I feel like it’s become less socially acceptable to hit your pet than it is to hit your child. And that’s… kind of absurd.
Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s absolutely abhorrent to be hitting your pets too, but I feel like when someone hits an animal everyone’s like, “Holy shit. Someone call animal control? How can you hit something that can’t even fight back? This is disgusting.” and then when someone whacks their kid everyone’s like, “Well, you know. That’s just their parenting style.”
Messed up history facts time.
The first recognized victim of child abuse was a girl named Mary Ellen Wilson. In 1874.
There was very little protection for minors before then. Children were considered the property of their parents and barely anyone intervened when they were mistreated.
Mary Ellen was rescued from unfit parents only after the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) stepped in on her behalf. ASPCA advocates pointed out that if Mary Ellen were a horse or a dog, her mistreatment would be prohibited by statute.
A judge agreed that the young girl deserved at least the same protection as an animal.
It is morbid enough that animals were legally more protected than children and that this very comparison was used to extend legal rights to children.
But the worst part is that a lot of parents have apparently not updated their beliefs since then and still treat children as property that they can do anything they want to. That is what a lot of people consider an ideal “traditional family”.
Whoa, I had no idea. That’s wild.
Dogs have more enumerated rights than minors in the state of Pennsylvania.
For serious? That’s all kinds of fucked up.
Published
myblog 