July 24, 2013 • 40 mins
After Word War II, pets became a standard part of American homes. Now, some think that the love and money we shower on our domesticated animals constitutes pet parenting. Cristen and Caroline discuss pet attachments and how it relates to couples who are childfree-by-choice.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You from housetop works
dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Caroline
and I'm Kristin Kristen. People talk about pitt parents and
there's a general kind of like negative assessment that goes
along with that, and I can offer a nebative assessment.
(00:28):
I was at the mall one day eating lunch and
a woman in case you're not sure what a stereotypical
pet parent looks like, is it different from a cat lady? Uh? Typical? Yeah, well,
we'll see. I don't know. Let me know. I was
enjoying my sandwich on my lunch break at the mall
and a woman approximately around the age of seventy in
(00:51):
uh like a long, long wig and a hot pink jumpsuit.
I like her already sweatsuit perhaps, and had a word
on the butt. She walked by pushing a stroller and
I thought, isn't that adorable that lady is is taking
her grandchild out for a lunchtime stroll. And when I
looked down, there was a dog in the stroller. Oh
(01:15):
and uh, that is the image that I had in
my mind when we started researching and reading about pet
parenting and the perceptions thereof Yes, someone wrote in with
the suggestion about pet parenting because I feel like culturally
it's on the one end of the spectrum. There is
(01:38):
the person who might think to put their miniature dog
in a stroller and take it out in public, and
that that's normal and that that is and that that's
typical animal caring behavior. Um TLC not surprisingly made a
show called I'm Obsessed with My Pet, all about extreme
(02:00):
pet parents who have for babies and for children. And
I mean, the thing is, though, it's like, all right,
that that's one kind of spectacle where you do have
people who are spending exorbitant amounts of money on animals,
and but then there's also just the fact that if
(02:23):
you are an adult and you don't have kids, maybe
you don't want kids, and you have dogs or cats,
and maybe partially because you don't have kids and you
have more time to invest, like they are part of
the family, whether you have kids or not. You know,
because I know um that growing up, for instance, I
(02:47):
had cats and they were like members of the family.
I as much as I would have liked to have
put my cat Smudge in a carriage and taking them around.
I never did, but you know I did feed in
pancakes so as I would a child these days these days,
if you had one around, that's right. Yeah, I mean
(03:08):
I feel like there are different variations on the pet
parenting idea. I mean, you have people like that woman
I saw at them all. But you also, like you
were talking about, you have uh, you know, singles or
just childless couples who for whatever reason do not have
kids who have pets. And but I feel like there's
a division there even in that there's like a subset
(03:28):
because you have the people who just have pets, and
people assume the worst about them, that like, oh, you're
a cat lady, or you're obsessed with your pet and
you're treating like a child and you're substituting it for
a child, or the people who really say, and I've
I've known some folks who have said this that you know,
my pet is nicer and gives me more love than
any human ever could. Sure, And there's also been a
(03:52):
backlash and sort of fearmongering about this notion of pet parenting,
particularly directed at the millennial generation who was delaying marriage,
delaying having kids overall, and might be more invested in
having a pet first, and some say this is just
a sign of how, you know, the traditional family dynamic
is breaking down and all of a sudden we have
(04:14):
animals instead of children. What's going on? So we're gonna
touch on all of this to get more of a
bird's eye view. It's a animal pun of this pet
parenting thing. And look at briefly at the history of
pet ownership in the United States, because obviously it's not
new that we have animals in our home who we
(04:35):
love very much. But first of all, let's start off, though,
with some industry numbers, because one thing that is absolutely
true is that we spend more on our pets than
ever before. Yeah, and it is doubling and tripling in
quadrillion opening. That's a word that I just made up
(04:56):
to indicate to you how fast the pet industry is growing.
This actually should probably be a premium podcast for for dogs, Caroline,
so that we can we can retire early. But anyway,
that's right, um. According to a report called US Pet
Market Outlook, for the year, US pet industry sales reached
(05:17):
more than fifty six billion in up for more than
fifty four billion the year before. Why Why is this happening.
A lot of it does have to do with a
degree of marketing. A lot of stores are saying, Okay,
people are spending more on their pets these days. We're
(05:37):
going to try to be specialty stores and fill that niche.
And then it's just like an endless cycle of spending
on studded rhinestone collars and strollers for your pet. Right
and also high end dog foods or cat foods, doggie daycare,
setting up doggie play dates depending on where you are,
and this can also I'm using dog a lot as
the example, it can go for other kinds of animals
(06:00):
as well. And on top of that, we own more
pets than ever before. According to a survey from the
American Pet Products Manufacturers Association, it found that two thirds
of American homes have pets, and that's about seventy one
million homes that have pets, and of those have more
than one pet, which is up from in night when
(06:22):
just around a fifty five percent of households had pets.
And if you're speaking of pet parenting and the question
of whether or not we're you know, having pets and
set of kids, we do have more pets than children
just forty six percent of US households have kids under eighteen.
(06:42):
So yeah, I mean there there are more pets than kids.
And so whereas you know, years and years and years ago,
Spot and Fido would not have required much money to
be spent on them. What you get them food, You
get them like a doghouse, and that's pretty much it. Uh.
Stores and retailers like pet Smart, for instance, have figured
(07:04):
out how to capitalize on pet ownership. For instance, Ken Hall,
who's the chief marketing officer over at pet Smart, which
they had this whole branding campaign to change from pets
Smart to pet Smart, which I just like to point
out I always thought it was anyway. Ken Hall, the
chief marketing officer, says, the whole emotional connection of being
(07:24):
a parent when the child is no longer in the
house is being replaced by a pet, for good or
for bad. A pet provides unconditional love, you come home
from work and the pet is not mad. And so
they really are playing off of this trend of people, um,
you know, loving on their pets instead of children at
the moment. Well, in addition to perhaps showering your pet
(07:47):
with higher end goods like fancy toys, and treats. I mean,
the technology around pet ownership has also up to the
potential price of having a pet, because I mean, today
the i've span of a dogger a cat can be
extended a lot longer than it used to be because
of the availability of medical procedures like chemotherapy, m r
(08:09):
s and hip replacements happening at your veterinarian's office, and
to help the pet live a healthier life. In the meantime,
there are things like supplements that you can give them,
so they're all these different additives that are almost making
a pet's life more like a kid's life in terms
of having to clothe it, feed it, and also provide healthcare.
(08:35):
And just like any good parent would do, we also
give our pets Christmas presents and Haneker presents and Quansa presents.
We give them holiday presents. Should I say uh? CNBC
in November twelve reported that Americans spent an average of
five billion dollars on their pets during the holidays. Fifty
(08:55):
percent of dogs and thirty eight percent of cats got
a gift. And I think it's funny because somebody they
quoted in the story said that cat owners are more
value sensitive you know, like dot dot dot. Like even
though we have the stereotype of people being like crazy
cat ladies, they're probably not actually as crazy as dog people,
(09:16):
who you know, parade their pets outside and so they
need pet accessories. Well, and I think it's just the
difference between the feline and the canine nature, because whereas
I was, giving a cat a toy is really fun,
but it's a little bit it's a little bit different.
