Post Punk Kitchen Forum

I'm hoping you guys have some thoughts on the best way to handle this. Next week, a "mobile barnyard" is visiting our oldest son's preschool--pony/donkey rides, bunnies and chickens in a pen, tethered goats, etc. I was there for it last year because I didn't know it was happening until the day of, and while the animals were healthy, it's not something I'm comfortable participating in. Especially since the chickens and goats are used for eggs and milk, and there's no magical green retirement pasture for when they're "spent."

Here's the issue--they were going to come on one of his non-school days (he's MWF and they were scheduled for a Thursday), but have rescheduled to Monday because of rain. Do I keep him out of school, explain why to him and/or the school director, even though I already raised concerns about it after last year and got the standard "the animals are well cared for" etc? If I do keep him home, what could we do as an alternative activity to keep him from feeling too left out? We do have a rescue farm near us where we've visited before, but they too started doing the "mobile petting zoo" thing to pay the bills--seems like kind of a dick move with rescued, previously mistreated animals, so we've stopped visiting them for the time being.

Ugh, why must every "family friendly" activity around here involve sad animals in a pen?

Could he switch school days for that week. So if he misses Monday he can go on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday instead?

I met a vegan woman in nyc the other week who wanted to kept her preschool daughter home because they were taking a trip to the Central Park Zoo. She asked her daughter what she wanted to do about it and the daughter decided on her own that she didn't want to participate.

Do you talk to you son about what happens to animals on farms etc? Would you be comfortable with him making his own decision on this? If you are not then just tell who ever you need to tell that you are keeping him home and explain why. Then spend the day with him. At that age you don't need to plan alternative activities unless you want to. Reno would be happy if I kept her home from school and took her to lunch. It could be something simple like that. It doesn't need to match what the other kids are doing in school.

School days are non-switchable because of class sizes unfortunately. Good point about not really needing an alternative--I forget sometimes that three year olds are relatively uncomplicated creatures (usually!).