Painting is a kind of art. People have always been going to art galleries, some people just like posters that look good in their room or go well with their mood, some people spend lots of money on paintings which are really expensive, some people even have their own collections. I don't think they do it only because it's like a tradition to see or have works of out-standing painters. Paintings are not just pictures with a good combination of colours. They are expressions and feelings which painters want to bring to us. There are a lot of styles in painting: abstract, cubist, pop, realistic, impressionism etc. Painters try to show us even different problems, make us think about something important. In order to do this, they use different colours (bright, light or dark, soft), different shapes (geometric, round or square), different lines (clear, strong, curved or straight)p; they show us different subjects: landscapes, portraits, wars etc. In my opinion, looking at a painting is like a talk with a painter though you don't use words. For example, usually bright colours show you that he is in a good mood and he wants to make you feel happy too; he wants to show you that war and horror are awful and terrible things using dark colours, square shapes and strong lines (for example, Guernica by Picasso). To my mind, painting develops our imagination, sense of beauty, helps us to be more sensitive and more intelligent. Even children begin their educational process with paintings. So, that is why painting is important for everyone.
In the morden world people listen to different kinds of music. The reasons are different. Of course, a lot of people listen to music to keep their bad mood away, so music is a kind of cure for people. But when people are happy, they listen to music too. Also, they listen to it when they just have nothing to do or wait for somebody/something or when they are at a concert. I guess these are the main reasons why people listen to music. But let's think about it deeper. Music has become an integral and very important part of our life. Music helps people to live. It is always around us and it creates a right atmosphere. For some people music is a means of self-expression or even a meaning of life. A lot of people connect their life with music. Music unites people. There are a lot of subcultures or just groups of people who listen to the same kinds of music. Music is a perception of the world for them, a way of showing emotions, feelings. Music is their state. It penetrates into our subconsciousness and creates our inside world. Sometimes, music teaches us how to act better. Different kinds of music help us in different situations. Also, we get a lot of information from music and sometimes, it makes us think about our life or even cry. I think different kinds of music are necessary and the more kinds of music we have, the better.
TV occupies one of the main positions in our life. It's a constant channel of the information and entertainment. Some people thing that the best pastime of their free time for watching entertaining broadcasts, but other people thing that it's better to watch political and educational programmes. Of course, we can watch many really interesting programmes: news, musical, sports and programmes for children and grownups. But nowdays I can't find programmes, which will be really interesting and people continue to watch even silly broadcasts. Many people became dependent on TV. Also, TV cuts people from the real world. People become lazy, instead of doing sports they watch TV. Television takes away ones free time. Instead of reading books people watch various TV programmes. The best thing is to watch only selective TV programmes. In my oppinion, this dependence originates because many people don't know how to spend their free time without television. They can watch television programmes from about six in the morning to the early hours of the next day watching everything. Among the biggest TV-viewers are not only adults but children as well. It is damaging for their health and abilities. My little sister, for example, can watch Disney Channel every day and night and it's her dependence, because she watches silly soaps( e. g. "Hannah Montana" ). Only few people today can live without television. Despite of increasing influence of the Internet, video films and other high-technology sources of information television continues to play an important part in the human life. If people do not like TV they do not buy it or switch it off.
