Gwynnevere with Little B

There is nothing so crushing as seeing someone you care for hurting. Gwynnevere heard someone talking about eating pigs. It was a throwaway comment made by somebody that thinks of pigs as pieces of flesh, nothing more nothing less. The type of conversations we hear all the time, in every supermarket, on every TV channel, in most conversations about food. This idea is shoved down the throats of everyone, continually, unabashedly and subliminally. I don't know why this time was different for her. Perhaps it was the glib delivery or the empty laugh. Perhaps it was the mock caring of animals; perhaps because the human seemed to look kind; or perhaps Wynnie has reached that age where she can process more delicately.

She looked at me at the time with such despair, my heart trembled; for I knew I could not protect her from this cruelty and intolerance. Cruelty that is so widely accepted; to not just be tolerated, but glorified in all its myriad forms. To mock the victims with indifference towards their suffering. To ignore them to such an extent as to treat them as "things", "objects", numbers".

At the time I held her, for that is all I could do. I couldn't lie and say everything was ok or was going to be ok. I wasn't going to insult her intelligence. I just let her know she was loved and safe.

Today over a beautiful lunch, on a balmy sunny day. The birds chirruping in the trees; the drone of the bees almost deafening in the lavender. The garden folk milling about or snoozing in the indigo shade from the big, old, shelter tree. Wynnie looked at me and quoted almost word for word what the human had said in the supermarket; this time looking at me and saying "why mummy?" - why indeed?

“Because they do not know or understand, or maybe don't care, but you are safe here, there are many hundreds of thousands of people like you and me that do care, that will always care”. Wynnie replied, “how can anyone, anywhere be safe if people think it's ok to hurt someone because they are different?” I replied sadly, “because they don't see them as someone, they see them as things that don't feel anything, that killing them is an ok thing to do, as long as you use nice words to describe it.” Wynnie raised an eyebrow and said “how ridiculous, I'm only six and I know the difference between right and wrong, I know they feel, think, love and play, they are my friends”.

Wynnie then took herself down to the bottom of the garden and sat with Little B. I believe the look on Gwynnevere's face speaks volumes. I hope one-day people will realise how damaging consuming animals is for all the earth, the environment and themselves. That they will understand that with the growing thousands of plant-based children around them, how damaging it is to talk about killing with no reverence or personal responsibility. Times are changing, humans must change too. There are thousands of little ears around now that see the importance of all life and are touched deeply with ignorant comments about animals.