  
  15 May 2011 at 8:04 pm
  
  I remember the first time I killed an insect – a mosquito in Spain, when I was ten. I felt this really rather horrible mixture of huge guilt and morbid satisfaction – realising that it was my blood not the mosquito’s made me feel better about it. But I’ve never felt good about it since.
  
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Lynn says:

15 May 2011 at 4:26 pm

It may not feel like it, but one of the blessings of having children is that they make us confront and continuously reassess our own beliefs from the time they are very small.

Some of your beliefs may stand the test of time and some may fall through reexamination and pragmatic experience (like a thorough insect or other pest infestation in your house.).

Use these opportunities your child gives to decide what is core, black-and-white, and which shades of gray your limits extend to. Because most of life is lived in the gray.

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1. Tasha says:
  
  15 May 2011 at 8:06 pm
  
  Thank you. That’s a fascinating way to look at it and I think you are right and that it is a good thing to have someone help us reexamine our beliefs and principles regularly, because we do sometimes forget why we believe something.
  
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Geekymummy says:

15 May 2011 at 10:28 pm

I think you can emphasize that killing for sport or curiosity is wrong, but that killing animals to eat them, to protect yourself from them (fleas, cockroaches, mosquiotos etc) or for research to cure diseases is OK. It’s an interesting moral question that out kids need to think about.
Geekymummy recently posted..Silent Sunday

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1. Tasha says:
  
  15 May 2011 at 10:59 pm
  
  But I don’t think it’s OK to kill them to eat them, while their dad does. I’m conflicted on the curing diseases, though probably just about come down on the side of it’s being OK (but not for cosmetic testing…). Then, of course, I’ve happily killed lice and fleas, now I think about it. Hmm. Maybe the problem is I need to firm up what I really think myself! As Lynn said, children can give us the opportunity to re-evaluate our own beliefs, so perhaps I need to do a bit of that.
  
  I think I just need to bring it into the whole religion discussion we’ve been having recently – people believe different things and something you have to work out for yourself. I believe X, Chris believes Y, we both believe Z… And fairies are cool. And, of course, Father Christmas exists.
  
  Or something.
  
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Iota Manhattan says:

22 May 2011 at 4:22 am

I was once about to kill a wasp, and my son stopped me, saying “a wasp’s life has value too”. I thought that was a good way of putting it.

I think part of the issue here is that Rosemary is getting different messages from you and her teacher. That is confusing for a child. I think the best you can do is to help her understand that adults have differing opinions (like you being vegetarian and Chris not). That will stand her in good stead.

Over the specific ants issue, maybe you should have a rule that she can do what she feels is ok, but in your presence, she can’t kill ants, out of respect for your views. Or is that giving too much ground? Do you want her not to kill ants at all?

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1. Tasha says:
  
  22 May 2011 at 12:16 pm
  
  That is an excellent way of putting it, yes. She is starting to understand that different people have different beliefs and opinions, actually – it’s something they’re talking about at school and I’ve been talking about it some more, here, too. She’s very interested in it all and trying to understand – I wonder if there are any philosophy and ethics books out there for four-year-olds?
  
  I think I’d probably prefer her not to kill ants at all. I’m not too concerned about it overall – I know she eats meat, after all. But I think what concerns me more is the ‘I can kill ants because I don’t like them,’ attitude, because I can see how it could escalate to treating other creatures and humans cruelly, too.
  
  I don’t think her teacher actually said it was OK to kill ants. I know they tell them off for deliberately crushing snails, for example. I think it’s her standard response when we tell her not to do something that she wants to do ‘But my teacher says I can do it.’ She probably does it the other way round at school.
  
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Circus Queen says:

03 June 2011 at 5:11 pm

Wow, I never even thought about the rights and wrongs of killing ants. Growing up in Trinidad where ants are a constant and serious problem (as are houseflies and roaches) our automatic reaction was to get rid of them. To debate it would’ve been seen as quite Buddhist. Very interesting. Not sure whether I now think it is an issue. Certainly not sure how you get that across to a young child.
Circus Queen recently posted..So you want to be a June baby- huh

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1. Tasha says:
  
  03 June 2011 at 9:12 pm
  
  It’s a minefield, it really is. Trying to get across the different levels of right and wrong and then the whole problem of right and wrong being different for different people. We ended up (as you do) talking about morality while out eating pizza this lunchtime and Rosemary ended up coming to the conclusion that her Granny is immoral because she smokes. The trouble is you can totally get to that in a logical argument, but you still don’t want your daughter going around saying that your mum is immoral.
  
  My main problem with the ants (and so on) is the potential for escalation of the attitude ‘It’s OK to hurt/kill them, because I don’t like them.’ But it really is difficult.
  
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