"Bug" isn't even a real taxonomic category. Two of my friends define bug as "anything one wants to squish." This include scorpions and jellyfish (though one wouldn't try to squish a stinging jellyfish, one wants to squish them, apparently).
The point is that I was afraid of bugs as a child and well into adulthood. I can't say that I love them now, but I can capture and release most bugs in my house. Generally, bugs outside don't bother me at all. And many people have witnessed me hold a Madagascar Hissing Cockroach with out batting an eye in my classroom. It wasn't always so.
When I was four years old my mom ran to my ear-piercing shriek from the front stoop. She thought surely I had cracked open my skull or was being abducted. What she found was a hysterical child screaming and crying and pointing to a big black carpenter ant. Just one ant. One.
Even younger than that I used to wake up in my crib shouting "Buggie! Buggie! Buggie!"
I really don't know the source of my fear, but it was there and it was real.
So I repeat. My child will not fear bugs. Or, at least, I will do whatever I can to encourage a positive relationship with benign insects, spiders, and other arthropods. Jury is still out on the jellyfish.
Two months isn't to early to start, right?
Super duper cute!
ReplyDeleteI did not have an aversion to bugs until I became a homeowner to a 1964 home with overgrown "mature" trees. We CONSTANTLY have spiders and the ensuing spiderwebs. The stinkbugs and silverfish prefer our nursery--this just creeps me out. A has picked this up... he has bug EAGLE EYES, and recently saw something in the bathroom and refused to use that room for a week. Scarier was when he was still hesitant with teh potty, was going, and a spider dropped down her web from the ceiling next to him. Yikes!!
Someone in my house has had a bug aversion for as long as I have known her despite the fact that she thinks that it started more recently. Unfortunately, A has picked up the fear and screams loudly when a bug gets too close. This includes bees, butterflies, and the occasional shadow of a bug. Start early!
ReplyDeleteThere is nothing wrong with a healthy aversion to bugs. I don't really fear them but I do believe they have their place and it is not indoors. (Yes, I am co-author of the definition of "bug". We don't differentiate between insects, arachnids, etc--they're all bugs and should be squished if found indoors). There is a big difference between being afraid and being a "bug-hugger".
ReplyDeleteBugs are gross...and I got the chills when I read the line about you holding a cockroach. ugh just got the chills again!
ReplyDelete