Hey y'all. I came across a situation recently that I thought I would share and see if anyone ever had the same. After I got my spider last week I was so excited I took a bunch of pictures and posted them on facebook. I got a close friend of mine commenting that she was super excited for me, even has a boy of her own she's had for a couple years and now she's interested in getting more... she's even gonna go to the expo with me in November. My concern, however, wasn't from my friend.

My cousin responded to one of the pictures I posted, "Ew gross, kill it". My first reaction was just rage. I can't imagine anyone telling another person to kill their pets. Like them or not, that's an animal that matters to another person. I told her fairly calmly that I didn't think it was appropriate. That I never say to kill her dogs or lizards, so I find it offensive that she would say that about my snakes. She apologized but quickly followed with a snake is not like a dog or lizard, that anything that crawls doesn't belong in a home, especially something that can hurt people.

To me this seems incredibly close minded and judgemental. Has anyone dealt with this kind of behavior before? It seems to me the opinions people have of snakes simply isn't fair. My aunt even told me I was being a careless mother for bringing a snake into my house with a young child, that I wasn't thinking of her well being. I mean... come on. Neither of my little girls could hurt my baby unless she tried to swallow them and choked. (Which by the way would never happen as they are out of reach of her and never, ever, has she even touched them without me holding them.)

This just frustrates me to no end. What would you do? What have you done? How do you cope with people being so blind to how truly great these animals are?