Pets as a Substitute for Children?
Raising a dog or a cat is a trial run for raising children.
Others have called pets "practice children," but my favorite term comes from Helen Smith, a forensic psychologist in Knoxville, Tennessee, who blogs under the name Dr. Helen. Her post Invasion of the Fur Children not only tells a good tale about one woman who sheepishly says, "My dogs are my kids," but also reveals many candid responses from dozens of readers. These comments run the gamut from "Our dog is very much a part of our family, but she is not our child," to this heated statement from a mother of two young boys:
I really believe that those who CHOOSE to raise pets instead of children (the ones that CAN have children, but have chosen not to--ESPECIALLY "DINKs") are a very selfish "breed." I also think its their way of not being "locked in" to any real long-term parenting commitment. Dogs and cats have a maximum life expectancy of about 15-20 years. When that pet dies you have the option of whether or not to get another pet--not so when you have children.
Is it selfish for a person or a couple not to have children? Many of us realize our capabilities and our limitations. Sometimes fur children are all that we can handle at a given point in our lives. But that doesn't diminish our commitment to them or our loving care. Yes, it does get crazy (not to mention expensive) when we carry them around in our handbags and dress them up in pricey outfits. But one person's love is another person's lunacy.
I'll confess that my husband and I had a dog before we had our first child. To be honest, during that first week in our home, the dog was a heck of a lot harder than the baby ever was.
So Ellen, my sympathies go out to you. You and Portia de Rossi are ready for kids.
Comments
I don’t think there’s anything selfish about treating our pets as our kids now that our kids have all left home and we have no grandchildren.
The cats give us an abundance of unconditional love, never ask for money or the car keys and they don’t have loud parties.
This is the part of life when we get to enjoy the peaceful rewards of the labors of our youth.
Our cats dote on us as much as we dote on them.
Pets are no more a substitute for children than children are a substitute for pets – although I’ve known some who confuse their children with pets, raise them under those priniciples – and wind up with children completely unsuited for independent adulthood. Obviously the goals and prinicples of animal care and child rearing are, or should be, quite different. It is, in fact, far more appropriate to “infantilize” a dog or cat, in some ways, than it is to infantilize a child, at least one that is past literal infancy. We aren’t preparing Fido for self sufficiency, after all.
And there are far more selfish reasons to have children than not to have them, and far more people who have children for selfish than for selfless reasons. I obviously don’t have to go into how horrid this is for the children.
As for Ms. Degeneres – I would say that anyone who gives away a dog, and for the most superficial of reasons – could she not afford a large enough home to seperate the dog and cats? – is most emphatically NOT ready to have children.
I have a cat and no children. I have known many people who have children and have no business with them – they lack the emotional maturity to be a parent. Maybe those folks should have tried the committment to a pet first, before deciding to bring a half-loved child into the world.
Animals give much more than children will ever to a person than children. Kids are selfish, cruel and they leave; then return expecting the parent to take care of them again. Parenting is a joke for 95% of the people out there. Their parents were not that great and the skills passed on keep the cycle of bad supervision.
Give the affections of my cats and dogs anytime. My husband and I have more money for our retirement, higher level of intelligent friends, and a a good life. Also, my pets live a good life that they deserve as living beings.
In my next life, I want to be a pet for someone like us who will take good care of me. Children just use you and demand more and more until and often after you die.
Let’s face it. People who have children are the ones who do it for selfish purposes. They want a little clone of themselves to go on in the world.
Not the case with pets.
Put that in your pipe and smoke it Dr. Helen and get your facts straight.
I own about 6-7 cats and I love them like they were babies. They are my children.
I am a 41 year-old wife and mother of one child. My son is 12.
I was not able to have any more children. I would love to adopt another child, but my husband does not want to.
I have an 8 year-old dog whom I’ve raised from a puppy. She is my “baby girl” and there is nothing wrong with that!
Look, I love my son more than my own life. He is by far more important than my dog. I am there for him 100%. But now he is at the age where he does not need me as much anymore. I have so much more love to give and unable to give it to another child. My dog helps to fill that void. She is loyal and so very affectionate.
So I support those people who have dogs (or cats!) instead of kids. Whether it’s by choice or not. Leave these people be!!!
To the ‘mother’ of two young boys who wrote that people who choose not to have children are selfish…. there’s this wonderful saying, “Knowledge is like a river, the deeper it gets, the quieter it becomes.” You would do yourself a world of good to heed that statement.
In case you’ve had your pathetically uninformed head in the sand for your entire lifetime, there’s also a huge over population of the world right now, you should be thanking those who choose not to have children, they are preserving the natural resources a bit more so your unfortunate offspring can breathe without a gas mask a little longer. Get a life! And a book about population, and watch An Inconvenient Truth.
And ask yourself why anyone in their right mind would really want to be “locked in to long term parenting”. You make it sound so charming!
How many people have a child because they think that little egg inside deserves to become a person? Absolutely none. We have children because we were born with maternal instincts designed to guarantee the continuation of our species. We have children to satisfy our own needs but when that child is born it is our job to meet their needs and this is what we are ill prepared for.
When nature created our desire to have children she should have also given us the knowledge and capabilities required for the job but sadly she didn’t.
Well, “mother of two young boys” I find people who are comfortable making sweeping generalizations about other people whom they do not know to be insensitive, ignorant and quite possibly, incapable of applying logic when to their thinking.
“To breed or not to breed” is a question more people should ask themselves before they reproduce, not after. A spoiled pet can be a nuisance, but they do not grow up to be drug addicts or even worse politicians
. Even people with the best of intentions screw up while rearing their children–the darn things don’t come with a manual as y’all know and some parenting mistakes make for some whopping societal consequences. Except for a small number of people who themselves are criminals, most pets at their very worst can be nuisances.
