Should Substituting Pets For Kids Be Considered A Psychiatric Disorder?
Jun 29, 2019 02:03:41 #
Having Pets Instead Of Kids Should Be Considered A Psychiatric Disorder
Deferring kids by preferring ‘fur-babies,’ the dog-boomer generation is missing out on the real joys of both parenthood and owning pets.
G. Shane Morris
May 9, 2017
If you grew up with dogs (as I did), you know that something bizarre and sad often happens when a mother dog loses her puppies. With hormones and maternal instinct coursing through her, she will frequently adopt inanimate objects as “replacement-puppies.”
Usually, she chooses something like a boot, hat, or stuffed toy. Mother cats do the same thing, typically with socks. Wh**ever the object, the animal will carry it around, lick it, attempt to suckle it, protect it, and otherwise pour all of her energy and nurturing instincts into it - often for much longer than she would an actual litter of puppies or kittens.
Something in her brain is soothed by the non-living replacement, but ironically, this replacement-puppy can prevent the mother from trying again to bear actual young. Her instincts are permanently misdirected, wasted on an object that will never be her real offspring.
Even sadder is when humans do the same thing. I’m not talking about mothers who have lost their babies. I’m talking about men and women, especially from the millennial generation, who have chosen to indefinitely postpone having children, yet still feel the unshakeable urge to parent.
This urge is natural. It’s good. It was placed in us to let us know that our reproductive systems are in prime shape to marry, build a home, and raise children. As the father of three, I can also say what a joy it is to feel the tug of those parental instincts and fulfill them as God intended.
But for many in my generation who are also approaching 30, children (and the ideal prerequisite for children, marriage), are still out of the question because they’re too expensive, too time-consuming, and might cramp their lifestyle. Those nurturing instincts don’t go anywhere, though. A disturbing number of young adults are directing them toward substitutes - not boots or stuffed toys, but dogs and cats.
Their justification for this is purely selfish, preferring the average fifteen year investment and commitment involved in owning a pet, over the lifetime emotional (and unknown future financial) investment in having a child.
The Rise of ‘Fur Babies’
Psychology manuals 200 years from now will identify “replacement-baby syndrome” as a diagnosable epidemic in my generation. For a record breaking number of millennials, the original purpose of pets’ - to be shaggy companions and useful partners in work and housekeeping - has been superseded by a role they were never intended to fulfill: replacement child.
It is now commonplace to hear young people my age unironically refer to their pooches and kitties (I’m horrified to even write this) as “children,” “fur-babies,” “kids,” “girls,” “boys,” or “sons and daughters.” Likewise, it’s not at all unusual to hear pet-owners refer to themselves as “pooch parents,” or “mommies and daddies.”
Christian musician Nicole Nordeman recently posted an account on Facebook of a couple she overheard at the airport holding a FaceTime call with their “baby” and his “grandparents.”
“They are cooing and gushing and exclaiming ‘well look at YOU, big boy! So big! So handsome! Are you being so good for Nana???’” These “parents” pester their own parents with questions about baby’s feeding, pooping, and playtime, and “nearly collapse with joy” when “baby” comes back on screen for a last goodbye. “Mommy and Daddy love you,” the couple squeal. “You are the best boy! We’re coming home so soon!”
Nordeman says she turned around to sneak a look at this sweet baby who’s so beloved by his parents, only to find… a yellow Labrador retriever.
How much embarrassment must it bring those “grandparents” to participate in such a call? How badly must they want real grandchildren, instead of pet-sitting an attention - smothered dog? How much grief must they feel watching their child waste her parental instincts on an animal while they’re forced to play along in the couple’s sick and disturbing charade?
It’s Hard Work Pretending Animals Are Humans
...or maybe not so much, because they’re likely very busy. After all, being a “pet parent” is hard work. This strenuous delusion usually involves pretending animals are humans, as with a v***l Pinterest post by a woman who huffs, “Don’t say I am not a Mom just because my kids have 4 legs and fur. They are my kids, and I am their mom.”
