Hi there modern vegans and vegan curious, it's Margaret, and welcome back to ModVegan.
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Today I want to talk with you guys about treating children and pets like
toys. This is one of my all-time pet peeves. It drives me insane,
and I did check with a friend of mine who is not a vegan or a vegetarian or
anything like that before I made this video. Double checked with her to make sure
this is not an inappropriate topic for the general public - if this was something that
just...I happen to be way left-field on. But at least she feels the same way that
I do, I think - more or less - and so I've decided to go ahead with it. But I was
watching one of my favorite channels the other day - a channel that I used to watch
more than I do now. This girl has a lot of fun product
reviews of various things. Since I've become vegan I don't watch it as much, because a
lot of her stuff isn't vegan. And before show you guys a clip from her channel, I
want to preface it by saying, I really like this girl, please don't go to her
channel and harass her in any way. I think that she - I don't even actually
know if she did this intentionally. It may have been something that a groomer
did to her dog without asking her. There's really no way of knowing, and so
this isn't intended in any way to pick on her, but it's something that after I
saw her video I started looking around online just to see if this was a common
thing - apparently it is, and so yeah - don't don't pick on this girl in particular.
But um here it is [Kristina] good girl! Gidget has earrings that the groomer put
on her. Can you see them? [muttering] ears are back. [to Gidget] Come on, show them your pretty ears!
Okay. So you can see from the video these are earrings that are just kind of
glued on to her pet's ears, they aren't actually you know stuck into her head
or anything like that, so there's no cruelty involved in that respect.
They're just glued on - apparently these things are glued on with a PetSafe glue,
and they last for a few weeks and then they come off naturally. I don't know if they're
particularly safe. I would worry a little bit - you know if you worry
about children ingesting things, I kind of would worry about an animal ingesting things;
but I'm not an expert on that kind of stuff, so I am only going to be really
criticizing the intent behind it rather than the thing itself. I mean, maybe this
doesn't hurt dogs whatsoever. maybe it's just something that that people do; you
know, I have no idea. I've also found out since then, that painting pets'
toes is also quite popular. You can buy dog nail polish for your dog to put nail
polish on them if you want. Again you're encouraged - I read an article online and
they encourage you to buy pet safe polish - but really it is just a kind of a
"three-free" nail polish. If you're a woman and you've ever bought nail polish, or
anybody who wears nail polish, you will know that there are certain things, like
formaldehyde and stuff like that are in nail polish. You can get slightly
safer versions of those, and that's really all they're recommending for
these dogs. So even though they are made for dogs, apparently, even OPI - the company
that makes, you know regular nail polish - they also make one for dogs called
"Pawlish" haha [snickers] play on words, and they make that and apparently it has slightly
less toxins than the ones that they put on humans, but it doesn't really matter. I
mean, they're putting nail polish on a dog. And my whole point with this is: why
do we have to treat animals like toys? And it's not just animals. Like, before I
ever really noticed this so much with animals - although it's always upset me
with animals - especially because I - as a kid i started noticing, you know with
dogs getting their ears cut, with horses getting their tails docked - things like
that - it really bothered me. I never could understand it. And something else that I
have never understood is getting your child's ears pierced or any other form
of, you know, mutilation - that people happen to do. Like, it just disgusts me. I
don't understand why this is a thing. Also, before I show you this next clip, I
want to give you guys a trigger warning you're going to see a kid crying, but I
do not include the part where the girl gets her ears pierced,
because I think that is you know, just disgusting. I don't really want to hate on her parents
any more than other people online already have. This video is a few years'
old. I intentionally chose one that was a bit older,
just so that it wouldn't create you know too much difficulty for the
parents or whatever. I realize people do this for cultural reasons - it is not
necessarily - you know - it's not because they want to hurt their children or
anything like that. It's just kind of become a cultural thing so this isn't to
hate on these parents in particular. Please don't go leave a comment on their
channel. But I just want to show what it's like for a kid to be in pain for
something that they didn't actually ask for themselves.
[adult[ Yay! It's done! [Father congratulating crying daughter]: Alright, JB!
[Other adult]: There we go! [inaudible] [Father, to crying daughter]:You got earrings! You're okay. Hey, do you want a lollipop?
[Father to daughter]: Haha, there you go. Alright! [Congratulations in background]
Mom: Look at there! You've got pretty earrings!
[girl cries, adults mumble praise while laughing nervously, ask her if she wants to see her pretty earrings]
Adult: so pretty!
{Mother]: Yeah, show her a picture, then she's...
[Girl, crying]: I don't like it, piercing!
[adults laughing loudly]
[in patronizing tone] Adult:You don't like it when it pierced you? No?
I can't tell you guys how upsetting that video was for me to watch. I really,
really can't stand the whole idea of having anything that you would do to
your children without their consent, without them having an informed consent
I don't see how you can have informed consent from a two-and-a-half-year-old
about having her ears pierced. She's not going to understand what that feels like.
She's not going to know until she has it happen. And why are you doing this?
