Three-year-old given pet fish as a party favour
It was the last thing they needed.
By Livia Gamble
February 23 2017
A mum was left frustrated after her three-year-old foster daughter came home from a birthday party with an interesting a party favour: a pet fish!
Writing about their new pet in The Washington Post, Georgene Smith Goodin says it was the last thing they needed.
“My husband and I foster three sisters,” she writes. “The Toddler is the oldest — at 3 years; the Infant clocks in at 18 months and the Newborn is six months.
“We have two dogs, both rescues, and an aquatic turtle we built a small pond for after it wandered into our back yard and never left. Our hands were full with responsibilities we chose without having another life foisted on us.”
But the toddler was now very much attached to “Finding Dory”.
Moving the fish from the “tiny plastic cup” it arrived in, the family bought it a proper bowl with all the trimmings, but the outcome did not look good.
Venting her frustration on Facebook, a colleague of Smith Goodin's confessed to doing something similar, giving hermit crabs as a party gift. Another said she received two turtles for her daughter’s fourth birthday.
Sadly, after a month, Finding Dory died and the toddler was understandably devastated. The family buried the fish in the yard explaining that “as his body broke down, it would help the plant grow,” which Smith Goodin says her daughter liked.
While in theory, giving a pet might make you seem "cool" among the kids, this mum's story is a good example of why we should stick to a good old-fashioned party bag.
Tell us what you think in the comments!
