Scrolling through Facebook recently, I came across a video of an Asian woman feeding two little monkeys, both in diapers and fancy little outfits. While I've never been a particular fan of monkeys (once my family babysat a monkey for a week or so and he was pretty unpleasant), something about this video caught my attention and I watched it all the way through.
The little monkeys were very calm and obedient, almost too much so. And it was fascinating to see how human they were. Both sucked their thumbs while they were waiting for the food, which their (self-described 'mom') took her time preparing.In the week or so that followed, I watched a few more--'Mom' bathing the monkeys, more feeding, etc. Then suddenly, almost every other post in my FB feed was monkeys--different ones, some with cute human "sister," some riding on the back of a motor scooter, going shopping, sleeping . . .And the monkeys were getting younger and younger; newborn, even.Wait a minute! I thought. Where are these babies coming from? Why aren't they with their real mothers?I had asked this question in the comments early on but had never received an answer. (There were thousands of comments, attesting to the popularity of these monkeyshines.)Finally, I realized that the best thing for me to do was to block all monkey-related feeds, rather than continue to somehow support this apparent exploitation of baby monkeys.Monkey off my back.