Millennials, it turns out, are twice as likely as baby boomers to buy clothing for their pets, an industry which, along with other forms of “pet-pampering,” amounted to $11 billion last year, and markets for such essential items as pet strollers and pet slings.
Other times, replacement-babies require pet parents to pretend they, themselves, are animals. Feast your eyes, for example, on this new cat brush that allows users to role-play by inserting it in their mouth like a giant tongue and “licking” their kitty.
Corporations have incorporated the replacement-baby epidemic into marketing campaigns. Consider this eyeroll - inducing new Sprint commercial, in which Instagram pretty boy and Jesus - lookalike Topher Brophy proudly refers to his dog as “my son,” and confers with him about wireless plans.
Many in my generation naively think of their dogs and cats as “practice babies,” hoping to test the waters of parenthood on a child that won’t resent them for a lifetime or wind up in prison should they fail. Never mind that dogs would probably resent being treated like lab rats if they could understand human motives.
Certainly, they don’t appreciate being carted off to the animal shelter when their “parents” tire of them. But how many couples misdirect their parental instincts toward a furniture - shredding, hairshedding nightmare and based upon this experience, determine they can’t handle kids?
College Humor provides some much-needed ridicule of this idea, and shows why it’s a sign of a weak relationship more than it is of cautious parenting ("if our marriage falls apart, at least only the dog will suffer!"). But there’s a more serious and long-lasting consequence of millennials’ choice to substitute babies with animals, even temporarily: They aren’t getting around to actually having babies.
Choosing Pets Over Progeny
In September, the Washington Post reported on findings from the research firm, Mintel, that quantify the replacement-baby epidemic. Young Americans are less likely than their parents to own a car or a home, and half as likely to be married as Americans were 50 years ago. But we have a handy lead over the baby-boomers in one area: pet ownership. The frontrunners of the millennial pack who’ve already entered careers could be rechristened the “dog-boomers.”
Three-fourths of Americans in their thirties own dogs, and half own cats.
Three-fourths of Americans in their thirties (for this study, all adults 37 years old and younger were considered “millennials”) own dogs, and half own cats. When you compare them with the population in general, only half of whom own dogs and just over a third of whom own cats, the surge is obvious.
Writing at Forbes, Erin Lowry blames the perceived $$$ costs for this shortfall in children. As pricey as dogs can be, if you treat them the way this Manhattanite author in question does (gourmet dog food, professional paw cleaning, high-end surgery, pet-sitters, and airline tickets to travel with her), her thousands of dollars in receipts are still nowhere near the reported sticker price that supporting her own offspring would be.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimated in 2013 that the average annual cost of raising a child in a two-parent home is between $12,800 and $14,970, and much more for those living in a major city. That’s a quarter of a million dollars before each child reaches adulthood, which doesn’t include college or post-adulthood basement-dwelling. If you have three kids and a single writer’s income as I do, that should make you weak in the knees.
But of course, it’s not true, because as James Breakwell points out, fathers like him and I will never see that much money, yet our kids are still alive and thriving. Texas A&M University finance professor H. Swint Friday points out that the USDA numbers are “misleading to the point of outrageous,” and concocted largely based on “political objectives.”
The economy of scale (reduction in the cost of producing, i.e., a car or a unit of electricity) brought about by increased size of production facilities , thrifty shopping, purchasing recycled or refurbished, and a spouse that is willing to stay home and raise her own kids drastically cuts child rearing costs. But perhaps because many of them were pampered, millennials have come away with the distinct impression that raising children is a vocation reserved for those with Batman’s bank account. It’s not.
Your Dog Doesn’t Want to Be Your Child
I can tell everything I need to know about a person who "goes to get a dog," by whether he bought a dog, or adopted a dog. The pretense that buying luxury items like indoor pets is somehow altruistic or noble will strike future historians as one of the oddest habits of the millennial generation.
