"Mary Fisher" wrote in message
et...

"John Stumbles" wrote in message
newsyAjc.12$ZW1.9@newsfe5-gui. ... wasps are not really a problem

A couple of years ago our youngest (then a bit under 3) laid his hand
on a 'dozy' wasp

OK - what makes you think it was dozy?

(I put the word in quotes because I just knew you'd challenge my use of it!
:-)

I meant that it (and several others) tended to fly around slowly[1] - indeed
they almost fell rather than flew out of the attic, and wander around slowly
on the floor or windowsill or other surfaces. (I daresay the wasps were
doing this entirely purposefully and I'm simply anthropomorphically
projecting soporificity onto them :-)


[1] compared to the speed of British Standard (or even the new European
standard :-) wasps.


....

You have to think about wasps - and other creatures - as beings in their
own
right and part of the larger natural order. Humans are more dangerous to
wasps than wasps are to humans.
... There are millions of them flying about in summer, how many people
are stung by them? Those who are have been perceived by the insect as a
threat, they are defending themselves, wasps don't sting 'for badness'.

I generally agree with you. When the kids have tried to swat wasps I've
suggested that if they leave them alone the wasps are likely to leave them
alone (and vice versa :-).


Man, in my opinion, is the only creature which attacks for no good reason.

Isn't that tending to inverted specieism (sp?) (or misanthropy)? Humans are
part of nature too, and our behaviour is as explicible as that of other
animals if you delve deep enough into people's motivations and mental and
physiological processes. In other words there are always reasons, though
whether these are 'good' depends on your point of view and values. There's a
school of though that we all act out of good intentions however perversely
these manifest themselves in actions. (I don't suppose this view is
particularly novel given the age of the adage about the pavement of the road
to hell.)


We must be rational about these things. And please don't say that a three
year old can't understand about these things, of course he can't. But he
can
learn from others' attitudes.

I wonder if you've read "The Continuum Concept"? Small children playing
freely but safely around sharp tools and weapons and dangerous wildlife, the
overprotected child drowning in the swimming pool at the first unguarded
opportunity? (It doesn't sound as if you need to read it actually, but maybe
it'll be a help to other parents as I think it was to me.)


He can't learn about the dangers of road transport either - but I bet he's
had quite a few car journeys, each of which is a potential danger.

It's not the journeys that are particulaly dangerous about roads!