A Live Cricket Steers Mattel's New Autonomous Toy Car
gizmodo.com.au
gizmodo.com.au
A toddler will try to grasp any small and 'cute' animal at sight. Is part of their human inquisitive nature. Children do not keep animals because all of they are little sadist jailers; they normally do this because are curious, want to understand any novelty around and have the basic impulse to protect, make lots of 'pet friends' or even experiment playing parent roles (with their 'subrogated sons').
And this is good, not bad. Even if some random insect or snail die eventually. This is totally the opposite of a sadistic behaviour.
Children feel the normal urge to explore, control and manipulate their environment. A child that do not show any interest for the real world is either autistic, sick, or have a serious problem that needs to be addressed (like being abused for example). Therefore, parents have to teach them about the typical outdoor dangers. This includes what animals to avoid at any cost, and how to manage the other animals that could deliver a bite leading to a sored thumb, like crabs or crickets.
To make a children responsible of the life of a pet and to teach him/her to adopt a routine (of feeding, changing water and caring of their beloved pet) is an invaluable experience that any boy and girl in the planet should have once at least. Humans and errors are linked concepts. I think that is much less traumatic for a boy to kill a short-lived cricket or grasshopper because they forgot to refill a bowl with water the last weekend, than to kill a canary or a cat by a similar mistake.
I think also that children need to understand that sometimes illness and death happen. To avoid a children any (reasonable, controlled, human) exposure to death will probably lead to a shelfish or stunned adult that will not touch their ill old parents with a ten foot pole. Everybody will die and our sons need be armed psychologically against this moment of mourn and lose, and have the opportunity to learn from family and adult friends what to do about this.
A pokemon or virtual pet can not provide the same experience. Life is not like a video-game that can be reiniciated as many times as you want, and children need to understand that when a pet die will not return to life again pressing some buttons, that is lost, and that to feel bad about this is normal.
In some countries to keep crickets as pets is not a such bizarre idea. When I was young I shared a few black shiny and big-headed cricket pets with my brothers. After hoping for hours in shorts, up and down the meadow, we returned to home and show our treasures: a wall lizard nest that we keep warm and wet until eclosion, three yellow and white butterflies, several grasshoppers and crickets... Males and females are easy to identify. Two males can not be put in the same cage and want to live isolated most of the time. We hunt and keep them for a while before to be released again in the meadow. Boys nowadays just keep excited pressing buttons all the evening instead, a really sad way to spend a glorious summer evening in my opinion. We liked to hear it singing in the balcony at night, is a relaxing sound. You could go to a news stand then and buy small plastic cages specially for housing crickets. (Cardboard boxes are just not good enough, because crickets will chew a hole in a coin and escape).
I can't help to point that this toy is a luxury palace for a cricket by comparison with our small cages. Well shaded with generous inner space and imitating a burrow. For most children living in a big city in a crowded apartment those are ideal pets for newies, more convenient and less demanding than a bored cat or dog.
> This seems sort of sadistic.
> > Yeah, just another case of man using world's creatures for his amusement. It's a bit sick really.
My brother on the other hand, I could see him doing something like what you described when he was a kid though.