It’s also becoming commonplace, however, to hear those pet owners who selected their new family member from the animal shelter to tell the story of how they “rescued” their dog or cat, as if they snatched it from a burning building at the peril of their own lives.
In reality, most of them simply visited the pound and picked the cutest furball they saw. I’ve never met anyone who asked shelter workers, “Which dog is scheduled to die next?” and then took home whichever mange-riddled chupacabra was to emerge from the back room, no questions ask.
When you "go to get a dog," you are doing something you want to do. Portraying it as a self sacrificial act of virtue is purely self indulgent aggrandizement.
The same goes for virtually all of the bizarre activities that characterize the replacement - baby plague. Whether it’s strollers, costumes, complicated g***ming, or being confined to one-bedroom apartments in Brooklyn that smell like Febreze, we’re fooling ourselves if we believe our animals enjoy any of this play-acting.
I suspect dogs h**e owners who treat them this way. They don’t want to be pushed around in a carriage, sung to sleep, or sent to daycare. They don’t want to be your surrogate infant. They want to be your pack-mate - your hunting companion. They want to assist you to chase down something in the woods and, together, to rip its still-beating heart out. They are, after all, descended from wolves.
We have instincts to raise and nurture children. Well, dogs have instincts, too. “…the bloodlust, the joy to k**l,” writes Jack London in “Call of the Wild.” “—all this was Buck’s… He was raging at the head of the pack, running the wild thing down, the living meat, to k**l with his own teeth and wash his muzzle to the eyes in warm blood.”
Does this bother you? Do you find this distasteful? Then you shouldn’t own a dog, because it is at the core of their being. This is the instinct that makes dogs so eager to fetch a Frisbee at the park, and makes cats hours of fun if you’ve got a laser-pointer. They will never tire in their attempt to capture the allusive light beam.
The reason man domesticated such animals in the first place was not a much the joy and companionship they brought him - not as replacement children, but as animals with the ability to protect their homes and camps, and to guard their herds of livestock from predators, four footed or two.
Gregory Okin, a UCLA geography professor and study author in Popular Science has written on the topic of cat and dog food. He found that the nation's dogs and cats consume about 25 percent of the total calories derived from eating animals in this country. If the nation's 163 million canines and felines formed their own nation, it would rank fifth in global meat consumption, behind Russia, Brazil, the United States and China.
Millennials desperately need to shake the delusion that pets can stand in for or prepare us for babies. Not only is it depriving us of the joy of children and misdirecting our parental instincts toward objects that were never meant to receive them, it’s also depriving many of the true delight of pet ownership.
For both humans and animals, these delusions are sad distortions of natural instinct that leave only barrenness in their wake. But there is one key difference: dogs and cats don’t know any better. We do.
https://thefederalist.com/2017/05/09/pets-instead-kids-considered-psychiatric-disorder/
G. Shane Morris is a senior writer at BreakPoint, a program of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview. He’s also written for Summit Ministries and The Christian Post, and blogs regularly at Patheos. Shane lives with his wife and three children in Tampa, Florida.
Deferring kids by preferring ‘fur-babies,’ the dog-boomer generation is missing out on the real joys of both parenthood and owning pets.
G. Shane Morris
May 9, 2017
If you grew up with dogs (as I did), you know that something bizarre and sad often happens when a mother dog loses her puppies. With hormones and maternal instinct coursing through her, she will frequently adopt inanimate objects as “replacement-puppies.”
Usually, she chooses something like a boot, hat, or stuffed toy. Mother cats do the same thing, typically with socks. Wh**ever the object, the animal will carry it around, lick it, attempt to suckle it, protect it, and otherwise pour all of her energy and nurturing instincts into it - often for much longer than she would an actual litter of puppies or kittens.
Something in her brain is soothed by the non-living replacement, but ironically, this replacement-puppy can prevent the mother from trying again to bear actual young. Her instincts are permanently misdirected, wasted on an object that will never be her real offspring.
