Zoos and Animals

Image by Almeida from Pixabay

I can’t say every narcissistic parent loves zoo, but I can certainly say that many do. Here I am going to share a childhood story of mine first and then I am going to discuss why narcissists love taking their children to zoos.

As I am typing this, I can imagine my friends asking me, “many parents love zoos and like to take their family to zoos. I don’t think a trip to a zoo is a specialty of narcissists.” And my friend is correct. Narcissists do things and say things just like normal people–they don’t look deranged, incoherent, or illogical. This is why many people don’t realize that they are dealing with narcissists. Narcissists decorate their selfish acts with a big selfless label, praise people with hidden antagonism, talk sweet but with bitter thorns embedded inside. Narcissists thrive in the duality and contradiction of their words and deeds. And they do it for only one purpose–demoralizing their victims and controlling their victims and forcing their victims to chase after non-existent goals, like love, attention, respect etc.

So here is my childhood story. We were at the time living in the staff quarter of a rural university in the southern end of the Mongolian Steppe. Every spring, my parents would take me to the local zoo, which was located not far from us–it took us about an hour to get there. I hated the zoo but my opinion didn’t count. I dared not express my dislike of the zoo since my mother had such a determination for our annual visit. I never said anything, but if I did, I could expect my mother’s displeasure, and soon her complaint of my ungratefulness would follow. Her hatred for my father and our family was like a perpetual dried up flammable material–a little spark of daily spat would set the whole thing on fire. Actually, in my observation, my father disliked zoo trips too. Just judging from his subdued manner and bored expression, I could sense his reluctance. However I could also sense that he thought the boring trip important to the family. He agreed with Mom about the significance of it, despite his unfavorable opinion of it.

So we went. The monkey hill was obviously overcrowded, and it was deliberately arranged this way. Every hour or so, one zookeeper would come out to throw some food into the enclosure, and the monkeys went wild to fight for the food–there were loud screams, clashing limbs, rampant running. The visitors, especially children, loved the spectacle. Some even shouted excitedly to encourage certain monkeys to fight other monkeys.

My mother, who always tried to neglect my existence, would suddenly acknowledge me and say to me, “look at that one. How ridiculous. They eat with no manners. It is fun, isn’t it?” I feigned my interest and tried to hide my disgust at the place and the trip.

There were several animals that were my narcissistic parents’ favorite: the peacock, the tiger, the giraffe, the elephant. A narcissist likes animals that are tall, big, fierce, or pretty. Normal parents love those animals too, but a narcissistic parent loves these as his or her ego booster. So we had to visit each one of these, and my parents never failed to give their comments, which aimed at “educating” me into their way of thinking. Their comments were usually around the following areas: Even big animals are inferior to humans; animals are lazy and humans are diligent; animals are fun to watch and they deserve to be ridiculed; animals only know eating, sleeping, and shitting, and they can be very unclean, which implied that as humans, we should not behave like them.

Anyway, the peacock never spread its bright and iridescent tail when we visited–probably even the peacock couldn’t stand my parents. The giraffe was motionless except its mouth was moving–probably the giraffe was trying to control itself from uttering some criticism against the narcissists in front of it. The tiger was very depressed and pretended to sleep–it refused to be my parents’ narcissistic supply and did nothing to honor our visit.

However the best was reserved for the lone elephant. As you know, my mother had to visit the biggest, tallest, brightest, and the prettiest in the zoo. Otherwise, her narcissistic ego would be bruised. So we went to the elephant house. But the elephant was nowhere to be found in the outer enclosure. Since my mother considered herself very important, she couldn’t accept the fact that the elephant didn’t stand there to greet her. “I think the elephant is in its little structure over there.” She said, pointing to the little house at the corner of the enclosure, which was its shelter for inclement weather. “The weather is good today and why it doesn’t come out?” My mother said and walked in quick steps in front of us towards the house, as if she was going to scold the wayward elephant into compliance and servility. And guess what? When my mother reached the visitor’s area in the house, which was separated by strong iron bars from the elephant area, the elephant let out a cry and sprayed my mother with all the water it could gather in its trunk. My mother screamed and ran out. I guess an elephant could smell a narcissist and recognize a narcissist quicker than a human. How smart elephants are. And elephants have since become my favorite animal.

This post becomes longer than I expected. I am going to continue this post tomorrow to talk about why narcissists love zoos since I have run out of time today.

(To Be Continued Here)