Nothing can live always in our world, nothing is eternal in our world. Humans, plants, animals, buildings, cars, almost everything has its own period when it is valid. The same thing happens with our Planet. It is like a living organism that has its birthday, boyhood and old age. But some special conditions, human’s intervention, pollutions can speed up the period of old age. The process of destroying our Planet has already begun. And only one question became very popular nowadays among people: How will we stay alive? How will we save our Planet? But I don’t want to write in my essay about others, I want to describe things that I do for the salvation of the Earth. To start with I want to say, that two years ago I began to think thoroughly about the problem of pollution and litter that we have everywhere in the streets of our city. I watch different movies about dumps and hear thousand times that plastic garbage decomposes during thousands of years. That is why my family and I won’t use plastic bags a lot, we will prefer paper bags or bags that are made of different fabrics. Sometimes I will even use the same plastic bag twice or thrice or even more times. I will just wash it and when this bag will be dry I will re-use it. Sometimes people think: "Oh, I am not so poor and I have enough money for buying a new plastic bag, that can be more useful or beautiful than the previous one”. But these are just prejudices and human egoism. Using the same bag doesn’t mean anything because, to my mind, not every person will spy how many bags you have changed during a week, for example. To conclude I must say, that using organic materials is better than using plastic garbage. And this is the first step that will help our Planet to be saved. By the way I do not and will not throw litter in the streets. In our city we have few litterbins, so people prefer to leave their litter in places where they were but I will always put my litter in my bag and will throw it in the nearest litterbin or I will take it with me and throw it at home. Speaking about pollution, I can say that I prefer and will prefer to use public transport instead of my father’s car. Every day we have a lot of traffic jams on our roads in our city, millions of cars stand and all of them soil our environment. And it is not very difficult to imagine how big the percentage of spoiled air is. I don’t want to have different illnesses with my lungs. That is why I will always use trolleybuses or the underground when I visit Moscow. When the weather is fine and it is not very cold, I will walk. I can admit that I will continue using public transport because I really care of my health and I don’t want to destroy the ozone stratum. There's another perspective that I can't but mention. I believe that people can save our Planet by respecting animals’ rights. I’m a very religious person, I pray and go to church very often, that is why respect to people and animals is quite a normal thing for me. How will I respect animals? The first thing that I have made and will continue doing is that I don’t and won't use cosmetics that were tested on animals. Not so long ago one of my group mates, Irene, told me about different tests on animals. For example, when scientists want to know whether they innovated a shampoo or not, they took rabbits, put them into special conditions so that those rabbits can't turn their necks, they can't even scratch themselves. Scientists drip a drop of the new shampoo on a rabbit’s eyes and if the shampoo destroys it, the shampoo is good. After this experiment poor animals become blind. Isn’t it horrible? To my mind our Mother Nature didn’t want to use her children in such a way. That is why I don’t use cosmetics of L’Oreal and different products for cleaning my house by Procter and Gamble. Maybe others will say that it can’t be connected with the problem of saving our planet. But I have an answer: This cruelty gives the beginning to another cruelty. People kill each other, bombard cities and villages. Just remember that tragedy in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, after that atomic bomb the degrees of radiation were so high that it was impossible to stay absolutely healthy. It was a great catastrophe that increased the mortality rate of every living organism. I will save my Planet with the help of saving electricity and water. Actually I began to do it many years ago and I will continue doing it. I will try to switch off the light when I am not in the room, I won't watch TV a lot. In every room in my flat I will have a bulb that saves energy. I can use it longer than a usual bulb and I believe that it can help somehow. What about water? To live in Russia means to spend a lot of water every day. Of course, I won't wash the dishes as all other countries do because Russians are not accustomed to doing that but I will never use water when it is not necessary, for example when I begin to wash the dishes and somebody diverts me. In this case I will always turn the tap off and only when I am free, I will continue this procedure. To conclude, I must say that our Planet is a big home for all of us, it doesn’t matter what nation you are, it doesn’t matter what colour you are. Our Planet is a unique thing that connects us. And we should be grateful, we should be happy, we should respect our Big Home. It will not be difficult to begin with yourself because it will be just the first step, later it will be more. You still don’t believe that only one person can do anything? That the safety of our Planet is our government's obligation? Don’t be an egoist, you should also participate in this process. And only then it will have a result.