Even sadder is when humans do the same thing. I’m not talking about mothers who have lost their babies. I’m talking about men and women, especially from the millennial generation, who have chosen to indefinitely postpone having children, yet still feel the unshakeable urge to parent.
This urge is natural. It’s good. It was placed in us to let us know that our reproductive systems are in prime shape to marry, build a home, and raise children. As the father of three, I can also say what a joy it is to feel the tug of those parental instincts and fulfill them as God intended.
But for many in my generation who are also approaching 30, children (and the ideal prerequisite for children, marriage), are still out of the question because they’re too expensive, too time-consuming, and might cramp their lifestyle. Those nurturing instincts don’t go anywhere, though. A disturbing number of young adults are directing them toward substitutes - not boots or stuffed toys, but dogs and cats.
Their justification for this is purely selfish, preferring the average fifteen year investment and commitment involved in owning a pet, over the lifetime emotional (and unknown future financial) investment in having a child.
The Rise of ‘Fur Babies’
Psychology manuals 200 years from now will identify “replacement-baby syndrome” as a diagnosable epidemic in my generation. For a record breaking number of millennials, the original purpose of pets’ - to be shaggy companions and useful partners in work and housekeeping - has been superseded by a role they were never intended to fulfill: replacement child.
It is now commonplace to hear young people my age unironically refer to their pooches and kitties (I’m horrified to even write this) as “children,” “fur-babies,” “kids,” “girls,” “boys,” or “sons and daughters.” Likewise, it’s not at all unusual to hear pet-owners refer to themselves as “pooch parents,” or “mommies and daddies.”
Christian musician Nicole Nordeman recently posted an account on Facebook of a couple she overheard at the airport holding a FaceTime call with their “baby” and his “grandparents.”
“They are cooing and gushing and exclaiming ‘well look at YOU, big boy! So big! So handsome! Are you being so good for Nana???’” These “parents” pester their own parents with questions about baby’s feeding, pooping, and playtime, and “nearly collapse with joy” when “baby” comes back on screen for a last goodbye. “Mommy and Daddy love you,” the couple squeal. “You are the best boy! We’re coming home so soon!”
Nordeman says she turned around to sneak a look at this sweet baby who’s so beloved by his parents, only to find… a yellow Labrador retriever.
How much embarrassment must it bring those “grandparents” to participate in such a call? How badly must they want real grandchildren, instead of pet-sitting an attention - smothered dog? How much grief must they feel watching their child waste her parental instincts on an animal while they’re forced to play along in the couple’s sick and disturbing charade?
It’s Hard Work Pretending Animals Are Humans
...or maybe not so much, because they’re likely very busy. After all, being a “pet parent” is hard work. This strenuous delusion usually involves pretending animals are humans, as with a v***l Pinterest post by a woman who huffs, “Don’t say I am not a Mom just because my kids have 4 legs and fur. They are my kids, and I am their mom.”
Millennials, it turns out, are twice as likely as baby boomers to buy clothing for their pets, an industry which, along with other forms of “pet-pampering,” amounted to $11 billion last year, and markets for such essential items as pet strollers and pet slings.
Other times, replacement-babies require pet parents to pretend they, themselves, are animals. Feast your eyes, for example, on this new cat brush that allows users to role-play by inserting it in their mouth like a giant tongue and “licking” their kitty.
Corporations have incorporated the replacement-baby epidemic into marketing campaigns. Consider this eyeroll - inducing new Sprint commercial, in which Instagram pretty boy and Jesus - lookalike Topher Brophy proudly refers to his dog as “my son,” and confers with him about wireless plans.
Many in my generation naively think of their dogs and cats as “practice babies,” hoping to test the waters of parenthood on a child that won’t resent them for a lifetime or wind up in prison should they fail. Never mind that dogs would probably resent being treated like lab rats if they could understand human motives.
