Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

GETTING UPSET OVER A WASP???

296 replies

Flavourofthemonth123 · 01/01/2019 04:49

So I was over at a friend's house today with our two LO's this afternoon for a lil New Year's celebration (mostly for them, I find new years a bit naff). We were sitting there and all of a sudden a wasp flew at her child (I was mostly shocked to see one in December!) I swatted it down on the floor and stepped on the bastard (it was on the kitchen tiles, so no squishy bug remains mushed into the carpet.) She was a little bit upset that I squashed the wasp in front of her child, saying she doesn't condone killing bugs. I said that a wasp is different from a spider or a snail because they can sting the LO's (I also squash other bugs lol but that's not the point!)

It wasn't a huge deal but I was just surprised at her reaction! Am I alone in thinking that getting upset over a dead wasp is a bit unreasonable? If there was one hoovering around your little one would you hesitate to smoosh him??

OP posts:
GummyGoddess · 02/01/2019 00:27

@mydogisthebest No I wouldn't poison them! I would do the same as you, but just pointing out that mice are not harmless.

mydogisthebest · 02/01/2019 08:08

Do we know for sure wasps don't feel pain? Even if they don't it doesn't give humans the right to go around killing them just because they don't like them.

Maybe one day large aliens will land on earth and squash us because they find us annoying

HeronLanyon · 02/01/2019 08:14

I too was startled to see ‘wasps don’t feel pain’. I Need to revisit basic philosophy. Have always assumed they do. And in any event it wouldn’t make a difference to how I treat them.

BertrandRussell · 02/01/2019 08:18

I really don’t want my children to see people killing things for no reason.

onefootinthegrave · 02/01/2019 08:27

TaytoJenny Grin the bastard wasp that got in my mouth - well I was about 18 and still living at home, so I went running into my mum & dads bedroom at 7am screaming and my mum sent my dad in to kill it. He came back and said it was gone - fine. I calmed down a bit and went back into my room, put my knee on the bed to lie down and the bastard was still there, and stang my knee. Which resulted in my crying again and my mum shouting and my dad for lying about having got rid of it!

sadsiblingatsea

'As for describing your kids as LO’s’, using phrases like lil’ and your febrile enthusiasm for `smooshing’ bugs, YABVVVU. Just ugh.'

YABVVVU for being so patronising. Comments like that don't make you better than everyone else, they make you come across as smug and unpleasant.

TroubledMuchly · 02/01/2019 08:34

...they aren’t caught up in an unpleasant transference of moral values.

Could you point out the moral values that have been unpleasantly transferred?

buckingfrolicks · 02/01/2019 08:41

If I don't kill mice and rats I encourage owls and kites and buzzards and foxes. What is not to like about that??

The "it's only a pest" posters seem to have missed the lesson on the food chain.

Jaxtellerswife · 02/01/2019 08:48

I'd kill it and be thrilled. Bastard things I hate them.

DeepanKrispanEven · 02/01/2019 08:49

Classic mumsnetters 'oh if you can't kill a wasp then you have to be vegan and never step accidentally on an ant' hmm yeah everything is that black and white.

No, Troubledmuchly, the comments made it clear that if you claim never to kill anything then this is what you are saying - and it's probably not true.

SnowsInWater · 02/01/2019 08:59

I'm allergic (and none of my kids have been stung so I don't know for sure if they are or not) so you would be getting a big high five from me 😁

TroubledMuchly · 02/01/2019 09:00

Posters saying in this instance they disagreed with killing the wasp have been met with "So I assume you're vegan and keep your bed bugs as pets too." (I paraphrase).

But it's really silly logic.

Satsumaeater · 02/01/2019 09:02

I never understand this hysteria about wasps – just chill out and they will go away

They don't - that's the problem. I don't want them crawling over my face before they realise I am not very interesting after all and eventually fly off.

I know they are actually very useful beasts and I don't deliberately kill them (at first) but if one is hassling me and/or won't find the open window to fly out of the house, I will kill them. This time of year, however, they have well and truly outlived their usefulness and shouldn't still be around. There was a wasp survey where they actually suggested that you could trap them (and obviously kill them) to send to them so they knew what species were around and that was back in September! They said it was because they didn't have much longer to live anyway.

