It’s time for my monthly ramblings from the world of vegan parenting…
It’s been raining, and raining, and raining some more these last few weeks so we’ve been spending a lot of time colouring in pictures. Littlepixie is getting bored of her colouring book and my drawing skills are reasonably close to abysmal, I mean I know what I’m trying to draw, it’s just that our pencils are quite clearly malfunctioning!
I had the bright idea of going online to print out some colouring sheets for Littlepixie, she likes to colour elephants, monkeys, horses and giraffes, I’m sure you can imagine what my drawings look like!
So I did a little googling and I must say, I know coming from a vegan perspective I’m a little sensitive to animal cruelty but honestly, who would give this picture to their children to colour in? Do they have no compassion? Or do they just not think about these things?
I foolishly had thought that the vast majority of people had come around to the idea of animal-free circuses. But no, I appear to have overestimated once again.
Abuse of animals is still rife in circuses, circuses.com has some harrowing reports on it and one well-known circus is going to be appearing in court soon over claims of elephant abuse.
I googled “elephant circus colouring pages” and there are thousands of sites all offering the same types of pictures, happy elephants dancing on a ball or carrying balloons. What a fantastic message to send to our kids, eh?
It’s worth mentioning that I have no problem with talking anthropomorphic animals in children’s stories and pictures, in fact I think children really love talking animals and feel a real affinity towards them, but there is a world of difference between that and the above picture. The above picture is depicting a real life scenario, it’s not a walking talking elephant playing games, this picture clearly depicts a trained dumb beast being used for entertainment, it’s every bit as cruel as the practices in a factory farm, yet for some reason I can’t seem to find any battery hen colouring pages, odd!
Now, I know some people will think this an extreme reaction to a harmless colouring-in picture, but you know children build their world-view based on the things they see and do everyday.
A child who often colours in pictures of animals performing in a circus will be understandably quite excited when they see circus posters appear around town, as he will associate them with the happy animals he has been colouring. Do we want our children to be excited at the prospect of seeing a circus elephant balancing on a ball? I know I don’t!
There are thousands of colouring page websites to choose from, but most have plenty of images of performing animals included in their lists.
One way of using these pictures positively could be to use them to gently explain to an older child about natural and unnatural animal behaviour, and perhaps use the pictures to kick off discussions about the use of animals for entertainment. The ASPCA (American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) has a website aimed at older children which discusses elephants in circuses and other examples of animal cruelty.
Littlepixie is still a little young for such discussions, so I am going to print off some decent colouring pages while she is in bed and keep the circus discussion until she’s a little older.
National Geographic has a colouring book archive with dozens of wild animal pictures, each with an interesting factoid or two to amaze the children!
As always, I’ll finish with my usual book recommendations, these aren’t colouring books, but they are great for children who love to read about wild animals. For beautiful drawings of parent-child animal pairs have a look at “Mama, Mama/Papa, Papa” by Jean Marzollo and while we’re on the subject of elephants, one of Littlepixie’s current favourite books is “I am a little elephant” by Francois Crozat. Neither book shows the elephants having fun balancing on a ball however, strange that!
3 Comments
The Veggie Cook (42 comments)
September 2, 2008 at 10:14 amHello halfpintpixie – Thank you for another great article and the links to sites that offer coloring pics of animals not in captivity.
HM (1 comments)
September 3, 2008 at 12:52 amThank you.
I spent 4 days (thursday through sunday)with a group of friends, at the circus, handing out fliers, talking to people, showing a video, and fighting back tears. It is so so so so hard… seeing parent after parent turning a blind eye (yes blind eye… “we already know what goes on, how else do you expect to handle big animals, your definition of abuse is different than mine, etc etc”) while their little spawn look up at me with their big eyes. Especially when they get in my face, yelling at me that I don’t know what I’m talking about, that the video is fake (well done sock puppets I guess), or that I am a hater, even cussing at me, WITH THEIR CHILD’S HAND IN THEIRS!
It’s sad, but on the flip side a little lady who called some old man a jerk as I scurried to pick up the flier he threw on the ground and took it from me herself, minutes later was seen leaving the circus with her husband. I chased her down and asked if she was leaving, and she said to me “honey, I thought they outlawed this stuff a long time ago”. As I began to cry, the very elderly woman said “thank you so much for what you are doing. the animals need more people like you and your friends. They depend on you”.
Others were also willing to listen and during my taping of the elewalk some parents noticed them taping me and asked me questions later…
So it is just another example that what we do does plant a seed and will make a difference.
By the way, October 20th is the new court date… once again put off by ringling’s freak show turned torture show.
meow
halfpintpixie (7 comments)
September 8, 2008 at 3:58 am@ TheVeggieCook, thanks! Glad you enjoyed it.
@HM, Good on you for getting out there and raising awareness, even though so many of the people you met were rude, hopefully it sowed a few seeds in their minds for next time, well we can hope, can’t we!