Certainly, they don’t appreciate being carted off to the animal shelter when their “parents” tire of them. But how many couples misdirect their parental instincts toward a furniture - shredding, hairshedding nightmare and based upon this experience, determine they can’t handle kids?
College Humor provides some much-needed ridicule of this idea, and shows why it’s a sign of a weak relationship more than it is of cautious parenting ("if our marriage falls apart, at least only the dog will suffer!"). But there’s a more serious and long-lasting consequence of millennials’ choice to substitute babies with animals, even temporarily: They aren’t getting around to actually having babies.
Choosing Pets Over Progeny
In September, the Washington Post reported on findings from the research firm, Mintel, that quantify the replacement-baby epidemic. Young Americans are less likely than their parents to own a car or a home, and half as likely to be married as Americans were 50 years ago. But we have a handy lead over the baby-boomers in one area: pet ownership. The frontrunners of the millennial pack who’ve already entered careers could be rechristened the “dog-boomers.”
Three-fourths of Americans in their thirties own dogs, and half own cats.
Three-fourths of Americans in their thirties (for this study, all adults 37 years old and younger were considered “millennials”) own dogs, and half own cats. When you compare them with the population in general, only half of whom own dogs and just over a third of whom own cats, the surge is obvious.
Writing at Forbes, Erin Lowry blames the perceived $$$ costs for this shortfall in children. As pricey as dogs can be, if you treat them the way this Manhattanite author in question does (gourmet dog food, professional paw cleaning, high-end surgery, pet-sitters, and airline tickets to travel with her), her thousands of dollars in receipts are still nowhere near the reported sticker price that supporting her own offspring would be.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimated in 2013 that the average annual cost of raising a child in a two-parent home is between $12,800 and $14,970, and much more for those living in a major city. That’s a quarter of a million dollars before each child reaches adulthood, which doesn’t include college or post-adulthood basement-dwelling. If you have three kids and a single writer’s income as I do, that should make you weak in the knees.
But of course, it’s not true, because as James Breakwell points out, fathers like him and I will never see that much money, yet our kids are still alive and thriving. Texas A&M University finance professor H. Swint Friday points out that the USDA numbers are “misleading to the point of outrageous,” and concocted largely based on “political objectives.”
The economy of scale (reduction in the cost of producing, i.e., a car or a unit of electricity) brought about by increased size of production facilities , thrifty shopping, purchasing recycled or refurbished, and a spouse that is willing to stay home and raise her own kids drastically cuts child rearing costs. But perhaps because many of them were pampered, millennials have come away with the distinct impression that raising children is a vocation reserved for those with Batman’s bank account. It’s not.
Your Dog Doesn’t Want to Be Your Child
I can tell everything I need to know about a person who "goes to get a dog," by whether he bought a dog, or adopted a dog. The pretense that buying luxury items like indoor pets is somehow altruistic or noble will strike future historians as one of the oddest habits of the millennial generation.
It’s also becoming commonplace, however, to hear those pet owners who selected their new family member from the animal shelter to tell the story of how they “rescued” their dog or cat, as if they snatched it from a burning building at the peril of their own lives.
In reality, most of them simply visited the pound and picked the cutest furball they saw. I’ve never met anyone who asked shelter workers, “Which dog is scheduled to die next?” and then took home whichever mange-riddled chupacabra was to emerge from the back room, no questions ask.
When you "go to get a dog," you are doing something you want to do. Portraying it as a self sacrificial act of virtue is purely self indulgent aggrandizement.
The same goes for virtually all of the bizarre activities that characterize the replacement - baby plague. Whether it’s strollers, costumes, complicated g***ming, or being confined to one-bedroom apartments in Brooklyn that smell like Febreze, we’re fooling ourselves if we believe our animals enjoy any of this play-acting.