Our planet is rather young, but already it suffers greatly every day because of us, humans. She reacts to our destructive influence by different nature disasters, such as tsunami, earthquakes and temperature drops all over the world. Garbage, radioactive waste, pollution of all kinds one day will destroy her and we will die as well. I want to think about the ways how I myself will save my home, our blue globe. First of all, I would like to mention the thing nobody of us can live without. It is, of course, water. According to one of the theories about the origin of our planet, life began in water. The Earth is the only planet in our Solar system, which contains liquid water and makes it possible to live here. We need fresh water every single day. But the problem is its quality. Let’s take the USA and Russia, for instance. In North America people can drink tap water. In Russia it can sometimes be dangerous. We use water very irrationally, so it has to be re-cleaned many times. I found the way out and I advise many people to follow my example: when I want to clean dishes, I stop the sink in order not to let the water go down the pipes and then I do my job. I save water this way. And my parents do the same. Also we do not take a bath, which requires too much water to collect almost in vain. Maybe if all people in our country did the same, we would not only have the running water clean, but also the rivers, ponds and lakes in a better condition. The second way in which I help Mother Earth concerns garbage. I’ve been abroad and I was shocked how clean the streets were there. It has never been so in my motherland. It hurts to realize that. The good way out would be the system of sorting the garbage and its recycling. Nowadays this system is represented only by bums, who collect cans and bottles to get some money for themselves and buy alcohol. It’s not in my power to set up/ establish this system, but still I try to do something against the dirt. I don’t throw out any kind of stuff, for example. If a person misses the trash bin, I will usually pick up the piece of trash and put it in the bin for him. Also one of my friends taught me something. When you throw away an empty plastic bottle, you should unfasten the screw-top and then roll over the bottle. This should be done, because at the dumps the rolling machines can’t do it with the bottles. No pressure can make plastic become flat with the screw-top on. I’d like to have a system of garbage sorting in our country, but we can’t even start with our university. Nobody needs it. Most people understand the problem, but don’t want to move a finger to help the planet. And as we know, synthetic things decompose in earth over a very, very long period of time. I’m too shy and maybe afraid of the refusal of our local administration to ask for such measures. The other thing is aerosols. They are very harmful not only for the air and, accordingly, atmosphere and oxygen in general, but for us as well. Their fumes can damage our lungs. I don’t use them for both reasons. If we speak about deodorants, isn’t it simpler just to wash yourself more often rather than to sprinkle yourself with unknown things? Even fifty years ago people coped with such everyday tasks rather well without any particular household chemical goods. I told all my acquaintances and friends to do the same and not to ruin ourselves and the planet. Let’s talk about paper. Trees, from which paper is made, are cut down in large numbers every year. In our university we are taught without books, as we simply don’t have them. So teachers have to print leson plans for us. I pity the trees, as they are the lungs of our planet. I developed the way to reduce the usage of the paper. I simply use electronic versions of our plans. The only problem is to carry my laptop with me that burdens my shoulders and worsen my scoliosis. To my mind, it is a very useful way out. You can check your spelling there and, for, example, it’s better for me to type rather than to write, as I have a hard-to-read handwriting. Now my planet-rescue plan will concern electricity. We don’t use matches at home, we have an electric lighter. It saves another bunch of trees. Lighters are used almost everywhere in our country and it’s a good tendency, I think. As I study at the Ryazan State University, pedagogical department, I learn English. It broadens my perspectives in life as well as the knowledge of a foreign language. Still, in my childhood I was fond of Biology and knew a lot up to some time, when I had to leave it off. However, I still like nature and all living beings. I like my planet, but I hate our government. So one day I might think: "Why don’t I do something for my planet? Why can’t I help some environmental company or some researches?” After my graduation I will definitely try to get work at such a company, as WWF and Green peace. I can be useful as a translator, though I don’t have such a specialization people get at our natural-geographical department. As a conclusion, I’d like to say that our planet is REALLY in a bad condition. Even though it can’t collapse and be destroyed overnight, our lives are still under threat. However, this potential danger was created by us. The only way to get the balance NATURE\HUMANS is to think it over and start to act. There is no sense to wait for our politicians or some groups like UNESCO and again WWF together with Greenpeace to act. The latter does their best all over the world. I want to emphasize that everything depends on ourselves. Let’s begin with ourselves! Let’s follow my example in such simplest things as I described above, and the problem will become a bit easier to solve!
