a gentle place

Posted By Harry on July 15, 2010

Parenthood hits most people as a surprise.  Even with the most meticulously planned pregnancy, the parenthood that follows is filled with unknowns, unexpecteds and uncertainties.  While some may fill their nursery bookshelves with “How to … ” books, most will rely on the cornucopia of parenting advice gained from friends and family as ‘lil Jimmy grows.  It’s not easy.  Yet despite this global fumbling with the challenges of new parenthood, hospitals seldom find newborns abandoned in their cots when parents return home, local council workers don’t find scores of young children dumped on the side of the road, and I’ve yet to find a classifieds section in a newspaper with a “Babies for Sale” column.  Parenting trials and tribulations are commonplace but withdrawing the given commitment to a special life is rare.

But any reneging on one’s word to love, care for and protect a special life, no matter how infrequent the occurrence, is unacceptable.  It shames us as humans; we watch the occasional horror story of abuse, neglect or murder on the evening news, the hairs stand up on the back of our necks, and in our anger and our shame we call for the commitment-breakers to be barred from procreating (or even engaging in recreational intercourse should a being be inadvertently created) but we know that it will not happen.  We know it will come too late for at least one special life, and that society would find withdrawal of such a basic human right untenable.  Adoption agencies, or at least a growing number of them, undaunted by Nature’s bountiful fertility, play by different rules though.  Fortunately.

Nature’s brilliance has illuminated much in our lives but not the ability to bear a child. And when we attended our first adoption seminar we realised that our basic human right to be parents was no longer a right. We would have to prove that we could be “good enough” parents. We would have to bear all to a social worker in multiple visits over 6 months if we hoped to gain approval to be parents. We’d have to attend weekend educational sessions, role-model “good enough” parents and meet those parents who had passed the test and proven that they were indeed “good enough”. We’d meet some of those special lives that “good enough” parents had committed to, see both the challenges and the joys that we might face. And, as our knowledge of parenting and ourselves swelled, we’d have to decide if parents were what we really wanted to be. We did but few that attended that first seminar stayed with us for the journey. The adoption agency’s very happy with that – through education return-to-senders are minimised.

It’s while waiting for our adopted child that I read a post on adoption and stumbled upon Earthlings Part 2 on YouTube. And it reminded me how easy it is to obtain a pet. And how sad that is. It reminded me of the millions of special lives that, having been given a commitment to be loved, cared for and protected, have had that commitment broken by people that made it only on a whim. Pets are starved, neglected, abused, discarded when the reality of pet ownership hits. (Ownership – it has a lot to answer for.  As long as pets are considered chattels they will never be treated as the special lives they are.) Horses are sold because their temperament wasn’t right. Ponies because they’ve been outgrown. Dogs are dropped off at the local shelter when they become too hard to handle. Sick cats are euthanised rather than the owner incurring vet bills. Euthanised for treatable medical conditions such as diabetes, epilepsy and chronic renal failure. And euthanised when their owners move country, state or sometimes just house. “Don’t cry Johnny, we’ll get a new one when we’re settled in Perth.”  Johnny, receiving such education, grows up just like dad.

It’s Plato at the start of this post. 14 Years young and helped more people through their emotional trials than I can remember. Sought them out, held them with his head on their knees as their tears dripped onto his pitch-black nose. Plato who lay on ex-battery hen Bab’s grave for 3 days after she died, Sue and I having to bring him in each night to eat. Is he not a special life? Is he not worth loving, caring for, protecting? As long as he’s loving life, is his treatable cancer not worth treating? And is it not worth leaving your bed and sleeping with him on his when he’s suffering pain on his first night after surgery? And if Plato’s life is worth all of this, then why only his?

And these dogs? Are they worth keeping a commitment to?

These are 3 special pets but they’re representative of all pets. Should everyone automatically have a right to pet ownership?  Should people be able to make and break commitments to these special lives on a whim? Or should they go through a program of education? Like adoption.

Categories: Animals & us
Tags: Adoption, Animal rights, Cats, Dogs, Horses, Human rights, Ownership, Parenthood, Pets