Except the ones that are still around. One was in my house only a few weeks ago - must have been early December.

littlemeitslyn · 02/01/2019 09:32

A wasp and all its numerous family
I look upon as a major calamity
It opens its nest with prodigality
But I mistrust its waspiality

Strugglingtodomybest · 02/01/2019 09:34

I would have reacted the same as your friend OP. I understand why you killed it, but I wouldn't have done the same as I have an aversion to killing for the sake of killing.

Just as a side note, the last time I was stung by a wasp, it had crawled into my diet coke can. I took a swig, it stung my tongue and I did a proper comedy spraying of diet coke everywhere! Luckily I was outside. It still freaks me out to think I had a live animal in my mouth.

Ruffina · 02/01/2019 09:45

Troubled

By ‘moral transference’ I meant that you’re applying moral values to the killing of creatures in a way contrived to allow you to criticise people as if they were sadists, despite the fact that a wasp feels no more pain than does a plant.

You’re taking moral values associated with the treatment of higher animals (not that they’re universally or even widely accepted in many circumstances) and misusing them.

It’s unpleasant because you attach judgments like “nasty” and “problem” to others.

Do you kill head lice?

LauraSKennedy · 02/01/2019 11:02

YANBU!

Wasps are evil little bastards! If I was you I would've done the same thing! See a wasp? SQUISH! We're talking about bugs in your home here, they get the bottom of your shoe!

Taytojenny · 02/01/2019 11:26

@onefootinthegrave Wait so the fucker survived?

Taytojenny · 02/01/2019 11:29

I didnt know we were doing nursery rhymes @littlemeitslyn. @flavour this is based on your true story.

The little old wasp made a list
Being friends with a human he wished
Me he wanted to meet
So he flew at my feet
And the poor little bastard got squished

tillytrotter1 · 02/01/2019 11:35

When I was still teaching my classroom seemed to be wasp heaven and the pupils, mainly girls, sorry to say, got hysterical, a lot of performance-fear, I'm more scared than you. Once I whacked it I was a murderer!

TroubledMuchly · 02/01/2019 11:57

The issue I'm having on a moral values level isn't actually the action, it's the intention/reaction to the action. Think about it in terms of giving a shit.

Example:

  1. Woman kills wasp. Doesn't give a shit, feels delighted with herself.
  2. Woman kills wasp. Does give a shit. Feels a bit bad about loss to ecosystem.

Neither were intrinsically right or wrong.

Same action, different reaction, different moral values.

I'm not gonna hold a wasp funeral or write it a eulogy, but yeah, I like to think nice people would give a slight shit.

BertrandRussell · 02/01/2019 12:23

Surely we don’t want our children to think that killing something is ever done lightly and unthinkingly?

BertrandRussell · 02/01/2019 12:24

And what TroubledMuchly said.

ScrambledSmegs · 02/01/2019 12:30

I wish people realised that wasps aren't jaggressive stripy pointless bastards. They're an important part of the ecosystem. They pollinate plants and they also predate on many common garden pests (ie leaf miner moths which are a serious problem for our native horse chestnuts)

At this time of year they're also a bit dozy and far less likely to sting.

I used to hate them but once you know more about them they're fascinating creatures. Yabu for needlessly killing one in front of a child too.

Ruffina · 02/01/2019 13:19

Woman kills wasp. Doesn't give a shit, feels delighted with herself.

That's just an attempt at working in an ugly motive. You can't not give a shit and be delighted at the same time. I'm indifferent to the welfare of wasps, as I am to all pests. I don't kill anything for fun. I reckon that's probably true for the vast majority of people. (Although there is a social duty to kill pests where they might spread or affect others, like killing off a wasps or rats nest if they're affecting your neighbours, as they almost certainly will, even if you don't mind.) That doesn't make us "nasty".

And it doesn't make anyone a better person because they claim to have feelings for wasps, ants and the like.

Why will none of the 'do absolutely no harm' posters say whether they kill head lice? Head lice transmit no disease and are harmless.

Maybe one day large aliens will land on earth and squash us because they find us annoying

Maybe that will happen. Stephen Hawking warned of the perils of contacting aliens.

Butchyrestingface · 02/01/2019 13:30

Maybe that will happen. Stephen Hawking warned of the perils of contacting aliens.

That really made me smile.

**