I’ve hit a moral quandary! My middle son has become obsessed with fish recently, he watches youtube videos about them ALL the time and will regale you with every fish fact he’s heard. He’s been bugging his mother and I about getting a fish for a long time now and last week I caved. Sort of. We went to get a fish for ME for my place and he was ecstatic. I told him just one, and just a small tank. If he’d had his way we would likely have ended up with wall tanks full of fish and probably would have had to turn our bathtub into a Koi pond as well! He picked out a beautiful pink Beta fish and thanks to the advice of a friend, we named him Betty. My son LOVES the fish! He eats his meals beside the bowl, talks to it, feeds it and even though we’ve had it for just over a week has already been talking about getting him a friend. AND a bigger tank. Sadly, last night I came home from work and found him dead! The fish, not my kid! Poor Betty just couldn’t hack living in my apartment apparently.
So now, do I tell my son that his fish friend died over the phone, because I won’t see him until Saturday, do I wait until Saturday, tell him and then take him to the pet store to get another one or do I follow the trope of all sitcoms and simply replace the fish without telling him? Our morning show guy John Ongaro told me that he replaced his daughter’s fish 3 times before they told her. I know that a friend of mine had replaced her fish twice without telling the kids. I’m unsure that lying to my son is the best route to take but, it might be the right one at this point. What would you do? Leave me a comment, I’d love to know what YOU would do!
(Sorry the pictures are a little blurry, I couldn’t convince Betty to hold still…)