A lot of cats kind of just don't need it,
you know, that's too good for for your silly little toys. Um.
(09:39):
But when did pets really become a part of American families? Um?
This is something that Katherine C. Greer looked into. She
wrote a book about it called Pets in America, a
History and just for some notable pet owners over the years.
Mark Twain, by the way, we talked about crazy cat ladies,
(10:00):
while Burnt Twain apparently was a crazy cat gent and
going way back in history, in ancient Rome, women would
tote around small bejeweled dogs, and small lap dogs have
also been popular for centuries. If you look in Renaissance
art and images of the wealthier families and the noble people,
a lot of times they'll have these little lap dogs
(10:21):
hanging out. Yeah. And in the seventeen hundreds, Frederick the
Great of Prussia is a great example of a crazy
dog person. He was so devoted to his dogs, and
when his greyhound died, he wrote of his heartache, it
is best to be too sensitive then too hard. And
there was playwright Eugene O'Neill who may not have gotten
along with his human children, but he loved his dalmatian
(10:43):
so much that he gave the dog an air ma's
raincoat and a four pistor bed. Oh to be that dalmatian.
Wow Um. And then something interesting happens in the mid
eighteen hundreds where this idea of keeping a pet becomes
part of the concept of the ideal family. And Grew
(11:04):
talks about how this goes along with a rise in
the domestic ethic, as she calls it of kindness to animals,
to where say a cat, for instance, would go from
just being a mouse catcher to really being part of
a family that you would want to make sure it's
happy and healthy. And the cat's going, what are you doing?
Stop petting me? Yeah, I just want to catch some mice.
(11:27):
And I've catched some mice. Well, so in the nineteen fifties,
post World War Two, we have a large rise in
pet ownership thanks to disposable income, but also thanks to
things like comic books and other pop culture items that
really featured families, the nuclear family as having a pet,
you know, two kids and a dog. So we also
(11:47):
have at this time the rise in pet store so
you can actually go to a store and shop for
your animal. And you also have the development of something
I've never thought about, the evolution of you have the
development of the cat litter box because it used to
literally just be a box with sand. Yes, so it's
becoming easier in other words, for cats and dogs to
(12:08):
live alongside families. They really become integrated. And it reminds
me you're talking about pop culture, reminds me of you know,
you have a show like Lassie coming on. I'm not
sure when. Yeah, Lassie, Old Yeller. All of these different
kids books and things um coming out featuring that such
important relationship, especially between like a child and a dog. Mr.
(12:29):
Ed Mr. Talking Horse, And that's why I got my
first talking horse when I was three. Her name was Belinda.
I wish um so today though moving from the nineteen
fifties to today. What's going on with this idea of
pet parenting where we've transitioned from the typical you know,
(12:51):
Lassie hanging out showing us where the dead body is
at the bottom of the river, to this idea of
some one who is using a pet, or investing in
a pet to maybe fill an emotional void, or or
having them almost as a stand in for a human.
It's just that intense. I don't even like to call
(13:11):
it a stand in, because devalues the relationship in my opinion. Um,
but where this intense companionship seems to have taken on
more of a significance for a greater number of people,
or maybe we're just we just have a name for
it now called pet parenting. Yeah, and when you look
at who does it, it's it's pretty self explanatory. Psychologist
(13:33):
Julia Becker talked about how it's pet parenting or just
the stereotype of pet parenting is pretty pervasive among empty nesters, singles,
and or the childless and the home bound. You know,
we are living longer where we are delaying marriage as
you talked about, so we are again I agree with you.
I don't want to say, filling the whole with these pets.
(13:53):
But we are opting to have sort of a low
maintenance companion in our lives where here that means we
are doing it as some people do to kind of
prepare for having a kid later in life, or whether
we just have opted completely to have pets instead of kids, right,
And that reminds me with the empty nesters, for instance,
it reminds me of when a few years ago, all
(14:18):
of the kids obviously had moved out of my parents house,
and my mom had a cat, and when that cat
ended up dying, it was so hard for her because
he had really taken on a role in the house
of greeting her, of interacting, you know, like just providing
that sort of interaction that might not have been as
(14:40):
available without having kids at home all of the time.
So I can totally understand that. Um. And there was
a recent analysis that I found on gender differences and
human animal interactions, and it found that men and women
both closely aligned in terms of how many have a
compen an animal I eat a pet, and both have
(15:03):
high pet attachment. I mean, even though there's that stereotype
of uh, you know, crazy cat ladies and maybe dogs
being men's best friends or something that I think there's
more of an idea that that women would be more
prone to pet parenting if they can't have a child,
right instead of a baby exactly. But statistically it's it's
(15:25):
both men and women. Who you know, we all form
these these kinds A lot of us, at least, I
should say, we are equally prone to form these deep
relationships with animals. Yeah, and there was account and research
survey that showed that fifty eight percent of respondents called
themselves their pets mommy or daddy, and eight percent of
respondents consider their pets to be full members of the family.
(15:47):
And this really drives with a Packaged Facts pet owner
survey where that showed nine out of ten pet owners
agree with the statement I consider my pets to be
part of the family, and two thirds view their pet
as their best friend and enjoy purchasing products that pamper
the pet. It's understandable. I've started living with a dog
for the very first time, and I get way too
(16:12):
much joy now out of bringing home a treat from
the grocery store. Where your parents okay with you moving
in with a dog if you talk to them about
it beforehand. They had to meet the dogs a couple
of times. The dog came over for some barbecues. But no,
it's like I get it reading about this stuff now,
I totally get it. And there was also a recent
(16:34):
study that came out in the journal called Anthrozoos by
psychologist Richard to Paul Sky, and it was fascinating. He
posts this hypothetical in which participants had to choose between
saving a person or a dog from being hit by
a runaway bus and the results. He tinkered with the
(16:54):
results by changing whether the person was a foreign tourist
or or a distant cousin or a friend of theirs obviously,
you know, getting the relationship closer and closer to the person.
And then with the animal, whether it was just a
random dog or say a pet. And he found that
forty of the subject said that under the circumstance of
(17:18):
a foreign stranger versus a dog, they would save the animal.
And he said that when he asked the participants why
they would choose to save the dog over a foreign stranger,
it was the issue of kinship, because they consider their
pets family. And for one gender difference, women were a
lot more likely to choose a pet over a person. Yeah,
(17:42):
it's funny. And the people who provided the people who
said they would save the person over the dog were
a lot more likely to provide logical responses. The people
who said that they would save a dog over a person,
whether it was in this study about the train tracks
are saving a dog versus a baby in a burning
billing I think was another one um. But the people
(18:02):
who said they would save the pet over the human
provided very emotionally laden responses, whether whether they were men
or women who said it. And I was thinking about it,
and it's like, well, maybe people would think to save
the jog because the human should be able to propel
himself out from in front of the train right well
(18:23):
into pulse. He said that, yes, this is a hypothetical situation.
It's not meant to precisely predict human behavior, because if
you're actually in a situation where you had to choose
between a dog or animal and a buses coming through
h being driven by Kiana Reeves Um, then who knows
what would happen. But he said that it's such a
(18:44):
it's still a good example of that close kind of kinship.
