Guilt Killjoyed the Gladiator

When going through my drafts today, I found this unposted memory that I wrote last summer while on vacation at the beach with my parents, my siblings, and their families. 

The spirit of the Roman arena is alive and well with my kids and their cousins. Each night after dinner, we all go for a walk on the beach where all the kids hunt crabs that can fight each other. Armed with fishing nets and sand buckets, these kids run screaming into the water hunting terrified crabs.

Watching 16 kids run in a trailing, screaming mass kind of pricks your heart at the sweetness of the scene until you hear what they are screaming. "Yeah! This one can fight the one in the bucket to the death!"

Wait, what? That last scream cooled any warm nostalgic feeling. Sweet and gushy feelings were replaced with guilt, making me feel as if my kids were the Michael Vicks of the seashore.

Once at least 2 crabs are in the bucket, some of the kids dig a pit in order to set the crabs free in the hope that they will fight each other to the death. From the oldest to the littlest darling, these kids work themselves up into a furry. They growled commands at the crabs.

"Rip his head off!"

"Chop off his claw!"

"Fight, you coward, fight!"

"Kill 'em! Kill 'em!"

My brother and I stood by in horror. Those were our kids who were screaming like they were part of the audience in the Roman arena. Granted, our kids weren't cheering on humans fighting to the death, but, still, we felt uneasy about their desire to witness disfigurement and death.

"You suppose this is how heartless people like the Nazis might have sounded when they pitted Jews against each other?" I asked my brother. This question didn't bode well with him.

He squished up his face and  decided to stop the kids. "Release the poor crabs!" he instructed them. But he was too late. One crab had already torn the arm off another. Disabled, the crab still stood up on its hind legs to defend itself.  With much regret, we returned that crab to the wild with one less defense, one less way to gather food for itself.

I realize this makes us sound like bleeding heart liberals which is hilarious if you know my family.

With so many crabs out there, what do these few matter, right? So why did it bother us so much? Obviously we don't want our children to be so cavalier with the lives of small defenseless animals. More than that, though, it just weirded us out to hear such bloodthirsty words come from their mouths.

Studies surely could back up why my brother and I cringed so much while watching our children, but I think it's more simple than that. Guilt is a small voice that shouldn't be ignored. While it might be an overplayed tools mothers use to control their kids from time to time, it still is really useful to keep people in check. And by keeping us in check, guilt keeps us tender.