I suspect dogs h**e owners who treat them this way. They don’t want to be pushed around in a carriage, sung to sleep, or sent to daycare. They don’t want to be your surrogate infant. They want to be your pack-mate - your hunting companion. They want to assist you to chase down something in the woods and, together, to rip its still-beating heart out. They are, after all, descended from wolves.
We have instincts to raise and nurture children. Well, dogs have instincts, too. “…the bloodlust, the joy to k**l,” writes Jack London in “Call of the Wild.” “—all this was Buck’s… He was raging at the head of the pack, running the wild thing down, the living meat, to k**l with his own teeth and wash his muzzle to the eyes in warm blood.”
Does this bother you? Do you find this distasteful? Then you shouldn’t own a dog, because it is at the core of their being. This is the instinct that makes dogs so eager to fetch a Frisbee at the park, and makes cats hours of fun if you’ve got a laser-pointer. They will never tire in their attempt to capture the allusive light beam.
The reason man domesticated such animals in the first place was not a much the joy and companionship they brought him - not as replacement children, but as animals with the ability to protect their homes and camps, and to guard their herds of livestock from predators, four footed or two.
Gregory Okin, a UCLA geography professor and study author in Popular Science has written on the topic of cat and dog food. He found that the nation's dogs and cats consume about 25 percent of the total calories derived from eating animals in this country. If the nation's 163 million canines and felines formed their own nation, it would rank fifth in global meat consumption, behind Russia, Brazil, the United States and China.
Millennials desperately need to shake the delusion that pets can stand in for or prepare us for babies. Not only is it depriving us of the joy of children and misdirecting our parental instincts toward objects that were never meant to receive them, it’s also depriving many of the true delight of pet ownership.
For both humans and animals, these delusions are sad distortions of natural instinct that leave only barrenness in their wake. But there is one key difference: dogs and cats don’t know any better. We do.
https://thefederalist.com/2017/05/09/pets-instead-kids-considered-psychiatric-disorder/
G. Shane Morris is a senior writer at BreakPoint, a program of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview. He’s also written for Summit Ministries and The Christian Post, and blogs regularly at Patheos. Shane lives with his wife and three children in Tampa, Florida.
Jun 29, 2019 02:30:09 #
Zemirah wrote:
Having Pets Instead Of Kids Should Be Considered A... (show quote)
Should worrying over other people's life choices be considered a psychiatric disorder? Oh, wait, sorry... that is what Liberals do.
Jun 29, 2019 03:22:34 #
JW wrote:
Should worrying over other people's life choices be considered a psychiatric disorder? Oh, wait, sorry... that is what Liberals do.
I think substituting pets for kids shows sanity. While my dogs can't mow the lawn, I don't have to yell at them to clean their room, they don't eat everything in the fridge, they don't constantly have their hand stuck out because they have a date and they're a "little short," the list goes on.
Someone asked if I missed the kids now that they're gone out on their own, and I said, "Yep, every time the grass needs cut."
Jun 29, 2019 04:17:42 #
Personally, I use a professional lawn service, Smedley,as grown children are known to move to other states, and/or have lawns of their own to mow.
Fighting your "empty nest syndrome" by substituting pets is a long way from having no grown children to welcome home for special holidays, or having no grandchildren to visit and play with your pets.
Your remarkable dry sense of humor cannot mask your humanity.
Fighting your "empty nest syndrome" by substituting pets is a long way from having no grown children to welcome home for special holidays, or having no grandchildren to visit and play with your pets.
Your remarkable dry sense of humor cannot mask your humanity.
Smedley_buzk**l wrote:
I think substituting pets for kids shows sanity. While my dogs can't mow the lawn, I don't have to yell at them to clean their room, they don't eat everything in the fridge, they don't constantly have their hand stuck out because they have a date and they're a "little short," the list goes on.
Someone asked if I missed the kids now that they're gone out on their own, and I said, "Yep, every time the grass needs cut."
Someone asked if I missed the kids now that they're gone out on their own, and I said, "Yep, every time the grass needs cut."