In his words, that we do form and how once
you start moving the metric on the relationship of the
person versus the pet, if you get that relationship with
a pet close enough and yeah, we want to save it.
And those poor foreign tour I'm sure they were wearing
(19:06):
socks with sandals. It's fine, let them go. Um. But
there has been though a recent panic over this notion
of pet parenting, and not just complaints from people saying
like oh, you know, dogs don't belong in strollers, but
actually projecting it out to be this sign that there
is something wrong with the world, and it's tied a
(19:27):
lot to lowering fertility rates, concerns about millennials like you
and meet Caroline just being too selfish, and a stigma
against child free by choice people. Yeah, well, let's look
at fertility rate panic first. There was an article in
The Guardian in June talking about Japan and how folks
(19:50):
are starting to prefer pets to parenthood and frankly pets
to sex. Also, they are currently panicking over their plummeting
birth rates in Japan and where there is now there
are now more pets than children. So when you look
at population estimates, they estimate there are twenty two million
pets in Japan versus sixteen point six million children under fifteen,
(20:13):
which is crazy. Sure, I mean, we we saw that
there was that unbalanced number in our country too. We
have a wider gap in the United States. But what's
funny is uh. In the article they mentioned that like
okay uh, purchase and use of birth control is down.
Abortions are down, but so were births. So that means
(20:34):
that like people in Japan are just like not doing
it and adapting pets in instead. Yeah, there have been
definitely lots of concerns over adults, younger adults seeming disinterest
in even having sex, and so with a trend story
like this, they present evidence such as people buying spending
(20:58):
their you know, disposable income on pet clothing from designer
labels like Gucci, Chanel and Dior, rather than using that
money to either pursue a boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, wife, or
have a child. Um and the Guardian says, in many
parts of Tokyo it's easier to buy clothes for dogs
(21:18):
than for children. And you know, if you want to
get that deluxe Buddhist funeral for your pet, a cremation
ceremony can cost eight thousand dollars. But I do think
though I'm sure this is going on, but I sometimes
I wonder about trend stories like this, like are we
actually seeing the what's going on population wide or they're
(21:43):
taking a snapshot of a specific segment of people. What
I like to imagine is the journalist's face the day
that story was assigned to him or her, because I
know I'd be like, yes, yes, yes, I will write
about Japanese people, sex and small dogs. Hey, yeah, that
doesn't sound bad, and you get a free trip to Tokyo. Um.
(22:05):
But now moving on to the millennials issue, there was
a lot of fallout over survey results. They're all these surveys, oh, surveys. Um.
There were these survey results from this organization called flex
and International, which helps find older dogs homes hooray, and
I found that among the year old pet owners that
(22:28):
flex and talked to, sixty percent preferred an older dog.
And why, Caroline did they prefer an older dog? Well
said they didn't have time to house break or deal
with puppies. Understandable. And then this is where the panic
really ignited. Fifty of those pet owners said that they
(22:49):
would prefer a dog to a child. Which led people
like Wired's geek Dad blogger Curtis Silver to say very
unkind thing about us. Yeah, he was. It kind of
started out the tone, the tone shifted, I should say,
it kind of started out reading like, hey, I know
(23:10):
you're scared about having kids, young person, but it's really
not as bad or as expensive as you think. And
you're like, oh, you're easing me into this. This is
nice of you, dad of three children. And then it
quickly turns into like, seriously, are you an idiot? Are
you so selfish? What's wrong with you? Yeah? And there
was we We could cite a number of examples across
(23:30):
the Internet of bloggers. In particular, there was I I
she will go a name, but there was one doctor
blogger who who fears for the future of the human
race no joke, right, because some people would prefer to
have a dog than have a child. I think we
can we can stand. Well, it's just I don't understand
(23:50):
that level of panic over it. And honestly, I think
the more that I read about it, and the tone
that critics the sharp pist and the rudest. I'll go
ahead and say critics usually, I think that it boils
down to a bit of a stigma that still persists
(24:12):
over people who do not want to have children. We
did a podcast a long time ago about people who
are child free by choice or like, you know what,
I just don't want a kid. I'm fine, And it
doesn't mean that they hate children, they just don't want children.
And um, so there's this idea that you know, two
(24:32):
career couples with the norm people are marrying later, we're
divorcing more frequently, We're working where we have longer commutes,
and so all this is adding up to us maybe
just having pets instead. I mean maybe, because if you
are working those longer hours, you know, you do have
to look up or look down at those big eyes
of a human child and be like, I'm sorry, mommy,
(24:55):
this to recital. Whereas a pet, it's just like, here's
a milk bone. But it's like, why can't aunt why
can't we just have a pet? Well yeah, well yeah exactly.
And and reading a lot of this stuff online, really
I can't say that it offended me because I was like,
your argument is so ridiculous and backwards. But a lot
of these people on the internet who are arguing that
(25:15):
we whether we are millennials or whether we're older or whatever,
who are saying that we're selfish and awful people for
not having children. It's like their argument is almost hysterical,
because I read one that was like, Oh, you just
want to not have kids so that you can go
take your Tahiti beach vacation. And I was like, Uh,
you're freaking right, I want to take a compete vacation
(25:37):
to Tahiti. But it's it's kind of like you're you're
not really understanding that not everybody wants to make the
same choice exactly. And Laura Carroll, who blogs over at Technorati,
summed it up well, I thought. She writes, why do
people think pets serve the role of children for so many?
Child for adults in part because our value system tells
(25:58):
us we should all want kids. So there is the
perception that child free people just haven't gotten with a
program with regard to parenthood and remediately have pets instead.
And and that's such a good point. I'm just saying that,
you know, like it's yeah, I mean, you can't equate
the two, right, and also too for you know, before
(26:20):
you start to insult a couple who maybe just has
pets instead of kids, Like it reminded me of LGBT
couples who, yeah, maybe having a child is either like
an insane amount of paperwork to go through if they
have to go through an adoptive process, or for a
lesbian couple going through in vitro treatments and things like that,
(26:40):
if they want to, you know, have a child more
naturally um or just if it's just not an option,
you know why it's even for that matter alone, I
feel like we should open up our mind a little
bit and not be so pan the idea. But also,
what are you so worried about people who are so
angry about people having pets? Like what? What? What makes
(27:03):
you so angry that some people opt or you know,
decide to have pets. Well, there was an article in
the New York Times it's more New York specific that
did get a ton of reader comments because it was
an article about pets in public, And I scrolled through
(27:24):
a number of those comments, and the arguments that some
people made were very valid in terms of basically, if
you're going to take your pet in public, clean up
after it, make sure that it is a pet friendly space.
I don't necessarily want to be sitting eating dinner next
to your dog. Um, I get all that. You know,
(27:45):
if you're gonna be a pet parent in the same
way if you're going to be a parent of a
human child, clean up after your child, make sure it
is a kid friendly space. It's all the same kinds
of courtesies. I mean, I honestly like, I don't want
a dog running around barking and bothering me at dinner
anymore than I want a child running around screaming bothering me.
