Issue link: http://southshoremagazine.uberflip.com/i/880055
TheSouthShoreMagazine.com 13 bipedal groundhog in a track suit come across each other, they'll exchange pleasantries. Perhaps they'll even wave to each other from their respective cars. Yet Beatrix Potter's people still see animals as animals. No matter that Peter Rabbit and his family drink chamomile tea, read the newspaper and button their clothes with unseen opposable thumbs: her human characters firmly maintain that they are rodents who can be made savory with a little garlic and tarragon. Mr. McGregor genuinely wants to cook Peter in a stew. He is Glenn Close in overalls. Yes, that's a bunny on a leash. No Mr. McGregor for our bunny! She was safely ensconced in her $200 hutch that came complete with the Wishful Thinking Plastic Potty Receptacle. I was enjoying having a pet bunny more than I thought I would, when I got an odd text from my neighbor: Then I got this text from a friend whose daughter, Alexandra, goes to school with my daughter, Charlotte. Alexandra came home from school and told her mother this: I went upstairs to my daughter's room and found this library book: The rabbit on the right's look of sheer alarm tells us that she has just gotten the news that Rabbits Have Bunnies. Meanwhile, the jaded and bitter bunnies on the left are clearly, already intimately familiar with the fact that Rabbits Have Bunnies. We'd had a bunny for two weeks and my daughters were starting an animal husbandry business. I checked under their beds for petri dishes and in vitro fertilization pamphlets. That night at dinner, I told them, "Your bunny is not having babies. Ever." My oldest argued "We can sell them. We can make money." "No," I said. "Listen," she said. "We can sell them for 30 bucks each. The average litter is six bunnies. That's 180 bucks. If she has approximately 40 litters, we can finally go to Hawaii." "No," I said. "Why not?" they wailed. "Because I won't do that to a fellow female," I told them. Despite their precocious juxtaposition of the concepts of "babies" and "sleepovers," my children did not actually understand how babies are born, because they all stared at me with blank expressions. "Rabbits Have Bunnies" was a lot less instructional than it looked. "No bunny babies," I repeated. They huddled together and whispered. Then they looked at me and said, "Listen, Mommy, we really, really want a dog." Erica Ford Sweeney is a mediator, writer and the co-host of South Shore Live! on Boston radio WATD. Erica's writing has been featured in The Huffington Post, the New York Times, Blogher.com, Bundoo.com, Happify.com and several diaries with kittens on them. Erica completed her undergraduate degree at the University of Michigan and received her law degree from Boston College.