Pets and Children

[pat]

This is locked right now because I am debating the extent to which I have the bandwidth to have a general discussion. I trust y'all to be mannered in your disagreement : )

In a discussion at Making Light, I said "Yes, I know pets are important, but if you have so many that you would not evacuate in the face of danger, you have too many."

I was taken to task by someone who replied "I'd like to rephrase your footnote to explore another point of view: *Yes, I know children are important, but if you have so many that you would not evacuate in the face of danger, you have too many. Hmmm, doesn't quite work anymore...."

Deep breath. Deeeeeep Breath.

Before I start, where I stand: I have children. I have no pets. I have no pets in spite of the fact that I would dearly love to have a dog* because I believe that pet ownership carries with it a set of important responsibilities, which I currently have neither the financial nor the physical bandwidth to fulfill.** (It's hard to walk the dog when there are days when it's hard for you to walk, period.) You can call me pet-free by choice, I guess. I care enough about animals to forego having one if I can't take care of it properly.

I understand fully that pets are important. Pets are companions, and provide meaningful support. Pets play an important part in people's lives and families. In some instances, pets can save lives. That being said, however....

PETS ARE NOT CHILDREN.

You cannot leave a child at home alone, with a neighbor checking to make sure it has food and water when you head on a cruise for six months. At least, not unless you want to end up in jail for child abandonment.

You don't have to decide whether having another pet is worth being sick for nine months.

You never have PPP/PPD after getting a new pet.

You never have to hear "Your pet is autistic."

You don't have to teach critical thinking skills to a pet.***

You don't have to teach a pet to like themselves.

You don't have to help a pet navigate adolescence with a minimum of damage.

Pets don't come crying to you because their best friend dropped them.

You think that being responsible for a pet is the same thing as parenting a child? Go ahead, tell that to someone undergoing IVF. I'll buy the popcorn.

And let's not even get into the abortion debate.

I have known many people who have adopted pets. I have known a few that have adopted children. Guess which one was more difficult?

I have known people who have lost pets. I have known people who have lost children -- including my own parents. Guess which one caused more long-term emotional and psychological impacts?

I don't know about other parents, but I feel an incredible responsibility to raise offspring that care about other people in a larger sense, who have a sense of community and responsibility as citizens of not only their country but the world. It's rather more complicated than teaching them to play well with others.

The complexity of interaction and nurturing required to raise a child dwarfs that required to raise a pet. Yes, as they get older, they take a more active part in their own rearing. It doesn't mean the parent's responsibility is less, simply that it is changed. In many ways, parenting a thirteen year old is as rough as parenting a three year old.

I have to confess to cringing whenever I hear dog or cat owners refer to themselves as their pet's "mommy" or "daddy." I understand the desire to have a phrase that reflects that the pet is part of the family, not merely an object that is "owned," but is it really necessary to use the same term we use for the relationship of a parent to children?

Being a parent is hard work... hard emotional and psychological work. Not everyone is cut out to do it -- including many people who are actually parents, and me, many days. To have it equated to raising dogs and cats makes me want to scream.

And yes, I stand my original assertion: if you have so many pets you feel you can't evacuate -- especially if not evacuating means placing others in harm's way -- then you have too many pets.

Being a pet owner requires one to care for the animal in all circumstances where possible -- including emergencies. If you have animals, you need to have a plan for keeping them as safe as possible in disasters -- which in most cases means evacuating them.****

Because you not evacuating may well not save the animals. It may just mean there is a dead human - or two, or three, depending upon who else has to stay behind if you choose to - as well as a dead dog or cat.

Which does no one any good.


*Cats make me sneeze.
** The answer, echidnaboy, is still no. Unless and until you and your brothers start being really dependable in doing your chores, I will not trust you when you say "But I can walk the dog!"
*** On the good side, you pet is unlikely to ever come home and announce he is going to read Revelations and needs you to explain it to him. All because he heard you comment that many C.S. Lewis lifted many of the plot points of The Last Battle from there. Me and my big mouth.
****I recognize that this is difficult to do if you are poor: you may only have the resources to take humans with you, not animals. Which is a tragedy -- but not on the scale of a dead or abandoned child. It is just not.

Comments

[deedeebythebay.livejournal.com]

I have children and I have pets. And, quite frankly, I couldn't agree with you more.