Faith in world rising!!!!!

I once revealed this as the lie parents tell when they put down a dog to my high schoolers, and one said "Oh, that's funny, because my parents *really did* send our dog to a farm!"

My amazing angel-dog is over 14, and gets soooo scared at the vet—if we have to euthanize her, I so hope we can work it out to keep her home. I'm so sorry for you loss.

I beg to differ! I know everything about it, everything one can glean from reading L.M. Montgomery, and that's what it's really like. Right? Right?!

Isn't there legislation pending against that? ;)

Buuuut—-so has monogamy and marriage between two people. Polyamory doesn't, in my experience, value one gender over the other—and everyone is involved willingly. It is totally different from wacko fundie polygamy with forced/unequal marriage.

One already loses such control while pregnant just through the process—it is appalling how other people devalue/infantilize/criminalize pregnant women.

Um—you know bulls are male, right? Human men =\= only males.

I disagree—the dog pays no attention to the child—this is not teaching behavior.

I totally had the same thought—that dog should be seen by a qualified animal behaviorist and possibly medicated before the shadow-chasing gets worse.

You could say the same thing of heterosexual marriage for most of history—the woman was usually chattel for the man, and not until recently in most cases could women move to dissolve the union.

I WANT TO SNURGLE THEM SOOOOO BADLY!!!!!! I love my doggie (Brittany mix) but Cavaliers!!!!!!!

If it had been her cats in the car she wouldn't have needed surgery. She would have needed a hearse. #catsgetitdone

So I guess my real rant should be at the people who consider this a story of love—because as a child and now as a parent, most people that mention The Giving Tree call it "sweet" and think it's "beautiful" how the tree loves the kid. The issue is the people who do not see this as a cautionary tale, but as something to…

One of my best friends and I had and played with our ponies until the disappeared in college. They were miraculously found about two years ago—and we proceeded (as two women in our 30s) to start manically grooming them and remembering their quite histrionic story lines. Our significant others backed away slowly.

Excellent point about the sentience of horses! My horse (who expresses his sentience through being scared of butterflies and interested in treats and scratches) would be very offended to be thought an automaton.

A college friend and I bonded over how traumatized we were as children by watching Watership Down—that whole black rabbit head in the sky still features in nightmares for me—and we decided that, now being adults in our 20s, it was time to FACE AND CONQUER THE FEAR of Watership Down. So we watched it—and had to sleep…

I'm a mother too, and while I do give a lot for my kid, and love her unconditionally, that doesn't mean there is no boundaries. I'm not going to let her take all my stuff or tear the house down if she wants, because it would make her happy—even parenting has better boundaries than that poor tree.

The book doesn't seem to be against the boy, though—-he takes it all, and then has a comfy seat when he's old.

I like much of Silverstein's poetry—but The Giving Tree incites a rage stroke.