Care and Feeding is Slate’s parenting advice column. Have a question for Care and Feeding? Submit it here.

Dear Care and Feeding,

My wife “Darla” has blown something innocuous completely out of proportion and may have cost our 6-year-old son “Jacob” a good friend. Now she’s concerned he’s exhibiting some sort of proto-serial killer behavior.

Yesterday, Darla found Jacob in the backyard with a pile of garden snails he had collected and was smashing one by one with a rock. She made him stop and asked him why he thought it was okay to engage in “killing animals.”  Jacob replied that this was something he and his friend “Jason” do all the time. Darla called Jason’s mother to ask her if she was aware that her son had taught Jacob “to be an animal murderer.” When Jason’s mother learned what my wife meant by that, she literally laughed out loud (Darla had her on speaker phone) and told her that she’d had her going for a minute. Darla retorted that Jason was a “bad influence” on Jacob and ended the call.

She has since taken away Jacob’s screen privileges for the rest of the week as punishment. My attempts at reasoning with her have been met alternately with anger and dismissal. And when, in an effort to make her see my point of view, I told to her that my sister and I used to do the exact same thing when we were Jacob’s age, she replied that “it’s no wonder” I am not “treating this with the seriousness it deserves.” When I asked Darla if she would consider apologizing to Jason’s mother so the boys can still play together, she blew up at me. She said that “killing animals is a sign a child will grow up to be a serial killer.”

Jacob has been friends with Jason since preschool. I think it would be terrible if their friendship were to end over nonsense like this. Darla is a member of PETA, but I really think this is going too far. Can you give me some advice for getting her to come to her senses? She is even considering sending Jacob to a therapist “for evaluation”!

—A Shitshow Over Snail Smashing

Dear Snail Smashing,

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I can’t side with either one of you in this matter. The way Darla spoke to Jason’s mother was indeed inflammatory. But I fear that she is confusing cause-and-effect (killing small living creatures will lead to killing humans) with identification of early signs of a disturbed mind and a possible clue to future violent behavior. I’m also concerned about the escalation to no-contact for these two small children without a bit of further probing. Yet, it’s your dismissal of the kids’ killing snails for fun that troubles me most. That you did this as a child does not excuse your child’s doing it, and you brushing it off as “nonsense like this” is just plain wrong. The killing of living creatures, no matter how small, for the sheer pleasure of it, is never acceptable. Period. Your insistence that it’s no big deal is ugly.

That said, the appropriate step to take, when one discovers for the first time that one’s own 6-year-old is merrily engaging/participating in such cruelty, is a conversation. A 6-year-old may never have thought about a snail (or a fieldmouse, or a grasshopper or spider) as a living being. Jacob needs this to be pointed out. Jason needs to have it pointed out, too. (And if Jason laughs uproariously, as his mother did, maybe then it’s time to pull the plug on the friendship. Callousness is not a trait to be encouraged, and is rarely limited to the smallest of creatures.) Just because Jason’s mother may have no interest in educating him on this matter doesn’t mean Jacob’s mother can’t.

I think your wife’s response was draconian, yes. And I think it would be premature to have Jacob evaluated for serial killer tendencies. He was merely doing what his friend did. Both kids need to know that it’s wrong and needs to stop—that’s all.

—Michelle

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