(28:05):
But we should point out though that you know, well,
obviously you and I are more on the stance of saying, hey,
give give pet parents a break, or just you know,
just call us people. Um. Pet obsession can definitely become
just that, an obsession. It can have an unhealthy edge
to it where it might not be end up being
(28:26):
a healthy thing for for the pet. Yeah. I mean,
if you are doing things like putting your dog in
a stroller and never walking it, your pets quality of
life is going to suffer. Your pet will not be
as healthy if you're pushing it around all day because
it's not what it was designed to do. I mean, yes,
you might have one of those tiny dogs that just
quivers all the time and is afraid of the outside.
(28:49):
But but but just take care of your dog like
it's a dog. I mean. One one interest, a couple
of interesting things that I learned we're reading about this
is that you know, for instance, when dog get scared
during thunderstorms or loud noises or things like that, the
last thing you should do is comforted, the way you
would run to a child to comfort the child if
the child is scared. Because dogs are looking at you
(29:11):
as the pack leader and they want you to be
strong and you know, set boundaries and rules. So it's
more like when a pet is scared during a thunderstorm,
you should be like, no, Fluffy, shut up and go
to your bed, versus a child, where you're like, no,
mommy's here, It's okay. You're like, no to me, shut
not to bed, mommy, neither wine um and well and
(29:33):
the thing to there. One of the downsides of developing
such close relationships with pets is that when it is
time for a pet to die, it can be so
much harder. One of the most common situations that becomes
really unhealthy for the pet is if it has a
terminal condition and the owner just doesn't want to consider
euthanasia or doesn't want to to even take it to
(29:56):
the vet because they know that it's going to be
bad news. So something to watch out for. And also,
I mean animal hoarding. Obviously it's a major form of abuse.
And women we are more likely to do this than
men are. Yeah, that that is awful. And and like
we we talked about in our Cat Lady episode about
people who um kind of quote unquote adopt fueral animals
(30:19):
and stuff under the assumption that like, no, I'm I'm
saving it and I'm helping it. But really it's it's
not healthy for the animal either. But Christine Pelicano had
an interesting perspective. She's a cat sitter, dogwalker, and pet
artist slash photographer in New York City. Says she has
seen pet parent trends mirror child parent trends. She said
(30:41):
that she has seen people achieving their own sense of
achievement and stardom through their pets. There are people who
force their pets into uncomfortable settings, environments and situations, even
when a pet is shutting down and not enjoying the limelight.
So it's kind of like she's comparing you know, pageant
moms and pet parents well, and I've also seen articles
about permissive pet parenting, for instance, not wanting to uh
(31:06):
be punitive with your pet in the same way that
you'll see articles about permissive child human child parenting. And
bottom line to one thing that we want to emphasize
is that if you are going to take a pet
into your home, you know it's not a temporary thing either.
It's not like a trial for size. You want to
be you want to be if you're gonna take a pet,
and you do want to be prepped to be a
(31:28):
good parent in the same way that you want to
be a good parent for a human child. Because the
saddest thing and one of the most disappointing things to
see is someone taken a dog, for instance, who has
no business taking in a dog, and they don't have
time to walk it, and they don't have time to
give it the care that it needs, and the dog
ends up suffering. Sure, now, I knew a guy who
(31:48):
um he had wanted to adapt a dog, and he
hadn't started, you know, researching it or anything like that.
He really wasn't ready. But a friend of his found
a dog on the side out of the road and
was like, you know, do you want it? I've saved
this dog. You know she needs a home. So he
adopts this dog, but he has no time to trainer,
no time to be home with her and spend quality
(32:10):
time because he works such long hours. So this dog
ends up having free reign of everything. He doesn't discipline her.
And to a dog, that's really scary because they need
boundaries and rules. They need to know that you're a
strong leader who will protect them and and and help them.
And so this dog ended up just tearing his house apart.
She was very poorly behaved. As adorable as she was
(32:33):
in case he's listening, she's very adorable, But I mean,
come on, don't if you honestly can't take care of
an animal of any kind, please please please don't get one.
Yeah yeah, um. And for for couples, though there is
more of I think it's a more recent conundrum that
has come up. This is one. This is one valid
point that you hear about people wagging their finger about
(32:56):
pet parenting. If you are with someone and you have
a pet, and that's kind of your shared custody, your
child together, what happens during the breakup I have personal
story moment I have been with. I I dated two
guys actually who had shared custody of dogs with their
(33:18):
ex girlfriends. Really, I feel like we are at a
young age for that to be happening. I don't know.
I mean they were probably in their you know, mid
twenties when they were dating and what they do and
getting shared dogs with girlfriends. Yeah, that is another thing.
Make make sure you're ready to get a shared animal
if you're going to do that. Um, But it was
(33:39):
whenever it would be their weekend for the dog. It
was always. I was patient with it. They were very
cute dogs. But it was a strange thing, you know,
because I was like, you're not wait, so you're gonna
have to go see your ex girlfriend and pick up
your dog. Okay, this doesn't make much sense, but I mean,
is that honestly going to continue for thirteen years? Like? Right?
(34:04):
So I'd be curious to hear from people listening if
you have shared dog custody with somebody, like what do
you what do you do? Like? How how can that
go on for too long? I feel like at some
point it just kind of fizzles out. I like, maybe
it's a way that you sort of hang onto a
relationship for maybe a little too long, and then finally
(34:25):
you're it's gonna go from every weekend every other week
into monthly to like in the same way that you
keep up with a person. Sometimes that yeah, there's gonna
be somebody who has more ability to care for the
dog than the other person exactly. Yeah, but hey, you
would always have a dog sitter. That's true. There you go,
so there's an upside um. I feel like we've we've
(34:45):
covered so many aspects of this top down in sideways,
from the from the extreme obsessive to the people who
just really love their pets and there's nothing wrong with that.
And uh, I do really, though, want to read that
Catherine Greer book about pets in America, A History, because
it sounds fascinating. She focuses a lot for people who
(35:08):
this might be of interest to. She focuses a lot,
apparently on the eighteen hundreds with that shift and pets
steering the Victorian era, which sounds it's like, it's got
to be full of fascinating. I wonder what the Victorians
did when their dogs sat down and started licking their
private parts. You wonder if they were just a gas
clutching their pearls. Oh man, I don't know who. I
(35:31):
don't know. Maybe they had like a like a modesty
sheet of the dog. Well, folks out there, we want
to hear from you. I know, we are sure we
have plenty of pet parents listening. Have you ever gotten
any flak from other people about your attachment to your pets? Um,
(35:51):
people who were child free by choice who might have pets,
have you heard similar arguments? And also for people who
think that this kind of companionship with animals is ridiculous?
You know, do you think it's it's too much? Let
us sell all of your thoughts. Oh and if you
want to send us pictures of your pets, please we'll
love that too. Um So, mom Stuff at Discovery dot
(36:15):
com is where you can email us that stuff. You
can also post on Facebook and tweet us as well
at mom Stuff podcast. And now back to our letters, Christen,
I have a letter here from Julia about our drunk
Arexia episode. She says, I have a different name for it.
