Friday, July 2, 2010

Of shelters and purebreds

Most people get the whole notion of going to the local animal shelter to get a pet. They see it as the more compassionate option, because 60% of animals who enter shelters don't come out again, and not because they're sick or dangerous. There is just a serious lack of resources to offer them, either in a shelter or someone's home. So the idea is to go get one from a shelter because you're saving a life in addition to acquiring a great new addition to the family.

So why do these same people treat adoption of human children like it's some last resort that only failures as women and men ever resort to? Why are they compassionate enough to want to save an animal's life, but when it comes to a human, it's gotta be their genes or no dice. "My way or the highway," except by "the highway" we mean "life in the foster care system potentially being abused and neglected until they become criminals and have only prison to look forward to in their retirement years."

Oopsie babies are one thing. That happens, and if you wanna have it, do it. I just don't for the life of me understand what's going on in people's heads where they'll spend hundreds of thousands of dollars desperately fighting to conceive a child, like they're in fucking short supply or something.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

As irrational as it may appear, it is a powerful instinct you're talking about. You'll know it when you feel it and then you'll understand.

I'm not saying it is ethical or not ethical, right, wrong, good, or bad -- but that's the way it is.

I really like the analogy to animal shelters. It's powerful and really helps make the point.

Bright blessings,
Ceana

Cobalt said...

Glad that the animal shelter analogy kind of gets it across. Sometimes people are capable of being more rational about their pets than they are about humans in their lives.

I do question the "you'll know it when you feel it and then you'll understand" bit. As a woman, people tell me all the time that I don't really want to be childfree, that eventually those double-x chromosomes will kick in and I'll become a real woman who wants a baby. Truth be told, I don't think I ever will understand, because I've never had any desire to have kids, and if the ol' biological clock hasn't kicked up yet? Probably not gonna happen.

temperatelogic said...

I am in total agreement with you here. And no, you may never "feel it and understand;" I'm a lifelong childfree woman, and at 43 I've yet to feel the procreative urge that I've always been told about. :D