Jun 29, 2019 04:47:56 #
Posting a report on the continuing demise of our civilian population in this nation's younger generations, created by a continuing low birth rate, and both the reasons, and coping mechanisms employed by those responsible for it, is a far cry from "worrying over other's life choices," JW.
The factors that determine those life choices need to be analyzed and understood by anyone who cares about the future survival and well being of this nation.
As for Liberals/progressives: they don't worry over other's life choices, unless those choices impede their totalitarian goals for this nation.
They simply can't abide anyone anywhere being allowed to make a life choice that they did not first authorize, by being in a position to give or deny that permission.
IOW, liberals/progressives are complete elitist control freaks, which they justify by believing themselves superior in wisdom to all others, and that they alone are worthy of designing the future utopia to which they aspire, and intend to create.
Personally, I believe I can identify a "psychiatric condition" whenever I encounter one, as I'm relatively sure do you.
The factors that determine those life choices need to be analyzed and understood by anyone who cares about the future survival and well being of this nation.
As for Liberals/progressives: they don't worry over other's life choices, unless those choices impede their totalitarian goals for this nation.
They simply can't abide anyone anywhere being allowed to make a life choice that they did not first authorize, by being in a position to give or deny that permission.
IOW, liberals/progressives are complete elitist control freaks, which they justify by believing themselves superior in wisdom to all others, and that they alone are worthy of designing the future utopia to which they aspire, and intend to create.
Personally, I believe I can identify a "psychiatric condition" whenever I encounter one, as I'm relatively sure do you.
JW wrote:
Should worrying over other people's life choices be considered a psychiatric disorder? Oh, wait, sorry... that is what Liberals do.
Jun 29, 2019 06:33:03 #
Zemirah wrote:
Having Pets Instead Of Kids Should Be Considered A... (show quote)
I couldn’t give a damn wether people choose to have a dog rather than kids, as long as in either case they keep them quiet and on a short leash. This treating dogs like people has been going on for years. In the 80s I was in a grocery store and a posh looking old lady came in with one of those little yapping ankle biter dogs. I was going to say something about it being both unsanitary and a code violation but thought better of it in difference to her age. As we were leaving the store the miserable little dog crapped on the floor. The woman stoped, reached in her purse for a tissue but rather than cleaning up the mess gently lifted the dogs tail, wiped its ass, dropped the tissue next to the steaming pile and went on her way.
Jun 29, 2019 07:32:50 #
The focus of the article is on this country's younger generations declining to have children, and substituting pets as recipients of their natural nurturing instinct, thereby contributing to the decline in birthrate among the nation's citizens.
If the elderly, who have already raised their children, choose to alleviate their loneliness through the companionship afforded them by "yapping ankle biter dogs," that is their prerogative, although, house training should be a prerequisite before allowing them in stores, and in the case you cite, a bucket and mop should have been presented for the lady's use to cleanup after her dog before she left the store.
If that dog, or any other, were to actually bite anyone, its owner should pay their medical bills, and have proof that the dog has been v******ted against rabies.
Age does not convey a right to practice irresponsibility toward others or to the nation's laws in general.
If the elderly, who have already raised their children, choose to alleviate their loneliness through the companionship afforded them by "yapping ankle biter dogs," that is their prerogative, although, house training should be a prerequisite before allowing them in stores, and in the case you cite, a bucket and mop should have been presented for the lady's use to cleanup after her dog before she left the store.
If that dog, or any other, were to actually bite anyone, its owner should pay their medical bills, and have proof that the dog has been v******ted against rabies.
Age does not convey a right to practice irresponsibility toward others or to the nation's laws in general.
Kevyn wrote:
I couldn’t give a damn wether people choose to hav... (show quote)
Jun 29, 2019 07:53:27 #
Zemirah wrote:
Having Pets Instead Of Kids Should Be Considered A... (show quote)
I have always detested the term ‘furbaby’. To treat the dog as a child is a disservice to the dog Dressing it up in clothes robs it of its dignity. People have warped God’s great gift to us into something it isn’t. You can abort a baby easier than you can find a vet to abort a litter of puppies.
