How does what someone else decides to do with their life affect you? Just mind your business and make your paper. It's usually people who have nothing else going on in their lives who have too much time to think about and cast judgement on others. If I recall you have been married three times. I don't pass judgment on the fact that you have done that. It doesn't affect me in any way and neither do I care.
Parents are naturally very defensive when it comes to their kids. Any statement that can be interpreted as a slight, like someone relating their dog's behavior to something a toddler did, will be heard as them equating pets to kids, and you're going to get this level of anger. Consider that there are people out there, extreme PETA members and the like, who would tell you straight up they value any non human animal life over that of your kid... I don't think the "pets are my kids" people are coming from a place like that. Probably just trying to relate "parental" stories... just for your own sanity though, better to just recognize the reality that they don't have kids & you do, and dismiss/ignore/laugh such statements off. Much better than angrily trying to patrol everyone's thoughts/perceptions.
Ehhh...those people are so very few and far between that it's not even worth acknowledging them. There is the one kid here on the bbs, though.
I'm trying to understand the mentality. Having pets instead of kids is, in my eyes, perfectly normal. Calling your dogs your "children".... trying to figure that one out. Growing up, i didn't know one single person that had children that were dogs. Nowadays it seems to be common.
If people choose not to have children they are making an intellectual choice. There are biological imperatives that demand that you nurture children that aren't subject to intellect and logic. I appreciate that people who have real kids think this is silly, but for these people, it fulfills the very primal desire to nurture "children" in a family without producing rug rats requiring a commitment to raise. If the options are: a) this b) clinical depression or c) unwanted, ignored half-hardheartedly reared children turning into juvenile delinquents Option A doesn't seem so bad. It lets these people satisfy "nesting instincts" without having to actually follow through. They transfer those primal biological impulses that need fulfillment onto the dog. IMO, the world would be better off if people were more respectful of the time and effort involved in raising children before diving in. It isn't a fully thought out decision, but while it may seem silly, it seems like a healthy-ish compromise to human nature.
Owning a dog? What could be more pointless in life? Having children means you perpetuated your seed, even if you did it with a filthy Dutch w****. Dogs were preened out by natural selection if they become too aggressive toward humans, so basically the only dogs that survived were a bunch of kiss-asses. Yes that dog loves you. If he didn't, HE WOULD BE DEAD. What a world.
Yeah i was going to clarify, in the article they say people don't want kids so they get pets, but the OP made the reference about pet people equating them to kids. I have no issue with people who don't want to have kids.
To weigh in on OP, I agree the equating of pets to kids is stupid and very annoying. And I say that as a dog owner with no kids. Anytime a very nice real human with real kids says something about "well, it must be like with your dog," I say "no, this is nano-parenting and we understand that." Okay, internally, there is "mom" and "dad" talk, now that I think of it. But not out and about. Our dog doesn't get birthdays and crap like that. She gets what dogs like: outdoor activity, hunting squirrels, runs on gorgeous beaches, and most of all, lots of chances to sniff (in her case) dog schlongs.
I once got in an argument with a girl at a party. She was talking about how much she had to do and mentioned that she was a "mom". We were all right out of college, so I was surprised, and said "you have kids?" She said "oh, well I have two dogs and treat them like children." She went on with her story. I said, "no offense but...you really shouldn't say it like that. There's a big difference between having two dogs and two kids." She got really mad and it turned into this huge thing. We were all drunk so it probably blew up more than necessary. She's dumb.