I'm a Kiwi New Zealander currently living in London, both
(36:38):
places which cultivate a rather unhealthy drinking culture, and I
had no idea what drunk arexia was. But when you
started to explain it, I thought, oh, you guys need
eatings cheating. Eatings cheating is in you want a sandwich
before we head out? Nah, eatings cheating. It is a
phrase that has been well used by all my friends
male and female since I was in my teens are
(36:58):
drinking ages eighteen, and I even still hear it now
that we were in our mid twenties. I would just
like to point out that I would never turn down
a sandwich from you, Julia. Anyway, she says, I think
it's a combination of getting drunk or quicker and saving
yourself some money, which is what we found when we
did the podcast. But I can't handle those hangovers, so
I'll stick with a nice dinner before I go out,
(37:19):
or at least a kebab at some point in the evening.
She says. Anyway, thanks for the podcast. Just thought I
would get you in the loop with some colloquialisms from
the other side of the world. Eating is not cheating, people,
Eating is winning. Eating is super winning. It's winning. Um. Well,
I've got an email here from a listener. I'm gonna
call be just in case you'd like a little bit
(37:40):
of anonymity because she's writing in in response to our
episode on intorexia in men, so trigger warning if that
is a factor U, But she writes, thank you for
you the podcast on intorexia and men. You did a
great job, and as a recovering female interorectic and compulsive
over exerciser, I found that you covered the science and
psychology very well and it was not at all triggering,
(38:03):
she writes. In one hospital treatment setting, there was only
one boy with anorexia and he felt shamed and depressed.
There was another with bulimia, which was considered more acceptable
to his friends because he was a wrestler and he
was just trying to become a better athlete. And residential
slash intensive outpatient slash partial hospitalization, I was never with
a male. I went to Center for Discovery for residential
(38:25):
and they had multiple houses, but only one allowed males.
One thing I noticed is the lack of males as
treatment providers. Besides medical doctors, most of the counselor's nurses, therapist,
nutritionists were all women. There was a male counselor. He
was gay, so perhaps he was a bit more understanding
of having stigmas attached. However, I felt it helpful to
have male input. I also had a wonderful psychiatrist who
(38:48):
not only prescribed medicines but also was a great person
to talk to. While none of the female counselors talked
about fat food, body hate, et cetera, it was still
helpful to have a mail to balance everything. I understand
the body's morphic disorder having it myself, and I can
only imagine how difficult it would be for males to
not be fit and muscled. Girls can often change your hair, makeup,
and clothes to raise your self esteem if they might
(39:09):
not like their bodies, But guys are often stuck with
what they have and if they don't have those Channing
Tatum abs, and they're bound to feel bad. And it
seems like females and males are bombarded with celebrity slash
athlete images of the perfect bodies, so it's hard to
differentiate and remember that these people spend their lives working out,
eating right and have lots of people helping them. So
(39:30):
thank you and thank you be for writing in, and
to everybody for writing in. Mom Staid at Discovery dot
com is our email address you can Follow us on
Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast. Hit us up on Facebook
as well. Agoys, got fun stuff going on over there,
as well as on our tumbler stuff Mom Never Told
You dot tumbler dot com and don't forget that You
(39:51):
can watch us as well four times a week now
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Mom Never Told You and Don't forget to to grow
For more on this and thousands of other topics, is
it how stuff words dot com
Welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You from housetop works
dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Caroline
and I'm Kristin Kristen. People talk about pitt parents and
there's a general kind of like negative assessment that goes
along with that, and I can offer a nebative assessment.
(00:28):
I was at the mall one day eating lunch and
a woman in case you're not sure what a stereotypical
pet parent looks like, is it different from a cat lady? Uh? Typical? Yeah, well,
we'll see. I don't know. Let me know. I was
enjoying my sandwich on my lunch break at the mall
and a woman approximately around the age of seventy in
(00:51):
uh like a long, long wig and a hot pink jumpsuit.
I like her already sweatsuit perhaps, and had a word
on the butt. She walked by pushing a stroller and
I thought, isn't that adorable that lady is is taking
her grandchild out for a lunchtime stroll. And when I
looked down, there was a dog in the stroller. Oh
(01:15):
and uh, that is the image that I had in
my mind when we started researching and reading about pet
parenting and the perceptions thereof Yes, someone wrote in with
the suggestion about pet parenting because I feel like culturally
it's on the one end of the spectrum. There is
(01:38):
the person who might think to put their miniature dog
in a stroller and take it out in public, and
that that's normal and that that is and that that's
typical animal caring behavior. Um TLC not surprisingly made a
show called I'm Obsessed with My Pet, all about extreme
(02:00):
pet parents who have for babies and for children. And
I mean, the thing is, though, it's like, all right,
that that's one kind of spectacle where you do have
people who are spending exorbitant amounts of money on animals,
and but then there's also just the fact that if
(02:23):
you are an adult and you don't have kids, maybe
you don't want kids, and you have dogs or cats,
and maybe partially because you don't have kids and you
have more time to invest, like they are part of
the family, whether you have kids or not. You know,
because I know um that growing up, for instance, I
(02:47):
had cats and they were like members of the family.
I as much as I would have liked to have
put my cat Smudge in a carriage and taking them around.
I never did, but you know I did feed in
pancakes so as I would a child these days these days,
if you had one around, that's right. Yeah, I mean
(03:08):
I feel like there are different variations on the pet
parenting idea. I mean, you have people like that woman
I saw at them all. But you also, like you
were talking about, you have uh, you know, singles or
just childless couples who for whatever reason do not have
kids who have pets. And but I feel like there's
a division there even in that there's like a subset
(03:28):
because you have the people who just have pets, and
people assume the worst about them, that like, oh, you're
a cat lady, or you're obsessed with your pet and
you're treating like a child and you're substituting it for
a child, or the people who really say, and I've
I've known some folks who have said this that you know,
my pet is nicer and gives me more love than
any human ever could. Sure, And there's also been a
(03:52):
backlash and sort of fearmongering about this notion of pet parenting,
particularly directed at the millennial generation who was delaying marriage,
delaying having kids overall, and might be more invested in
having a pet first, and some say this is just
a sign of how, you know, the traditional family dynamic
is breaking down and all of a sudden we have
(04:14):
animals instead of children. What's going on? So we're gonna
touch on all of this to get more of a
bird's eye view. It's a animal pun of this pet
parenting thing. And look at briefly at the history of
pet ownership in the United States, because obviously it's not
new that we have animals in our home who we
(04:35):
love very much. But first of all, let's start off, though,
with some industry numbers, because one thing that is absolutely
true is that we spend more on our pets than
ever before. Yeah, and it is doubling and tripling in
quadrillion opening. That's a word that I just made up
(04:56):
to indicate to you how fast the pet industry is growing.
This actually should probably be a premium podcast for for dogs, Caroline,
so that we can we can retire early. But anyway,
that's right, um. According to a report called US Pet
Market Outlook, for the year, US pet industry sales reached
(05:17):
more than fifty six billion in up for more than
fifty four billion the year before. Why Why is this happening.
