You can't change the law of the Jungle

I was at a family party recently and the nieces (but mainly nephews)
were hushed away into a room for a bit to watch telly

I stayed with them for a while and a natural history program came
on ... a sparrow hawk killed a small bird and a female lion killed
a deer ... all the kids looked horrified and they turned to me
with the question "why" (in the way only kids can)

I tried to explain but


long and the short of it is ... is there a way of doing this?
(ie... is there a good way to explain)
(any tips)

Animals need to kill to eat - otherwise they die. They have to live by the law of the jungle.

Man has the choice, he wants to live, just like animals do, but he doesn't need to kill to eat. he is more intelligent than the animals - he can grow crops to survive, or he can choose to eat meat if he wants. In which case he kills them anyway...er...blimey, how deep do you need this to be?

How old are they? And do you have the parents' permission to shatter all their kids' illusions?

2 and 3

Just say that animals can't go to the shops to buy food - they have to kill to eat, or they die. It's what animals have to do, they aren't being cruel .

Just tell them Christmas is cancelled because Santa had to eat Rudolf because the credit crunch made him to poor to buy any meat

Hard, but fair, HM.

Originally Posted by happy man

Just tell them Christmas is cancelled because Santa had to eat Rudolf because the credit crunch made him to poor to buy any meat

Cruel hm ....But very funny

I know I'm a very bad HM

My kids have often brought this up. They are huge fans of natural history programs and we own all the Attenborough dvd's available. They would always shy away from the screen, or shout at the victim to run/swim/jump faster to get away from its predator and save being eaten. So, being the type of devoted father i am, i decided to teach them about the 'law of nature' to help them better understand that its perfectly normal and even meant to happen in the wild.

I started off by asking where the meat (bacon wrapped chicken) they had for dinner had come from. They said Morrisons. I asked them where it had come from before it got to Morrisons. They said from a man in a lorry. This went on for some time, so to cut a long story short i asked them where the lions and tigers, and snakes, and sharks that they had been watching would get there food from when there were no shops. They pondered this for a moment and then asked:

Nanny doesn't live near any shops. Does she do that?

I said yes.

I think they got the general gist of it. If you haven't got any shops then run your food down and eat it raw.

They always ask me now if i am going to Morrisons to get dinner....

Originally Posted by Alfaspeed

Nanny doesn't live near any shops. Does she do that?

Very good.

Just tell them that if God had meant us to be vegetarians, he wouldn't have made animals out of meat!

Originally Posted by Stewart1

Very good.

Just tell them that if God had meant us to be vegetarians, he wouldn't have made animals out of meat!

Commendable answers from some ... silly from others

but we all deal with it

Haven't they ever seen The Lion King

It explains everything
Summat' about the circle of life Liion eats deer, lion dies (obviously poisened by dodgy deer), lion becomes fertiliser, deer eats grass (grown organically pest-free on the fertiliser), deer dies (from the same deer poison which could so easily have been eradicated if said grass had been grown GM) The End.

In the end, the baboon wins


Was that any help Mr Q?

If we didn't eat farm animals they'd have never had a life at all. And would the world be a better place without those adorably tasty little lambs every spring?

of course we know that is a fact of life because we have knowledge
... but explaining it to a very young child brings up all
kinds of bother ... am on the case though

Originally Posted by Quinn

... am on the case though

How does beer help?

"You still wake up sometimes, don't you?
Wake up in the dark and hear the screaming of the lambs?"

They should be subjected to this script



Funny though, I've seen recent programs on the telly with these Chef types that make sure their kids know where meat comes from and some are even pets before they become dinner. Others go hunting, fishing etc. Not a bad thing to expose kids to reality as it is. Not sure it suits the ages you described though Mr Q

hmmm ... not quite sure what you mean there Kurz
you seem to have mixed up a question about me drinking
beer and the fact that was originally asked