– How are you? – Fine, thanks. And you? – I’m fine, too. Quite a familiar piece of dialogue, don’t you think so? Such conversations are very common in our daily life. But let’s analyze, what do we need such communication for? Do we want our interlocutors to answer how they are doing? Or do we simply want to be polite? Well, in most cases this is really the matter of politeness. Now let’s pass to the answer. “I’m fine” – sounds really nice, but do you believe the person has told you the truth? Or is it the matter of politeness again? Of course, very often something goes in a wrong way and we are not fine, on the contrary, we are really sad or disappointed. But we say, “Yeah, I’m fine!” not to bother the partner and not to waste time telling him or her about your misfortune in detail. What’s the conclusion then? Though it seems to sound ridiculous, it is quite logical. This how-are-you-conversation is hypocritical. Twice. The one who asks the question usually doesn’t want to hear the answer. The one who answers doesn’t reveal the truth. So… It is quite obvious now that communication hypocrisy is a very common thing. Now let’s analyze the necessity of this hypocrisy. Let’s say whether it helps us or should be avoided. Let’s consider another example then. – How do you like my new dress? (1) Well… It’s nice. (2) Actually I don’t like it. Which answer do you consider to be more appropriate if 1. the speakers are good friends; 2. the speakers are just colleagues. You’ve made your choice. Have you chosen the first answer at least once? Then you find hypocrisy not so bad and even useful. Well, you are right to some extent. Hypocrisy makes our life easier. It helps us maintain friendly (or other) relationships. But keep in mind that when the truth is revealed hypocrites experience not best days in their lives. Have you chosen the second answer twice? Then you think that bitter truth is better than sweet lies. And you are right. It’s better to know that the dress does not suit you and the next time you go shopping choose something more modern or of different colour or simply of different size. Isn’t it better to know the truth than to be deceived?! But be careful not to offend people with your truth! Communication hypocrisy is a double-edge sword. Be very careful with it!
In all times there were some lazy people, who didn’t want to try hard to invent something new or think hard about some conceptions. It was easier to find a work of another person and say that it was yours. This is called plagiarism, and I want to reflect upon this problem.
Plagiarism is “a copy of another person’s ideas, words or work and pretend that they are your own”. If I hadn’t put commas on the both sides of this quotation from Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, it could be considered as plagiarism, as I would seem to set up this phrase for my own, and that would be no good. Plagiarism is not a simple thing to discover, as in some cases the owner does nothing to protect his rights, in other ones nobody knows that it was plagiarized.
There is a synonymous word for plagiarism. It is “piracy” that is fully spread in Russia, for example. Still, some differences between these two notions can be found. The main feature of plagiarism is that of misappropriation of author's rights, while “piracy” is a misappropriate usage, copying and publishing of, for example, some work of fiction or a film. Lenin once said that “art belongs to people”, and, to my mind, this is the credo of people, who earn their money by “piracy”. There is even a joke: “If you have licensed operating system in the USA, you are a normal law-abiding citizen. If you have a licensed OS in Russia, you show off”. It will always bу easier to by cheap CD-s with films instead of the licensed ones, which are in ten times more expensive, while we don’t have normal laws, punishment and services in Russia to prevent both “piracy” and plagiarism.
The idea of plagiarism, as I said, is something vague. The coincidence of separate ideas can’t be called plagiarism, as all author’s ideas are based on some other ones, which were created or developed earlier. That’s why the matter of plagiarism is not in the ideas, but in the shape of them. For instance, all writers al over the world wrote and write about love. Are they plagiarists as they use one and the same subject? No, I’d like to say. But if one of them writes let it be sonnets in Shakespearian way, using the same words and rhythm, he can be called a plagiarist. Still, plagiarism is sometimes a question of double meaning.
We live in times, when there is a lot of information for each subject and aspect of life, science, etc. It’s very hard to stop yourself from copying other works, when you have to write an article or a report without having many ideas to write about. The Internet gives a wonderful opportunity to do this as most of the sites don’t have a protection from copying of the information given. Usually the creators of these web pages themselves have copied their passages from somewhere else. However, your copying will not make you any good. As there are plenty of cases of plagiarism, there are a lot of programs that can help editors, academic supervisors and teachers to check the information they are given. Most of the programs hardly can be cheated, so it’s better not to risk your own reputation and copy somebody else’s words.