A lot of it does have to do with a
degree of marketing. A lot of stores are saying, Okay,
people are spending more on their pets these days. We're
(05:37):
going to try to be specialty stores and fill that niche.
And then it's just like an endless cycle of spending
on studded rhinestone collars and strollers for your pet. Right
and also high end dog foods or cat foods, doggie daycare,
setting up doggie play dates depending on where you are,
and this can also I'm using dog a lot as
the example, it can go for other kinds of animals
(06:00):
as well. And on top of that, we own more
pets than ever before. According to a survey from the
American Pet Products Manufacturers Association, it found that two thirds
of American homes have pets, and that's about seventy one
million homes that have pets, and of those have more
than one pet, which is up from in night when
(06:22):
just around a fifty five percent of households had pets.
And if you're speaking of pet parenting and the question
of whether or not we're you know, having pets and
set of kids, we do have more pets than children
just forty six percent of US households have kids under eighteen.
(06:42):
So yeah, I mean there there are more pets than kids.
And so whereas you know, years and years and years ago,
Spot and Fido would not have required much money to
be spent on them. What you get them food, You
get them like a doghouse, and that's pretty much it. Uh.
Stores and retailers like pet Smart, for instance, have figured
(07:04):
out how to capitalize on pet ownership. For instance, Ken Hall,
who's the chief marketing officer over at pet Smart, which
they had this whole branding campaign to change from pets
Smart to pet Smart, which I just like to point
out I always thought it was anyway. Ken Hall, the
chief marketing officer, says, the whole emotional connection of being
(07:24):
a parent when the child is no longer in the
house is being replaced by a pet, for good or
for bad. A pet provides unconditional love, you come home
from work and the pet is not mad. And so
they really are playing off of this trend of people, um,
you know, loving on their pets instead of children at
the moment. Well, in addition to perhaps showering your pet
(07:47):
with higher end goods like fancy toys, and treats. I mean,
the technology around pet ownership has also up to the
potential price of having a pet, because I mean, today
the i've span of a dogger a cat can be
extended a lot longer than it used to be because
of the availability of medical procedures like chemotherapy, m r
(08:09):
s and hip replacements happening at your veterinarian's office, and
to help the pet live a healthier life. In the meantime,
there are things like supplements that you can give them,
so they're all these different additives that are almost making
a pet's life more like a kid's life in terms
of having to clothe it, feed it, and also provide healthcare.
(08:35):
And just like any good parent would do, we also
give our pets Christmas presents and Haneker presents and Quansa presents.
We give them holiday presents. Should I say uh? CNBC
in November twelve reported that Americans spent an average of
five billion dollars on their pets during the holidays. Fifty
(08:55):
percent of dogs and thirty eight percent of cats got
a gift. And I think it's funny because somebody they
quoted in the story said that cat owners are more
value sensitive you know, like dot dot dot. Like even
though we have the stereotype of people being like crazy
cat ladies, they're probably not actually as crazy as dog people,
(09:16):
who you know, parade their pets outside and so they
need pet accessories. Well, and I think it's just the
difference between the feline and the canine nature, because whereas
I was, giving a cat a toy is really fun,
but it's a little bit it's a little bit different.
A lot of cats kind of just don't need it,
you know, that's too good for for your silly little toys. Um.
(09:39):
But when did pets really become a part of American families? Um?
This is something that Katherine C. Greer looked into. She
wrote a book about it called Pets in America, a
History and just for some notable pet owners over the years.
Mark Twain, by the way, we talked about crazy cat ladies,
(10:00):
while Burnt Twain apparently was a crazy cat gent and
going way back in history, in ancient Rome, women would
tote around small bejeweled dogs, and small lap dogs have
also been popular for centuries. If you look in Renaissance
art and images of the wealthier families and the noble people,
a lot of times they'll have these little lap dogs
(10:21):
hanging out. Yeah. And in the seventeen hundreds, Frederick the
Great of Prussia is a great example of a crazy
dog person. He was so devoted to his dogs, and
when his greyhound died, he wrote of his heartache, it
is best to be too sensitive then too hard. And
there was playwright Eugene O'Neill who may not have gotten
along with his human children, but he loved his dalmatian
(10:43):
so much that he gave the dog an air ma's
raincoat and a four pistor bed. Oh to be that dalmatian.
Wow Um. And then something interesting happens in the mid
eighteen hundreds where this idea of keeping a pet becomes
part of the concept of the ideal family. And Grew
(11:04):
talks about how this goes along with a rise in
the domestic ethic, as she calls it of kindness to animals,
to where say a cat, for instance, would go from
just being a mouse catcher to really being part of
a family that you would want to make sure it's
happy and healthy. And the cat's going, what are you doing?
Stop petting me? Yeah, I just want to catch some mice.
(11:27):
And I've catched some mice. Well, so in the nineteen fifties,
post World War Two, we have a large rise in
pet ownership thanks to disposable income, but also thanks to
things like comic books and other pop culture items that
really featured families, the nuclear family as having a pet,
you know, two kids and a dog. So we also
(11:47):
have at this time the rise in pet store so
you can actually go to a store and shop for
your animal. And you also have the development of something
I've never thought about, the evolution of you have the
development of the cat litter box because it used to
literally just be a box with sand. Yes, so it's
becoming easier in other words, for cats and dogs to
(12:08):
live alongside families. They really become integrated. And it reminds
me you're talking about pop culture, reminds me of you know,
you have a show like Lassie coming on. I'm not
sure when. Yeah, Lassie, Old Yeller. All of these different
kids books and things um coming out featuring that such
important relationship, especially between like a child and a dog. Mr.
(12:29):
Ed Mr. Talking Horse, And that's why I got my
first talking horse when I was three. Her name was Belinda.
I wish um so today though moving from the nineteen
fifties to today. What's going on with this idea of
pet parenting where we've transitioned from the typical you know,
(12:51):
Lassie hanging out showing us where the dead body is
at the bottom of the river, to this idea of
some one who is using a pet, or investing in
a pet to maybe fill an emotional void, or or
having them almost as a stand in for a human.
It's just that intense. I don't even like to call
(13:11):
it a stand in, because devalues the relationship in my opinion. Um,
but where this intense companionship seems to have taken on
more of a significance for a greater number of people,
or maybe we're just we just have a name for
it now called pet parenting. Yeah, and when you look
at who does it, it's it's pretty self explanatory. Psychologist
(13:33):
Julia Becker talked about how it's pet parenting or just
the stereotype of pet parenting is pretty pervasive among empty nesters, singles,
and or the childless and the home bound. You know,
we are living longer where we are delaying marriage as
you talked about, so we are again I agree with you.
I don't want to say, filling the whole with these pets.
(13:53):
But we are opting to have sort of a low
maintenance companion in our lives where here that means we
are doing it as some people do to kind of
prepare for having a kid later in life, or whether
we just have opted completely to have pets instead of kids, right,
And that reminds me with the empty nesters, for instance,
it reminds me of when a few years ago, all
(14:18):
of the kids obviously had moved out of my parents house,
and my mom had a cat, and when that cat
ended up dying, it was so hard for her because
he had really taken on a role in the house
of greeting her, of interacting, you know, like just providing
that sort of interaction that might not have been as
(14:40):
available without having kids at home all of the time.
