[geeks] Re: Breeding, etc.

[Kris Kirby]

On Sun, 29 Apr 2001, amy wrote:
> i think a great deal of the problem stems from the fact that, once you
> have children, it's no longer about you anymore. some parents get it and
> some dont (most dont nowadays). the parents who dont are the ones that
> wind up raising small tornados that destroy everything and anything
> within range. 'uncontrollable', if you will.

Ah yes! We had one customer who's child we unwitting let lose in the
general tech shop of a (*very*) small office. We later found she had put
crayons in static bags, rearranged *everything*, and colored the
torque-set ring on our cordless drill black (it was white text on
black) with a Sharpie.

The woman truly amazed me; she had no concept what so ever of "anything
you put in *here* will show up out *here*", yet she was a webmaster. She
thought of everything as a page; I have to wonder how she mentally
connected everything. The other amazing thing was the she could be a
calm as ever and her daughter walk up and tell her something and she'd
turn and snap cruelly at her daughter: "Get away from me!" and then turn
back: "I'm sorry, what did you say?" Like it never happened. Her daughter
would go on and on and on just talking to no one...

My aunt's a breeder; "children are precious." Makes me nauseas just
thinking about it. Everytime she's down at my relatives when I'm there,
it's what *her* child is doing now. Thankfully, she's not talking to
me. She's a school teacher with three children: 17, 13, and 8.

> you have to teach a pet how to behave in public, around strangers and
> with family. you have to teach them to not get into the cabinets and you
> have to lock up the chemicals. you have to grind into their memories
> right from wrong and hope to god that when the lights go out they
> remember. when they're bad you punish them. when they're sick you stay
> up all night and hope the doctor is right and the prescriptions work.
> when they act up in public, you feel shame and embarassment as a parent.
> and when they die you feel like you've lost a part of yourself that you
> cannot regain.

You really summed it all up right there. Almost makes be misty-eyed
remembering our mini-schnauzer. She was a piece of work. Had a
personality. Also had a sense about people; she'd only go off on certain
people that seemed no good. Like my mother's jailbird cousin. Who told the
dog he'd happily snap it's neck. (No, we didn't let him.)
 
> i love being a good parent to max. he's a mischeivous pain in the ass
> and a destructive monster at the age of 1 year, 6 months. thats around 8
> years child-wise. so far he's managed to learn sit, no, and dinnertime.

Our beagle is probably five now, and has so little training it's not
funny. Somehow, over a year or so, she has learned commands without really
being taught. Not many commands, but a few. She's really independent; she
knows "down", but won't do it on linoleum. Won't eat vegetables, jello,
cheese (gave her too much medication in it) or fruits. If it ain't meat or
bread, she's generally not interested. The schnauzer, on the other hand,
was more-or-less trained as a cleanup animal. "Hoover!" She'd eat
anything; she trusted us. Even ate jello. And my brother's breakfast, on
more than one occasion! :-) We had the beagle after than schnauzer though,
and many things the schnauzer would eat the beagle wouldn't. Bummer,
'cause we got clumsy in the kitchen over the years and had to go back to
actually cleaning up after ourselves. 

-----
Kris Kirby, KE4AHR          | TGIFreeBSD... 'Nuff said.
<kris at nospam.catonic.net>   |    
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"Fate, it seems, is not without a sense of irony."