She may like the way earrings look, but even at that age - like it - they're just
too young to be asking for something like that. I find it completely,
completely unconscionable. I really disagree with it. And it's one of those
things - I'm a vegan I don't believe in putting animals through misery without
them understanding what's going on, without them having given their consent,
and I most certainly don't feel that way about children either I realize that
some cultures find this very acceptable - you know, my own culture, you know like in
North America, considers this to be a very cultural normal practice you find
the same thing with circumcision and things like that, where, you know parents
think it should look a certain way, and so they do it and I just - I have a
problem with it. And I disagree strongly with the ideas behind these things and I
I feel that this is not one of those issues where you can just be culturally
sensitive and tell people they can do whatever they want. Because, I disagree.
This is not one of those occasions. I am Pro-vaccination, so yes, I have made my
kids cry before. And of course, you know I've taken away their iPads and things
like that - other stuff that make them cry, too, but you know the only time that I've
ever inflicted pain on my children on purpose, was to protect them from danger.
And so - that I understand. But what on earth is your excuse for giving your
kids earrings? Like, just the way that they talk in this video you know [patronizing tone] "like, oh
it's over" "it only hurts for a second" and "it looks so pretty" and - it just it makes
me sick. So if I'm going to compare these like - at least in this particular case,
you know, Kristina with her video of her dog - it's not like the dog went through
any agonizing pain in order to get those earrings, so it is a very different thing.
But the mentality behind these things strikes me as a bit similar.
It's like treating a living sentient being as an accessory. And I have a
really big problem with that. I don't understand it. And I think it's one of
the biggest problems we have in our society. I hate seeing children treated
like toys. I hate seeing animals treated like toys. Both of those are totally
unacceptable. Just because someone cannot articulate their needs, wants, and desires
to you, does not mean you get to just treat them however you'd like.
And even in talking with my friends who does have a dog, who's not vegetarian or
anything like that - you know she said yeah, it bothers her also to see animals
treated like um - to be treated like a toy, like an accessory.
They're supposed to be a member of your family. Your dog is supposed to be member
of your family. It's not really an accessory. It's not a toy - I can
understand if you want to talk baby talk with your dog, that's not going to hurt
them. It's a little silly but, that's okay. But I just feel like this idea of
dressing them up, and putting bows on their heads and clothes on them - I just don't
get it. And I don't get putting uncomfortable clothes on kids,
either. It's something that bugs me. I'm a parent, and I gotta say, when I see
- especially when I had friends with younger kids, because my kids are older
now, they're 5 and 7, so I don't get this as much. But there was a time I went
through where all the kids had little bows on their hair and all this stuff
- and it's just, you know - I mean obviously you see me: I like wearing makeup I like
doing my hair. I do all those things, I've got earrings. But I did those things as a
decision! I chose to do that to myself. If I want to wear makeup, if I want to do my
hair, if I want to, you know, pierce my ears, that's my decision as an adult. It
is not a decision that a child can make, and it is most certainly not a decision
that an animal can make. I see constantly breeders making the
decision to dock animals tails, to change their ears and things like that. And it
just makes me so sad when I see a little puppy and I know that just a few weeks
ago it had its ears chopped off to make a breeder happy. It's just - it's one of the
things that is so prevalent in our culture, and I just...this idea
that that you know "oh, well I want my dog to look mean, so I'm going to you know make his
ears look a certain way" "I want my dog to look alert or whatever so I'm going to
make its tail stick up" it's just - you know - who gave you that right? And it
really upsets me. I just don't get it. I wonder if you guys feel the same way. I
do. It's just it's got to be one of my top pet peeves of all time.
I consider it so incredibly cruel. You know, this is something that we also do,
of course, to feed animals, we do this with pigs, especially, they get their
tails docked, they get their - um, all the things happen to them, they get their teeth snipped
- we do the same thing with cows, they get the their ears notched, they get
their tails cut, they get all the stuff - their horns are removed - all this kind
of stuff. It just feels like - when when did we decide that we needed to
start, especially, mutilating the bodies of animals. Why is that just considered
normal practice in our culture? Why is that something that most people don't
seem to bat an eye over? And I - it just infuriates me, and it saddens me because
we can treat people so much better. I think that we can treat animals so much
better. We have the opportunity to treat each other as much more than just
objects. And if you want a toy that you do that with, that's fine. But these are
living, sentient beings, and it's just - it sickens me. I want to know what you guys
think, because I feel the same thing about any kind of body modification.
Unless it is for medical purposes, you know: to save a life, to prevent illness
or something like that. And, and - please don't give me the idea that circumcision
is going to prevent illness, because that is not medically proven they have plenty
of studies now that show that that is ridiculous - so anything like that - I just
feel that anything that is done for a medically unnecessary reason shouldn't
be done. It should be just something that you know, unless someone says to
themselves that they want it done in the case of a human being when they're old
enough to be able to say that that's what they want. In the case of an animal?
Never! It's not your body, so stop touching it! Like, I just - yeah it's not your
body. If you want to do that stuff to yourself, go for it! But please, please
stop treating your children and your pets like they're your toys. Because it
is just not right. Let me know what you think in the comments, if you enjoyed
this video please give it a thumbs up, subscribe and I'll see you in my next
video. Take care and have a beautiful day. Bye.
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