Once I faced up with the case of plagiarism in my life. It was not a very pleasant experience, I should say. Once, two couples before the English one of my group mates came to me and ask my note-book with home assignments. She promised me just to look through today’s home tasks for she had no ideas what to speak about concerning one tasks. As I’m rather naïve and kind, I gave her my note-book with my own thoughts upon the subject we were going to discuss later during the class. How surprised and upset I was, when the teacher asked this very group mate of mine before me and she read MY answer word-in-word! It was absolute plagiarism. Since then, I seldom give tasks to copy or warn the copying person to change my ideas in his own way and not to plagiarize.
Everybody knows that plagiarism is penal action. We have a special law even in Russia that the one, who has rights on a book or plot, can have any profit from it, as free selling. And the person, who illegally, without any mark of the author’s rights or, the worst case, with appropriation of these rights to himself, uses the material, has to pay for his deeds. Still, it is only a law on a paper, and in most cases there are even no trials in such cases in Russia. But, for example, in America, people obey the law. However, I want to tell you about one case between Russia and America, unfortunately, without happy end. Everybody knows the recent film, Avatar, which was very popular around the world. But few people know that almost the whole plot of it was taken from the book “Mir poludnya” of our Russian fantast-writer Strugatski. The talks with the director of the “Avatar”, James Cameron, were senseless. Our writer got nothing for his pains (written with the help of the material from www.rb.ru). It was a great offence for me, as a fan of our Russian fiction.
So, in order not to be accused of plagiarism and get in a bad situation or, moreover, pay much money, you should not use the thoughts and words of other people without making them quotations (I mean, commas and reference to the author). It’s better to strain your own brains and produce something new instead of foolish copy-pasting.
A friend of mine once said: “My intellectual work belongs only to me, if only one encroaches on it I will go to the court.” This is what we call Plagiarism. Speaking about this phenomenon we should first of all understand what it is from the scientific point of view. Our helper today is the Big Soviet Encyclopedia. It says that plagiarism is “a kind of violation of author’s or inventor’s right.” In other words plagiarism is when we use other people’s thoughts, words, and fruit of their mind for our own purpose, at the same time claiming them to be our own. In this essay I’m going to touch mostly the juridical and moral aspect of the issue. The notion of plagiarism doesn’t have any definite content; very often it’s very hard to distinguish it from common notions, like imitation, borrowing, co-authorship and other similar cases. Anyway the coincidence of concrete ideas is not plagiarism as any new masterpieces are somehow based on the ideas that do not belong to their author. But I should also mention that usually a man that has made something up is used to treating himself as the only one to do it, and any imitation of his thoughts he regards as violation of his rights. To tell the truth the object of plagiarism is not the idea but its outer casing. Lots of literature pieces having nothing new in them consist in interpreting old ideas in other words, revealing new nuances of thoughts. So only the appropriation of this deeply individual side of the masterpiece can be called plagiarism. That’s why we can’t treat the following things as the plagiarism – borrowing of the plot, new variations for old characters, etc. On the one hand the protection of copyright allowed defending of interests of authors suffered from plagiarism. On the other hand the legislation can be used as means for incorrect competition. Indistinctness of notion of plagiarism leads to the fact that courts considering the cases of plagiarism in most cases can’t independently take decisions about the presence of plagiarism in this or that case. Experts that prove the piece of art to be plagiarism are not always impartial. This is why when a huge publishing house has legal proceedings against one author, the last one has almost no chances – the company would hire a team of professional experts which would presume that there is plagiarism or there is no plagiarism depending on the status of the company. Certainly it’s not very good to steal and appropriate the work of others. But evidently not everyone understands it. There are people, for example, who can make something up and then realize the idea, but there are also people that can’t do anything except to repeat what has been done by others. Finally there are people that can’t do anything at all – they are wonderful executors and helpers. But a human being is always improving and he wants something more in this life: he begins to imitate and copy his more talented and successful colleagues. In other words – to learn something. So here seems to be the rub; some people after having learned something begin to create their own things, but others still have no abilities to create. These people are usually trying to show others’ work as their own just not to look worse than others and to earn more. As in the science and technology all inventions are popularized and registered it seems impossible to steel any idea. But in the sphere of art people take others’ idea and pass them for their own. Sometimes they remake some parts and sometimes they just put down their signature. Now let’s go to the problem of plagiarism in journalism. Instead of rushing around grasping the necessary information reporters usually use news or information and works of others published in the Internet that has become a distinctive lifesaver for them. But here as in any other case we deal with ambiguity. One thing is to download some exclusive material and put your signature having changed the title, and another is to use the necessary material creatively pointing the author and the source. But this should always be done correctly without violation of laws and copyright. A man stealing the work of others puts his signature under the powerlessness to make something of his own.
