My Biggest Pet Peeve

I have many pet peeves. Most of them are minor and can be overlooked with a minimum of teeth gritting. However, there is one that simply makes my blood boil every time I so much as think about it.

What is this peeve that gets me so angry? I'll tell you. It's parents who say "My pets are just as important (or just the same) to me as my children are."

Now, don't get me wrong. I have pets myself. I know that they become a part of the family, and that we can get very attached to them. I love my dogs. But I never forget that that is what they are; dogs. They are important to me, but to say that they are just the same as my son is completely and totally ridiculous.

These people who do say this--I want to shake them hard and say, "How do you think it makes your children feel to know that in your eyes they are no better than the dog?!?!?"

So, the government wants to teach our children that the only reason they are here is because a gazillion years ago, the right blob of goo just happened to bump into another blob of goo, and all life on Earth miraculously sprang from this single blob of Super-Goo and because of this "fact" humans are no more valuable or worthy than a worm or a bug. After all, we're all just animals anyway, so why should we imagine that we are better than any other form of life?

Then they go home to parents who treat them as if they are no more valuable or worthy than the dog. After all, we're all just animals anyway, so why should we imagine that we are better than any other form of life?

And then we wonder what went wrong when they act like the animals we teach them that they are.