Warning for the faint hearted – don’t read on if you are feeling squeamish. This tale is about how, unfortunately, I had to broach the subject of mortality and death with my daughter today.
My parents are away at the moment, and as I live 10 minutes down the road, it’s natural that they should ask me to pop in and check on things. My Dad thought he’d left the coffee machine on, so he asked me to check (he had). Anyway, while I was there I thought I might check on the fish. The fish is…well, was, the sole survivor of a bunch of fish bought for my sister by an ex-boyfriend. My sister’s house is tiny, and doesn’t really have a spot for a fish tank. So my parents inherited the fish.
My daughter and I went downstairs to look at the fish. From 10 paces, it was evident to me that the fish was never going to swim again. It was on the bottom of the tank and appeared to have started to rot. I was not quite sure whether to back out of the room or not, but my daughter ran up to the tank.
“Why is fishy lying there?” she asked.
“Um, fishy is very, very sick,” I replied. “Mummy is going to have to take him out and flush him down the toilet to make him better.” My daughter looked at the fish dubiously. I picked up the net to scoop him out. Unfortunately, the fish fell into at least three pieces as I tried to get him in the net. Gagging, I ran to the toilet with my daughter close behind, and tipped the fish bits into the toilet.
“Fishy is in bits,” observed my daughter, looking into the toilet bowl before I could stop her. “Um, yes,” I replied. “Unfortunately fishy is dead so we are going to have to send him down the toilet.” And I pressed the toilet button as quickly as I could. Then I washed the net and tried my best not to throw up, all under my daughter’s quizzical gaze.
After I had texted my parents to tell them the sad news, I rang my husband to tell him of the day’s events. I got quite hysterical. “I don’t understand how you can be laughing,” said my husband. I think it’s because I’m a sick woman with a morbid sense of humour, and if I didn’t laugh, I’d probably cry.
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“Fishy is in bits,” observed my daughter
…that IS funny even if we’re all going to hell.
I couldn’t stop laughing last night when I heard my poor daughter explaining to my husband: “Fishy was very sick and had to go down the toilet because he was dead.” No mention of the “in bits”: I hope that she’s forgotten that detail…?
LE -
You should have known House sitter’s Law:
9 out of 10 times the fish dies!
Sigh, I did have a feeling. My mother said blithely, “I’m sure it won’t happen”, but somewhere inside me I knew that the fish was going to bite the dust on my watch.
Hmm. I bought 5 goldfish the other day. They are very cute. The old mexican fighting fish we inherited died. However the kids know about death because they have eaten sausages and we talk about how stuff gets made.
Step 1. Find a cow.
Step 2. Kill the cow.
etc
Terje, apparently I asked my mother the following question at the age of 3 and a half:
“Mum, are the chickens in the supermarket the same as the ones in the farm?” My mother admitted that they were, just a dead version thereof.
“Do they like being eaten by us then?”
Mum lied unashamedly and said, “Yes”. She just wasn’t prepared to deal with that particular ethical hurdle right then.
I will tell my daughter about where food comes from, just not right now. She’s picky enough as it is!
My wife was vegetarian for nearly 20 years. I was vegetarian for about 6 years. We both gave up around the time we had kids.
I’ve told the kids about death and killing since they were able to talk. I don’t much understand why people shelter kids from these things. You can readily demonstrate both death and killing with a cockroach. I don’t kill cockroaches merely to make the point but given that I kill cockroaches anyway it seems logical to explain what just happened. As in “I killed the cockroach, it is now dead”.
In terms of moral ambiguity I have had one of my kids tell me that it is bad to eat sausages because it involves killing cows. This was amusing because they did it whilst chewing on a sausage. Less amusing for the cow.
- ““I don’t understand how you can be laughing,” said my husband.”
My pet budgie dropped off the perch at my cousins’ house when I was about 8. We were staying there because my parents had just separated (again). Upon discovering him inverted and motionless on the newspaper, all looked at me tentatively, as if this might be the thing that tipped me over the edge.
“Maybe it’s not dead?” said one cuz helpfully.
Pause.
“They don’t usually sleep like that.”
Four young children, two newly from a broken home, rolling about their dead pet budgie in fits of laughter.
Sean, totally understand. It’s in exactly those circumstances that such an occurence is hilarious.
At my wake I hope people find something to laugh about. Otherwise it will be dead boring.
A colleague passed away a few years ago. He’d already planned his funeral with a surprise twist…he asked that “Teddybear’s Picnic” be played at the end to cheer everyone up. Funnily enough, it was at that point that I burst into tears…but I was also laughing hysterically too. It was so typical of the man.
LE: Re chickens on farms….
That’s why “house lambs” get named “mint sauce” or similar… so the kiddywinks know that come Xmas time they’ll be eating it. (And while I didn’t live on a farm, I spent a lot of time on them at rellies. They’d all ask if I’d killed/hung/defeathered my chook yet – a rite of passage to teach what it meant to be carnivore, and usually only a year or so after you’d milked your first cow. Kids were never asked to kill lambs or cows tho – too much chance of a botched job and cruelty.
Sean: Yep, the Parrot Sketch is quite educational.
Yeah, a friend of mine who lived on a farm used to say “let’s have a bit of Buttercup.” Buttercup had been their pet cow…but then she became dinner. I had no problems with that.