TaviaMaeBradshaw

Although all little boys won’t grow up to be firefighters and little girls won’t grow up to be princesses, your childhood can say a lot about who you’ll grow up to be. Michael Vick claims to have beaten, fought and killed dogs because he was raised in the slums. People say Lindsay Lohan is the mess she is because she became famous at much too young an age. Whether you think it’s how you’re raised, or something you were born with, your youth often foreshadows the rest of your life.

Like most kids, I grew up watching Disney movies. I adored ‘The Little Mermaid’ and was never scared of ‘Beauty and the Beast’. I loved princess movies, but what little girl doesn’t? To others, it may have seemed I was just following the path of thousands of little girls before me, but my reasons were different. I didn’t want to grow up to be a princess. I watched princess movies because the animals were always happy; safely singing songs and helping the young women go from rags to riches. As soon as someone put on ‘The Lion King’, it was game over. A tantrum would start and I’d kick and scream until it was changed. Any movie where an animal (animated or real) was emotionally or physically hurt, at any point, was not my kind of movie. When I got a bit older, the list of movies would grow to include films like ‘Stewart Little’, ‘Air Bud’, and ‘My Dog, Skip’. To this day, I still have trouble watching them.

Soon after I turned five, my family moved from our small house in Mississauga to a larger house in Oakville. This meant we were no longer limited to the two cats we already owned. It was time for some new pets! We went to the pet store and picked out two “male” rabbits that we named Dusty and Spot. It was less than a year later we realized Spot was in fact NOT a male rabbit. We were now the proud owners of three little fluff balls named Dumbo, Shadow and Spot Jr. An interesting fact about rabbits is that they can conceive in the same hour they give birth; yup, the same hour. In a few months, our five rabbits became twelve. Five was already a little much, so when Spot had 7 more my mom said the babies had to go. Like all mammals, rabbits are only supposed to have as many babies as they can feed. For rabbits, this limit is six. We named the runt bunny Princess. My mom used to hand feed her twice a day. We found homes for a few of them and the rest went back to the pet store. Dusty was spayed and we kept Princess along with her parents. It was sad to see the others go, but I wasn’t devastated until I found out some people eat rabbits… But that’s a whole other story. We discovered our little runt was actually a boy, and he became “The bunny formerly known as Princess”. Dusty later had a stroke and never recovered. I cried for days when we had to put him down. Spot died of separation depression less than 48 hours later. Seeing the love connection between those two creatures broke my heart and changed the way I look at animals forever.

When people ask children what they want to be when they grow up, the receive answers like ‘Pop Star’ or ‘Star Athlete’, but not from me. When I was little I wanted to be a dairy farmer. Not the usual childhood dream, but I had it all planned out. I loved animals and couldn’t imagine my life without them. So, what jobs could I get where I could work with animals? Well, there was always the obvious choice of a veterinarian, but I would be forced to put animals down and see them at their worst, so that was out of the question. If I worked in a pet store, I would have to sell them and I’d never get to see them again; being a breeder led to the same outcome. In my little third grade mind, the only choice left was farmer. Well, I could hardly be a regular farmer. Sell my animals to be eaten? I don’t think so! So I came to the conclusion that a dairy farmer was the right profession for me. I could have as many animals as I wanted and nothing would ever get hurt. Unfortunately, this dream was rather short lived. I found out spiders like to live in barns and my fears trumped my dreams.

When I was ten, the cat my mother had, had since before I was born was put down. It was one of the most traumatic experiences of my life, but everything happens for a reason. Not too long later, we bought two new cats that we named Mischief and Frisky. “Misty” was always ‘my baby’ and he is still my heart today. About a year after we got them, Frisky was killed by a car. Yet again, I was devastated. The two cats were biological siblings and my mom didn’t feel right burying Frisky while Mischief went out searching for her. She showed him his sister’s body and he became withdrawn and depressed for months. Again, the absolute adoration these cats had for each other just melted my insides. How could something with such a simple life and mind have such a massive heart?

When Mischief recovered emotionally, he became the most loving animal I have ever had. He also had to find something else to amuse himself with, since he no longer had Frisky to play with. Mischief too up the “sport” of hunting. There’s nothing he can’t catch. Quite often, he brings them home half alive and I try to nurse them back to health, without much success. The best example of this is probably my baby mouse, Teddy. Misty brought him home with a few gashes, but mostly alive. The thing was so young, its eyes weren’t even open yet. Every night for almost a month, I would stay up until 11pm and get myself up at 3am to feed the little monster. Baby mice need to be fed every four hours. After the first week and a half, Teddy opened his eyes and learned to walk. It was one of the most amazing things I have ever witnessed. Unfortunately, the wounds did eventually kill him. My favourite success story is my squirrel, Gibby. He had a bad leg and without going into detail, I nursed him until he was old enough to be out on his own. I moved him into my tree house and he later moved himself to my neighbour’s front yard maple tree where he lived for two summers, lame leg and all. I’m not sure what eventually happened to him, but I’m glad I was able to help him have the life he did experience.

I am now 16 years old. These and many other affairs affected my life drastically. I have been a vegetarian for three years and a vegan for almost two. I am an animal rights activist and fully intend on having a hobby farm and marrying a marine biologist. I still have tons of pets, (which I now call my “animal companions” - my average is 8 at a time) and my biggest goal in life is to abolish animal testing. I don’t think any of my teachers or family friends from my childhood would be surprised to hear I’m a vegan. When I look back, I’m only surprised I didn’t become one sooner. I will never go back to eating animal products and I think my childhood had a lot to do with that. I truly believe that your childhood foreshadows who you become as you grow up.