Don’t get me wrong. I love my dogs and they are my companions. But they’re not my children. I don’t know if its a mental disorder to refer to them that way for everyone but for some it certainly is.
Jun 29, 2019 08:08:56 #
Zemirah wrote:
Having Pets Instead Of Kids Should Be Considered A... (show quote)
This writer is clearly a sanctimonious busybody that “knows” all about the world.
In other words, a Dementiacrat.
Jun 29, 2019 08:30:52 #
no propaganda please
Loc: moon orbiting the third rock from the sun
Rose42 wrote:
I have always detested the term ‘furbaby’. To tre... (show quote)
You have the right attitude. Many people have both dogs and kids. The children learn a lot from the dogs by helping take care of the animals, and they also learn about love and trust from the dogs, great exchange. For us, it is different because the dogs are also service animals, but after a number of miscarriages, knowing I could not have children did not make me want to dress the dogs in kids clothing and talk baby talk to them. Instead we have put our energy into children who need our help, which is where the dogs more than earn their keep.
Don't get a dog as a child substitute, it is a diservice to the dog.
Jun 29, 2019 08:35:15 #
Smedley_buzk**l wrote:
I think substituting pets for kids shows sanity. While my dogs can't mow the lawn, I don't have to yell at them to clean their room, they don't eat everything in the fridge, they don't constantly have their hand stuck out because they have a date and they're a "little short," the list goes on.
Someone asked if I missed the kids now that they're gone out on their own, and I said, "Yep, every time the grass needs cut."
Someone asked if I missed the kids now that they're gone out on their own, and I said, "Yep, every time the grass needs cut."
Lolololhahahaha
Jun 29, 2019 08:38:01 #
Zemirah wrote:
Personally, I use a professional lawn service, Smedley,as grown children are known to move to other states, and/or have lawns of their own to mow.
Fighting your "empty nest syndrome" by substituting pets is a long way from having no grown children to welcome home for special holidays, or having no grandchildren to visit and play with your pets.
Your remarkable dry sense of humor cannot mask your humanity.
Fighting your "empty nest syndrome" by substituting pets is a long way from having no grown children to welcome home for special holidays, or having no grandchildren to visit and play with your pets.
Your remarkable dry sense of humor cannot mask your humanity.
Zemirah I agree with the premise wholeheartedly. I also think that it's a symptom of a generation unwilling to grow up, commit, and/or take responsibility for themselves. On a macabre note, I shudder to think how many of these millenials aborted their "mistakes"
Jun 29, 2019 08:40:55 #
Kevyn wrote:
I couldn’t give a damn wether people choose to hav... (show quote)
OMG sounds like dementia caused by a raging case of "empty nest syndrome "
Didn't anyone at all say "Hey lady, clean this up". And in what stores were pets allowed in the 80s? I never saw one.Jun 29, 2019 08:44:21 #
Rose42 wrote:
I have always detested the term ‘furbaby’. To tre... (show quote)
And there are some people (then and now) who think an invitation to your home for them should also include their pets! First time I experienced that was 1971 with some loon. Then not for a long time till a few years ago. I think that these people are indeed delusional.Jun 29, 2019 08:49:22 #
no propaganda please
Loc: moon orbiting the third rock from the sun
debeda wrote:
img src="https://static.onepoliticalplaza.com/ima... (show quote)
When friends visit us, and, without asking, bring their dog, or cat, we have a simple solution. We have several large dog cages in the garage. I just put a water dish with fresh water in it, and a comfy blanket in the crate and in goes the dog. Only a few dogs are allowed in the house, dogs that we know can play with the two mastiffs well. The terriers just go back in their crates, as they are trouble makers with other dogs.
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