So I can totally understand that. Um. And there was
a recent analysis that I found on gender differences and
human animal interactions, and it found that men and women
both closely aligned in terms of how many have a
compen an animal I eat a pet, and both have
(15:03):
high pet attachment. I mean, even though there's that stereotype
of uh, you know, crazy cat ladies and maybe dogs
being men's best friends or something that I think there's
more of an idea that that women would be more
prone to pet parenting if they can't have a child,
right instead of a baby exactly. But statistically it's it's
(15:25):
both men and women. Who you know, we all form
these these kinds A lot of us, at least, I
should say, we are equally prone to form these deep
relationships with animals. Yeah, and there was account and research
survey that showed that fifty eight percent of respondents called
themselves their pets mommy or daddy, and eight percent of
respondents consider their pets to be full members of the family.
(15:47):
And this really drives with a Packaged Facts pet owner
survey where that showed nine out of ten pet owners
agree with the statement I consider my pets to be
part of the family, and two thirds view their pet
as their best friend and enjoy purchasing products that pamper
the pet. It's understandable. I've started living with a dog
for the very first time, and I get way too
(16:12):
much joy now out of bringing home a treat from
the grocery store. Where your parents okay with you moving
in with a dog if you talk to them about
it beforehand. They had to meet the dogs a couple
of times. The dog came over for some barbecues. But no,
it's like I get it reading about this stuff now,
I totally get it. And there was also a recent
(16:34):
study that came out in the journal called Anthrozoos by
psychologist Richard to Paul Sky, and it was fascinating. He
posts this hypothetical in which participants had to choose between
saving a person or a dog from being hit by
a runaway bus and the results. He tinkered with the
(16:54):
results by changing whether the person was a foreign tourist
or or a distant cousin or a friend of theirs obviously,
you know, getting the relationship closer and closer to the person.
And then with the animal, whether it was just a
random dog or say a pet. And he found that
forty of the subject said that under the circumstance of
(17:18):
a foreign stranger versus a dog, they would save the animal.
And he said that when he asked the participants why
they would choose to save the dog over a foreign stranger,
it was the issue of kinship, because they consider their
pets family. And for one gender difference, women were a
lot more likely to choose a pet over a person. Yeah,
(17:42):
it's funny. And the people who provided the people who
said they would save the person over the dog were
a lot more likely to provide logical responses. The people
who said that they would save a dog over a person,
whether it was in this study about the train tracks
are saving a dog versus a baby in a burning
billing I think was another one um. But the people
(18:02):
who said they would save the pet over the human
provided very emotionally laden responses, whether whether they were men
or women who said it. And I was thinking about it,
and it's like, well, maybe people would think to save
the jog because the human should be able to propel
himself out from in front of the train right well
(18:23):
into pulse. He said that, yes, this is a hypothetical situation.
It's not meant to precisely predict human behavior, because if
you're actually in a situation where you had to choose
between a dog or animal and a buses coming through
h being driven by Kiana Reeves Um, then who knows
what would happen. But he said that it's such a
(18:44):
it's still a good example of that close kind of kinship.
In his words, that we do form and how once
you start moving the metric on the relationship of the
person versus the pet, if you get that relationship with
a pet close enough and yeah, we want to save it.
And those poor foreign tour I'm sure they were wearing
(19:06):
socks with sandals. It's fine, let them go. Um. But
there has been though a recent panic over this notion
of pet parenting, and not just complaints from people saying
like oh, you know, dogs don't belong in strollers, but
actually projecting it out to be this sign that there
is something wrong with the world, and it's tied a
(19:27):
lot to lowering fertility rates, concerns about millennials like you
and meet Caroline just being too selfish, and a stigma
against child free by choice people. Yeah, well, let's look
at fertility rate panic first. There was an article in
The Guardian in June talking about Japan and how folks
(19:50):
are starting to prefer pets to parenthood and frankly pets
to sex. Also, they are currently panicking over their plummeting
birth rates in Japan and where there is now there
are now more pets than children. So when you look
at population estimates, they estimate there are twenty two million
pets in Japan versus sixteen point six million children under fifteen,
(20:13):
which is crazy. Sure, I mean, we we saw that
there was that unbalanced number in our country too. We
have a wider gap in the United States. But what's
funny is uh. In the article they mentioned that like
okay uh, purchase and use of birth control is down.
Abortions are down, but so were births. So that means
(20:34):
that like people in Japan are just like not doing
it and adapting pets in instead. Yeah, there have been
definitely lots of concerns over adults, younger adults seeming disinterest
in even having sex, and so with a trend story
like this, they present evidence such as people buying spending
(20:58):
their you know, disposable income on pet clothing from designer
labels like Gucci, Chanel and Dior, rather than using that
money to either pursue a boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, wife, or
have a child. Um and the Guardian says, in many
parts of Tokyo it's easier to buy clothes for dogs
(21:18):
than for children. And you know, if you want to
get that deluxe Buddhist funeral for your pet, a cremation
ceremony can cost eight thousand dollars. But I do think
though I'm sure this is going on, but I sometimes
I wonder about trend stories like this, like are we
actually seeing the what's going on population wide or they're
(21:43):
taking a snapshot of a specific segment of people. What
I like to imagine is the journalist's face the day
that story was assigned to him or her, because I
know I'd be like, yes, yes, yes, I will write
about Japanese people, sex and small dogs. Hey, yeah, that
doesn't sound bad, and you get a free trip to Tokyo. Um.
(22:05):
But now moving on to the millennials issue, there was
a lot of fallout over survey results. They're all these surveys, oh, surveys. Um.
There were these survey results from this organization called flex
and International, which helps find older dogs homes hooray, and
I found that among the year old pet owners that
(22:28):
flex and talked to, sixty percent preferred an older dog.
And why, Caroline did they prefer an older dog? Well
said they didn't have time to house break or deal
with puppies. Understandable. And then this is where the panic
really ignited. Fifty of those pet owners said that they
(22:49):
would prefer a dog to a child. Which led people
like Wired's geek Dad blogger Curtis Silver to say very
unkind thing about us. Yeah, he was. It kind of
started out the tone, the tone shifted, I should say,
it kind of started out reading like, hey, I know
(23:10):
you're scared about having kids, young person, but it's really
not as bad or as expensive as you think. And
you're like, oh, you're easing me into this. This is
nice of you, dad of three children. And then it
quickly turns into like, seriously, are you an idiot? Are
you so selfish? What's wrong with you? Yeah? And there
was we We could cite a number of examples across
(23:30):
the Internet of bloggers. In particular, there was I I
she will go a name, but there was one doctor
blogger who who fears for the future of the human
race no joke, right, because some people would prefer to
have a dog than have a child. I think we
can we can stand. Well, it's just I don't understand
(23:50):
that level of panic over it. And honestly, I think
the more that I read about it, and the tone
that critics the sharp pist and the rudest. I'll go
ahead and say critics usually, I think that it boils
down to a bit of a stigma that still persists
(24:12):
over people who do not want to have children. We
did a podcast a long time ago about people who
are child free by choice or like, you know what,
I just don't want a kid. I'm fine, And it
doesn't mean that they hate children, they just don't want children.
