US sheriff says mom forced son to kill pet hamster

I wonder if there was a religious element to it, even if it wasn't conscious.

IE animal sacrifice for better grades.

Were they from the east by chance? There's a festival there they kill 250,000 animals, a lot of them rodents, for stuff like that.

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I am an avid parental rights advocate and posted this story on my blog the day it happened. I am very much anti-CPS (Child Protective Services) and feel they do way more harm to families and children than they do good. Now, having said that, I am almost always for keeping families together. This one is a tough call for me because not only do I advocate for parents, I'm also an advocate for animals. What she did was horrible and I worry about the damage done to her son because of it. It's the stuff nightmares are made of. Yet I can't find it in my heart to hope that she loses custody of her children. She made a horrible decision here but she obviously needs help. I think there is probably some deep-rooted mental illness too because normal people don't come up with this type of punishment out of the blue. Maybe she was forced to kill her own pets growing up. It's so hard to know without really hearing her side of the story. Right now it's just about people being all angry and upset at what she did and they have a right to those feelings. God knows I have them too. I think the best thing for this family is to one, they stay together and two, they get some much needed help. Taking her children away from her solves nothing and will damage the children for a long, long, long time to come. Foster care is horrific in and of itself and they don't deserve that. No child does.