Yesterday I caught “My Monkey Baby” on Channel 4. The programme followed three American couples who bought a monkey as a “Baby” substitute. One couple was young and the man didn’t want a human baby, the second couple was retired and the woman suffered from empty-nest syndrome, in the case of the final couple (not sure if it actually was a couple as I didn’t catch all of it) the owner couldn’t physically have children of her own. I found this documentary most disturbing as these animals got separated from the biological mother from an age as early as 10 days – to insure that they bond with their human substitute and recognise its human as the mother.
The monkeys were dressed like human babies or toddlers, in some cases allowed to eat unhealthy food clearly not suitable for a monkey and in one case got made up with lipstick and eye make up, because according to its owner, the monkey likes it and doesn’t protest.
They also wore nappies (as they were not housetrained yet) and got to play with human toys.
Now people think we are crazy because we walk our cat and I jokingly refer to her as our fur baby – but we treat her like a cat and not like a human. We also didn’t steal her from her mum – she was an orphan.
But I think keeping monkeys as baby substitutes amounts to animal cruelty. These animals are also difficult to keep. When they grow up and reach puberty the can get quite aggressive. Leaving them to roam around in your house can cause chaos. Unfortunately it seems quite easy in America to buy a monkey as a pet; about 15,000 monkeys live in American households.
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