Lately new forms of plagiarism have occurred and it’s very hard to define them as plagiarism. One of such forms is cinema and literature novelization of computer games, or vice versa the release of games using the plot of cinema and literature pieces. Sometimes such things are released on agreement with the authors, or even for advertisement purposes, which makes them non-plagiarism, but direct illegal borrowing allowing the accusation in plagiarism is also possible. Passage of the laws on the copyright protection turned the problem of plagiarism into juridical and commercial. Nowadays almost all states have the laws forbidding the violation of copyright. Violation of these laws may lead to serious sanctions including imprisonment. The most interesting is that the product of mental work or creative activity is our society is not regarded as a flow-blown product. Though we have laws protecting the copyright. But it seems that only protection one can get is that he can be proud that he has it. To crown it all I should say that plagiarism is amoral as any other illegal phenomenon. Being a very broad notion it concerns almost every sphere of our life. It still seems that legislation can’t cope with plagiarism as an illegal activity, so everything is subject to our conscience. I should also mention that some do not really understand that plagiarism is stealing that is a sin. It seems that we would never get rid of plagiarism because thieves have always existed and will always be, but our task is to apprehend that cheating is not a way out. The desire to earn money shouldn’t prevail. Creativeness is what we’re eager for.
- Oh, what a nice band! What style do they play? - They position their selves as post-grunge-indie-modern-rave-hard-rock!
How often can we now hear such a dialogue? The 21st century has become a century of hard music mixing and sophisticated genre descriptions. Music is now not limited by any frames as it was for example 20, 30, or 40 years ago. At that time there were rock bands, blues bands, funk bands etc. – you cannot find any metal-core or acid-jazz bands on the pages of the 40-80’s music history. So what’s the reason for such a useless pathos? What’s the use of saying you play ‘post-grunge-indie’ if it still sounds like rock’n’roll? The fact is today, a band which wants to be famous and prosperous, must be very original and have some appeal. And not always must they play something interesting and distinctive, but they should provide their music with powerful self advertising and PR as well. These prefixes and affixes like ‘core’, ‘post’, ’modern’, ‘nu’ very often do not mean practically anything and bring no sense but make listeners feel they are very up-to-date and individual, if they appreciate such an unusual music genre as, for example ‘melodic-metal-core’, which is indeed just a harder variation of metal music. People now do not pay as much attention to what music they listen to, as to how it is entitled. As a musician with all my heart and soul, and a connoisseur of both classical American rock and modern electronic music, I appreciate style mixing, but really hate attaching so much importance to how modern the description sounds. Today’s musicians and artists should remember – no matter how you call your music, music is still the most expressive form of art, it must make the heart beat, minds work, eyes cry and mouths smile! You must PLAY music, not SPEAK about it! A good musician is a sensible, intelligent person, feeling responsible for the way his or her music affects his listeners! Fewer words, more music!
Can you name anybody who didn't dream about having a small kitten or a friendly puppy as a pet in his/her childhood? Ask any child "What's the best present for your birthday?” and a lot of them will definitely answer "a pet!”. No matter what pet it is – a dog, a cat, a parrot, a hamster or even fish. A child wants to have something (or somebody? Sometimes your pet is like your family member) to take care of. But... there's one great difficulty that can't let their greatest dream come true... the parents are against it! And the most terrible thing is that they can explain why they will never buy you a fluffy friend.
