Should kids be exposed to shocking things?

Photo by Jeremy Avery on Unsplash

Dear Dale:

I’m childless as far as I know anyway and don’t spend much time around kids but I got this nephew who’s eight and sometimes get roped into doing things with him and his parents like go to this place where kids can see what it’s like to be a grown up one with a job anyway something cool like cop or fireman and he chooses lion tamer so they give him a hat and a whip and put him in this cage and close the door and at first he just stands there with a big smile on his face cracking his whip at nothing but then they open another door and a huge lion comes leaping out. Poor kid was so scared he pissed himself. Call me soft-hearted but I don’t think kids should be exposed to that sort of thing. What do you think Dale? Should kids be exposed to shocking things?

Signed,

Think of the children

Dear TOTC:

First off, I’m going to have to disagree with you about cops. I’ve had a lot of experience with the police, most of it bad and let me tell you: they are not cool at all. Just try offering one a hit off your hash pipe after being stopped for drunk driving and you’ll see what I mean.

As for fighting lions… I’ve done it but not for money. I went to the zoo drunk once and, for a joke, climbed up onto the roof of the lion cage and taunted the beast below but the bars must’ve been a bit rusty because next thing I knew I was lying in a big pile of cat scat so I leapt up, whipped out my belt and snapped it in the face of the snarling feline.

Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever had an experience like that but let me tell you: when you’re all alone in the lion’s den covered in crap with your pants down around your ankles and desperately trying to hold off a four-hundred-pound lion with a tattered old belt… Well, let’s just say shit gets real pretty damn fast.

Fortunately, an employee with a tranquilizer gun happened to be passing by — the baboons had been acting up again, repeatedly banging one another in both broad daylight and full view of a kindergarten class and something had to be done to dampen their libidos — and he quickly put the big cat down.

Needless to say, I was grateful. So much so I took him to Slee Zees, my local strip club, and bought him a drink and a lap dance. How was I to know he’d fall for Scarlet, the raunchiest stripper of the bunch, leave his wife, quit his job and follow her around North America with a diamond ring the size of your knuckle in his pocket? Poor bastard finally blew his brains out in some place called Saskatoon. I still get hate mail from his wife.

But that’s neither here nor there. The real issue is whether or not kids should be exposed to shocking things. To which I say yes. Now, I know a lot of people disagree with me, think they should be sheltered from the horrors of life but look what that’s gotten us: millions of unfeeling gamers with thumbs the size of turkey legs who think that killing is easy and death, just a brief blip before pressing restart. No wonder they’re so badly behaved.

Compare that to kids who’ve suffered: the orphaned, abandoned and abused. Cancer victims, chimneysweeps and Cardinals fans. Which is why I prefer the company of child soldiers. They may steal your coke and gunpowder to make brown-brown but they, at least, know what it’s like to take a life.

So, to all you weekend dads out there with insensitive offspring in need of an attitude adjustment, next time you take them to the zoo, lead them to the big cat enclosure and toss them over the fence. You’ll be glad you did. Because not only will it shock them out of their complacency, they’ll have one hell of a story to tell their friends. Not to mention their therapist. Assuming, of course, they survive. Hope this helps.

Sincerely,

Dale

Hi. If you’ve made it this far, you probably liked the story. So why not check out some others at my Medium page? https://medium.com/dear-dale