Frankly, I passed on having children early on in my life and have no regrets. We humans are in NO danger of running out of our supply of humans. In fact we have too many humans already consuming too much of our natural resources as it is. More importantly, I had enough doubts about my ability to successfully raise children that I know my decision was the right decision–for ME.
My tiny poodle consumes next to nothing, leaves very little waste in comparison to a child, is protective of me and my property and loves me with a devotion I scarcely deserve given how little she requires in return.
Plenty of other people, including members of my own family, have stepped up to the plate and reproduced. My not doing so as well is in WHAT WAY selfish?
By the way, the “maximum life expectancy of 15-20 years” is the best one could hope for in a dog. If only I could have my dogs and cats for my lifetime. But my commitment to them is for their LIFETIME, heartbreakingly brief as it is.
Respect others’ freedom to choose childless lives as you expect them to respect your choice of a life with children. That IS the simple truth of the matter.
I’m always a little suspicious of people who get angry at women who choose not to have children…my first thought, only as it pertains to those people, is “misery loves company.”
Perhaps mother of two should look inside herself and investigate her reasons for the anger she feels toward child-free women.
P.S.
“You and Portia DeRossi are ready for kids” –
Unless they don’t WANT children. One requires more to have children than to be “ready.” Minimally, the desire.
To this:
“Many of us realize our capabilities and our limitations. Sometimes fur children are all that we can handle at a given point in our lives.”
Sometimes “fur children” are all we want. Animals and children aren’t remotely comparable. Capabilities and limitations should certainly be (and probably are) considerations, but your blog seems to favor the idea that women who choose not to have children do it because they’re somehow deficient, rather than including the possibility that they’d prefer to do something else with their time.
We have two dogs, no children, and are happy to keep it that way! It is not that we aren’t able or are “selfish” that stops us having children. The list of hereditary illnesses in both our families would make it cruel to risk passing those on. In addition, I don’t feel either of us is really suited to parenthood.
My little dogs lead extremely good lives. They are well fed, exercised, have more love and affection than they could ever need! What is wrong with that? So I have well adored pets and no children, I don’t really see what business anybody has saying I’m “selfish” not putting potentially ill children into a hostile overcrowded world.
Maybe Dr. Helen should think a bit more carefully before her & her followers jump the gun. A bit of appreciation in to people’s varying situations wouldn’t go a miss!
I think we could flip that woman’s opinion around and make a pretty good case for how truly selfish it is to bring children into an increasingly over populated, environmentally devistated, resource depleated planet. I choose not to have children of my own because I don’t want to voluntarily subject anyone to the current and probable future struggle that many of us are facing. I think it’s less selfish to adopt but there is always a selfish motive behind choosing pets or choosing children. People wouldn’t choose either unless there was a personal benefit attached. I prefer the benefits my fur children provide.
There is nothing selfish about not having children – the selfish act is having a child for the purpose of having “someone to love you”, or “someone to keep you company”. Poo poo, spare me. Half of these half-wits in the world feel like nobody loves them, as is the case with my stepdaughter’s mother. She tricked her way into having a baby because she wanted someone that would love her and keep her company.
SHE SHOULD HAVE GOTTEN A DOG!!! Am I right?
SO many other people do it, too: They want someone that looks like them, they want to have a baby to make their significant other feel like they have to stay.
Nowadays, not having children if you’re not ready is the selfless thing to do. Not everyone has that parental tug in their bodies. It is best for them not to have kids.
I am 37 years old, happily married, have three cats, and no children, by choice. My husband and I are in love with each other, and our nieces and nephews for that matter, but are very realistic about what child rearing entails. To say that our choice is selfish is insane. I think having children to “take care of you when you’re old” is more selfish. This is a reason I’ve heard people state repeatedly.
I believe we should all have the right to choose what is best for us without being judged, whether that means having children, furry children, or having none at all. I just wish people would think these things through more than they do. Maybe then there would be less animal and child abuse and neglect in this world…
I think it’s baffling that some people consider not having kids to be a selfish act, given the state of the world’s affairs, and its scarcity of resources. Doubly so when you consider the children already born who are in need of an adult’s time, love, and attention. I consider having a child to have been my MOST selfish act. It also forces me to face this selfishness in myself head on, as it isn’t something I would have ever done differently.
I have just turned 40 & childfree both by circumstance & choice, when I was younger I just presumed everyone had children as the naturall progression of life, now I’m older & much wiser, I realise we all have a choice, having children is a huge responsibility both financially and emotionally. Not only that but I believe the world is becoming a much more selfish, unkind, competitive, polluted, overcrowded place & I’m not sure I’d want to be born now? So why do that to an innocent person just to fullfill a want, yes that’s right, having a child is a want not a need meaning it won’t kill you if you don’t do it….I’d much prefer a dog anyday….I agree with many people on this blog & I bet each & everyone of you are compassionate, thoughtful people, not at all selfish as the stereo type suggests….
Well I sure hope you are a good mother, but from your comment, I can see already that you will nuture stereotypes and expectations on to your children, that are a display of your own ignorance and selfishness. What if one of your children decides to remain childless and love a pet, spouse, environment, job or whatever more than their desire for a child – are they going to become ignorant and selfish to you? Please…..I am proud to say I’m childless at 44, my reasons are deeply personal, and I have yet to meet a truly ’selfish’ women without children, most of the childless women I know are quite the opposite. They are brave, intelligent women who give a lot to the world. Children are wonderful but I often see them used by women who are to afraid to do anything else with their lives. To the good mom’s I say ‘hats-off’, to someone like you, God help your children…….