Pretext number one. "You are unable to take care of yourself, how can we entrust this lovely creature to you?” wonder one's parents. And they are somehow right: if you have a pet you have to: feed it, walk it over, wash it, train it... The bigger the animal is, the more problems it causes. Even a small hamster demands your time and attention. But how can a boy who even forgets to wash his hands before dinner remember to clean his parrot's cage? Have you read Antoine de Saint-Exupery's "Small Prince”? "You become responsible forever for what you have tamed.” Have you recollected this phrase?
Taking care of somebody you like is a great responsibility and it also happens that not everybody can cope with it. All of us have come across the following situation: a man buys a pet.. let it be a dog for example. First the man is so happy, he's overwhelmed with pride because his precious pet has won a competition and has learnt so much. But after a while... "I'm bored with having a pet”- says this "proud master” and his dog finds itself on the street among other unlucky dogs and cats. Poor ones. We can't judge the people who treat their fluffy ex-friends like that, we can only give them an advice: "If you are unprepared to take on such a responsibility, avoid having a pet”.
Pretext number two. "We can't afford it”. It's one of the most popular parents' lame excuses. "You know, dear, our flat is too small for this dog. It won't have enough place to run”, "We won't buy you this aquarium – it's so bulky, it really leaves no room for you”, "What? This nasty creature? Too exotic for us. You'll fork out money for its food! By the way what does it eat?”. These phrases can kill any child's desire to have a pet. Very few of them are ready to sacrifice their comfort.
Pretext number three. "It''s death will make you suffer”. Nobody lives forever. And one day a kid will find out that his dear Bit-of-fluff has passed away. Sobbing, weeping and crying. It can be a real shock for a child, for whom the pet was much more than just a domestic animal. It can be compared with the loss of the best friend. In order to protect their son or daughter from these sufferings some parents try to avoid keeping pets at all. Quite a radical way to solve the problem. Pretext number four. "It can be dangerous!”. A dog can bite you, a cat can scratch you, a hamster can turn out to be an infection carrier!” say caring parents in order to warn their children. And it's obvious that their remarks are quite logical. Reading newspapers and watching news we face a lot of shocking stories. "A dog has bitten a baby to death” - this title is enough to make some parent panic. So, regarding all animals as potential danger, they just don't let their children have any.
Well, all these pretexts seem quite logical and convincing, but to my mind they all have one great negative feature. According to all these statements having a pet is a huge burden on a child that demands a lot of time, attention, money and so on. But to my mind nothing is as unpleasant as it seems to be. Yes, taking care of a pet means a lot of responsibility but the very responsibility makes a child grow up. It can teach him how to be answerable for himself and others, to be punctual, exact, to understand that everything he does has certain effect on everything that surrounds him. If a child has a pet he becomes more and more obliging, kind and conscientious and less egoistic. Parents who are reluctant to buy a pet for their children because it may be dangerous are also wrong. They want to protect their little baby, but they only make him afraid of the life. Yes, everything can happen but let an animal a chance! Don't bias your child against it without any serious reason only because something MAY happen. Don't make your child be afraid of everything that might happen.
As for some financial difficulties in having a domestic animal, one counterargument can be put forward. If you can't afford having a big dog, what about a small rat? Instead of a great aquarium you can have a glass jar with only one fish. Very often it can be enough to make a child happy. The size usually doesn't matter, as it is said. And the last one. Sometimes it can be the most forcible argument against having a pet – how to calm a child when his lovely little friend dies? To tell the truth it is the very reason why I have never had a pet – I was too afraid of its inevitable death. But isn't it the best way for a kid to learn what life is? Of course, its painful, but it can really teach a child how to face real trouble. May be it's a little bit cruel way of comprehending what death is but it's undoubtedly better than having no idea about it. You know we can come across a great number of cases when little babies torture animals and even kill them by suffocation or drowning. It happens because they see no difference between a live creature and a dead one. May be if they had the same animal at their homes regarding it as their best friend and then it died, they wouldn't let themselves kill others remembering how sorrowful it is. By the way, every experience is for good. So, let me draw a conclusion – having a pet isn't a burden on a child, it's a great gift their parents can present them with
