actually, these dad's that I know were outside with two of the neighborhood girls that are Z's age. Z and I saw them when we were going to to check the mail.
Z saw her friends playing the in tennis court and asked if we could stop in and play with them for a little awhile. The girls had found a praying mantis and were poking at it with leaves.
I felt uncomfortable with the way they were treating it. Sure, it was me who let one mantis eat another just two weeks ago. But I never condone Z treating animals cruelly or teasing them, not even insects. The dads totally didn't seem to care that their kids were poking the poor mantis. So I tried to handle things by saying "Z, please don't hurt the mantis." and "Z don't torment it." even though she wasn't because I was hoping to get the other girls to stop.
Then the dads told their daughters that if they touched the mantis they would turn green and then everyone at school would make fun of them. And their daughters believed them! Then they were really worried about turning green! (so they poked at the bug from a greater distance)
Z said "They won't really turn green" and I said "No, of course not." in a friendly voice but loud enough for the girls to hear.
I had enough of the leaf poking so I got a stick and got the mantis to crawl up on it and then let the girls view it up close. I talked with them about how many legs it had and how that shows it is an insect. Z pointed out it's thorax and abdomen. We looked at it's mouth and I told them that it eats other insects and spiders.
The girls were pretty interested but still they wanted to poke it. One girl was telling me I needed to put it back in the bushes because it was "weird."
When they seemed tired of looking at it and learning about it I put it on a bush. They found where I put it and started poking it with leaves. Z was standing by them so I said loudly "Zoe honey please don't do anything to bother the mantis anymore." The other dads took the hint and told their daughters to leave it alone too.
I (I mean Z) ended up inviting the girls over to our house to play for awhile and everything was fine there.
It reminds me that last week Z's bossy older friend K tried to step on a beautiful big flying iridescent beetle but Z protected it. That girl is bigger though and was pushing past Z to smush it when I called out "Z, it is okay with me if you protect the beetle." and the girl looked at me and then stopped trying to manhandle Z out of the way. :(
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