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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Was IBU to freeze DD’s hamster?

336 replies

SandyDrawsBadly · 01/03/2019 09:33

I came downstairs on DDs Birthday to find that Wonder Woman the hamster was dead. Stupid fucking hamster

I didn’t want to upset DD on her birthday so didn’t tell her before I dropped her at school. I doubled checked when I got home in case it had been sleeping, but this was one cold dead stiff hamster and it’s red eyes were all grey, so it was definitely dead.

I didn’t want to ruin her birthday, but I didn’t want a slowly decomposing hamster in the warm living room either. so I popped it into a freezer bag and hid it underneath the frozen veg out of the way. I got her out the next day, defrosted her in the cage and “discovered” her death the next morning. Two days post birthday.

I was telling my friend but she said this was ridiculous over protective parenting.

So, was I unreasonable to freeze the hamster and has anyone else done stuff to save upset as I can’t be the only one, surely!

OP posts:

Original poster

SandyDrawsBadly · 01/03/2019 13:02

I'm just surprised to hear it's a thing nowadays for children to be allowed to own pets without taking on any of the associated chores of meeting their most basic needs.

Whoever said it wasn’t a thing? Wonder woman’s cage was clean and dwarf hamsters don’t empty a water bottle or food bowl In a day, even when alive.

OP posts:

shedid · 01/03/2019 13:07

OP you sound like a lovely thoughtful mum.

When my hamster had a stroke and was wobbly on its feet, my mum took it into the garden and battered it with a shovel, then threw it over the fence. It was disconcerting to say the least.

MrsWillGardner · 01/03/2019 13:11

@Nnnnnineteen

I thought the shampoo in her own eyes was a bit precious, but this is weird... what will you do if it happens to something bigger, like a dog, or grandma??

😂😂😂

ScreamingValenta · 01/03/2019 13:16

Wonder woman’s cage was clean and dwarf hamsters don’t empty a water bottle or food bowl In a day, even when alive.

So your DD doesn't check daily to make sure the hamster has enough food and water, but relies on it taking an average of longer for them to be used up? What if the water bottle leaks? You need at least to check on the hamster once a day, even if it's unlikely anything will need replenishing.

Looneytune253 · 01/03/2019 13:21

My hubby did that with our fish until we could bury it. We hadn’t noticed he’d gone (hubby Gets up and out long before we do) until dh rang me later on in the day.

RiotAndAlarum · 01/03/2019 13:22

Awww, you're kind and inventive, @SandyDrawsBadlySorry you're having a hard time! I might do something like this, too, even though my children are older than yours (take that, Vipers! )

BusySnipingOnCallOfDuty · 01/03/2019 13:25

@shedid she fucking what???

Original poster

SandyDrawsBadly · 01/03/2019 13:25

@shedid that’s harsh!

OP posts:

Slowknitter · 01/03/2019 13:26

The freezing thing is a bit weird - mainly because if your dd had noticed the hamster was missing on her birthday, why would it have been any help that it was in the freezer rather than permanently disposed of? Doesn't make any sense at all.

User10727292 · 01/03/2019 13:29

Sounds like a neat and practical solution to me.

Amused by all the posters horrified that you would put a ‘corpse’ in the freezer as if it’s so much worse than all the other dead animals that are probably already in there.

Oakenbeach · 01/03/2019 13:31

OP.... I think what you did was fine and would have done the same. A child doesn’t have to dote on a pet and check on it’s health and happiness daily to be upset by its death. It would only be over-protective if you’d got another one to replace it without telling her.

As for the post about it being weird putting dead animal in your freezer, unless that person is a vegetarian, surely it’s more weird that they are so disconnected from what they eat that they don’t realise meat is dead animal

Oakenbeach · 01/03/2019 13:35

It’s not that hard to compute, surely.... because ‘discovering’ a decomposing dead pet is likely to be more distressing than simply being told it has died if they’d realised the hutch was empty.

Nat6999 · 01/03/2019 13:38

I've frozen Hamster corpses several times, we haven't got a garden & all our deceased hamsters are buried in my mum's garden with full honours, cardboard box & a biscuit tin to stop the foxes digging them up. When we had our first hamster, DS came running in my bedroom one night in floods of tears with a very stiff & very dead hamster in his hand shouting that he couldn't wake Hammy up. That was the start of the graveyard at the bottom of mum's garden, all in marked graves, buried with flowers & a reading from DS.

Oakenbeach · 01/03/2019 13:38

So your DD doesn't check daily to make sure the hamster has enough food and water, but relies on it taking an average of longer for them to be used up?

Because every child is always a perfect carer for pets . I certainly wasn’t at her age - my dad did most of the gerbil care - despite me often being told off for not doing so. It’s not a new thing.

shedid · 01/03/2019 13:39

Yeah...we're NC now...but not purely because of the hamster.

Oakenbeach · 01/03/2019 13:41

They're perfectly capable of paying almost no attention to something and then being devastated when it's gone! Even inanimate objects!

Yes, some of the responses along this line are very strange and show a lack of understanding...

I don’t see, talk (or even think) of my parents most days... Doesn’t mean I wouldn’t give a shit if they died!

AGHHHH · 01/03/2019 13:44

This is messed up...

GiveMeAllTheGin8 · 01/03/2019 13:46

Op you are mad am honestly laughing here reading this , it sounds like something I would do.
Every time I go to my freezer I will remember this thread

Oakenbeach · 01/03/2019 13:47

It's totally sensible!!! Good thinking. Why are people so appalled?!

I think some people just don’t have the ability to be creative in the way the OP was, and anything out of the ordinary is, by definition, weird and wrong.

GraceMarks · 01/03/2019 13:54

Nat6999 I hope you put some little holes in the bottom of the biscuit tin so that the, shall we say, products of decomposition could get out. I learnt this after disinterring a plastic Ferrero Rocher box from the flower bed of a rented house I was living in at the time. The previous owner had evidently buried some sort of rodenty pet and the contents were runny

Lweji · 01/03/2019 13:58

and the contents were runny

You're lucky it didn't explode.

DS (14) had to be reminded today that the cat needs his water bowl filled as well as his food. He's quite good with the food, but just ignores the water.
I'm not surprised a little girl wouldn't check her hamster on her birthday.

EhlanaOfElenia · 01/03/2019 13:59

Well, it is on the batshit side of sanity, but I probably would have done the same!!!

HaventGotAllDay · 01/03/2019 13:59

Oh, I think very few people have the ability to be as "creative" as the OP tbh. Or the urge.

Fact remains that all of this was to save the trauma of a child who clearly didn't give a fuck about her pet anyway, given she didn't bother to look in its cage for some time.

Sounds like she needs the "animals are not toys that you get bored with" lesson.

HaventGotAllDay · 01/03/2019 14:02

I also don't think what the OP actually did was necessarily wrong, or batshit.
It was clearly unnecessary for the reason given above, the kid didn't give a shit anyway.
What is off is the gleeful, hilarious, "am going to make MN spit its coffee out and say it's the funniest thread ever" tone of the OP.

Thestral · 01/03/2019 14:02

Bloody hell, imagine the shock if she'd gone to help herself to a birthday cornetto!

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