We are happy to have them in our family but at the same time we are a bit nervous. Tim and I have both grown up with animals but unfortunately our own children haven't. We were a bit concerned that they wouldn't respect the birds but decided we needed to start somewhere and give them the opportunity to learn about respecting animals.
Sure enough though, a spat erupted this morning where my 13 year old accused my 9 year old of throwing bird seed at the birds. My 9 year old responded that yes, he had, but my 13 year old was also doing it. My 13 year old adamantly denied it.
I didn't know who to believe. I sent them both to their room and told them to figure it out. Still neither came clean. My 13 year old seemed more believable... "I love the birds, I would never hurt them"... whereas my 9 year old seemed smug "dude, just admit it" with a big grin on his face.
Admittedly, I took a side. I believed my 13 year old and punished my 9 year old. I even let my 13 year old go on an outing for 5 hours with some friends while my 9 year old got sequestered to his room and ended up crying himself to sleep.
Later that day, the issue again arose and still, neither would fess up. My husband seemed to smell the lie though and eventually it came out that my 13 year old had been lying the entire time. Immediately I was hit with the most intense sickening feeling..
The people in my world that I love the most are the people in my world that I trust the least.
I can't stand it. I hate it. And I don't know how to fix it.