And um, so there's this idea that you know, two
(24:32):
career couples with the norm people are marrying later, we're
divorcing more frequently, We're working where we have longer commutes,
and so all this is adding up to us maybe
just having pets instead. I mean maybe, because if you
are working those longer hours, you know, you do have
to look up or look down at those big eyes
of a human child and be like, I'm sorry, mommy,
(24:55):
this to recital. Whereas a pet, it's just like, here's
a milk bone. But it's like, why can't aunt why
can't we just have a pet? Well yeah, well yeah exactly.
And and reading a lot of this stuff online, really
I can't say that it offended me because I was like,
your argument is so ridiculous and backwards. But a lot
of these people on the internet who are arguing that
(25:15):
we whether we are millennials or whether we're older or whatever,
who are saying that we're selfish and awful people for
not having children. It's like their argument is almost hysterical,
because I read one that was like, Oh, you just
want to not have kids so that you can go
take your Tahiti beach vacation. And I was like, Uh,
you're freaking right, I want to take a compete vacation
(25:37):
to Tahiti. But it's it's kind of like you're you're
not really understanding that not everybody wants to make the
same choice exactly. And Laura Carroll, who blogs over at Technorati,
summed it up well, I thought. She writes, why do
people think pets serve the role of children for so many?
Child for adults in part because our value system tells
(25:58):
us we should all want kids. So there is the
perception that child free people just haven't gotten with a
program with regard to parenthood and remediately have pets instead.
And and that's such a good point. I'm just saying that,
you know, like it's yeah, I mean, you can't equate
the two, right, and also too for you know, before
(26:20):
you start to insult a couple who maybe just has
pets instead of kids, Like it reminded me of LGBT
couples who, yeah, maybe having a child is either like
an insane amount of paperwork to go through if they
have to go through an adoptive process, or for a
lesbian couple going through in vitro treatments and things like that,
(26:40):
if they want to, you know, have a child more
naturally um or just if it's just not an option,
you know why it's even for that matter alone, I
feel like we should open up our mind a little
bit and not be so pan the idea. But also,
what are you so worried about people who are so
angry about people having pets? Like what? What? What makes
(27:03):
you so angry that some people opt or you know,
decide to have pets. Well, there was an article in
the New York Times it's more New York specific that
did get a ton of reader comments because it was
an article about pets in public, And I scrolled through
(27:24):
a number of those comments, and the arguments that some
people made were very valid in terms of basically, if
you're going to take your pet in public, clean up
after it, make sure that it is a pet friendly space.
I don't necessarily want to be sitting eating dinner next
to your dog. Um, I get all that. You know,
(27:45):
if you're gonna be a pet parent in the same
way if you're going to be a parent of a
human child, clean up after your child, make sure it
is a kid friendly space. It's all the same kinds
of courtesies. I mean, I honestly like, I don't want
a dog running around barking and bothering me at dinner
anymore than I want a child running around screaming bothering me.
(28:05):
But we should point out though that you know, well,
obviously you and I are more on the stance of saying, hey,
give give pet parents a break, or just you know,
just call us people. Um. Pet obsession can definitely become
just that, an obsession. It can have an unhealthy edge
to it where it might not be end up being
(28:26):
a healthy thing for for the pet. Yeah. I mean,
if you are doing things like putting your dog in
a stroller and never walking it, your pets quality of
life is going to suffer. Your pet will not be
as healthy if you're pushing it around all day because
it's not what it was designed to do. I mean, yes,
you might have one of those tiny dogs that just
quivers all the time and is afraid of the outside.
(28:49):
But but but just take care of your dog like
it's a dog. I mean. One one interest, a couple
of interesting things that I learned we're reading about this
is that you know, for instance, when dog get scared
during thunderstorms or loud noises or things like that, the
last thing you should do is comforted, the way you
would run to a child to comfort the child if
the child is scared. Because dogs are looking at you
(29:11):
as the pack leader and they want you to be
strong and you know, set boundaries and rules. So it's
more like when a pet is scared during a thunderstorm,
you should be like, no, Fluffy, shut up and go
to your bed, versus a child, where you're like, no,
mommy's here, It's okay. You're like, no to me, shut
not to bed, mommy, neither wine um and well and
(29:33):
the thing to there. One of the downsides of developing
such close relationships with pets is that when it is
time for a pet to die, it can be so
much harder. One of the most common situations that becomes
really unhealthy for the pet is if it has a
terminal condition and the owner just doesn't want to consider
euthanasia or doesn't want to to even take it to
(29:56):
the vet because they know that it's going to be
bad news. So something to watch out for. And also,
I mean animal hoarding. Obviously it's a major form of abuse.
And women we are more likely to do this than
men are. Yeah, that that is awful. And and like
we we talked about in our Cat Lady episode about
people who um kind of quote unquote adopt fueral animals
(30:19):
and stuff under the assumption that like, no, I'm I'm
saving it and I'm helping it. But really it's it's
not healthy for the animal either. But Christine Pelicano had
an interesting perspective. She's a cat sitter, dogwalker, and pet
artist slash photographer in New York City. Says she has
seen pet parent trends mirror child parent trends. She said
(30:41):
that she has seen people achieving their own sense of
achievement and stardom through their pets. There are people who
force their pets into uncomfortable settings, environments and situations, even
when a pet is shutting down and not enjoying the limelight.
So it's kind of like she's comparing you know, pageant
moms and pet parents well, and I've also seen articles
about permissive pet parenting, for instance, not wanting to uh
(31:06):
be punitive with your pet in the same way that
you'll see articles about permissive child human child parenting. And
bottom line to one thing that we want to emphasize
is that if you are going to take a pet
into your home, you know it's not a temporary thing either.
It's not like a trial for size. You want to
be you want to be if you're gonna take a pet,
and you do want to be prepped to be a
(31:28):
good parent in the same way that you want to
be a good parent for a human child. Because the
saddest thing and one of the most disappointing things to
see is someone taken a dog, for instance, who has
no business taking in a dog, and they don't have
time to walk it, and they don't have time to
give it the care that it needs, and the dog
ends up suffering. Sure, now, I knew a guy who
(31:48):
um he had wanted to adapt a dog, and he
hadn't started, you know, researching it or anything like that.
He really wasn't ready. But a friend of his found
a dog on the side out of the road and
was like, you know, do you want it? I've saved
this dog. You know she needs a home. So he
adopts this dog, but he has no time to trainer,
no time to be home with her and spend quality
(32:10):
time because he works such long hours. So this dog
ends up having free reign of everything. He doesn't discipline her.
And to a dog, that's really scary because they need
boundaries and rules. They need to know that you're a
strong leader who will protect them and and and help them.
And so this dog ended up just tearing his house apart.
She was very poorly behaved. As adorable as she was
(32:33):
in case he's listening, she's very adorable, But I mean,
come on, don't if you honestly can't take care of
an animal of any kind, please please please don't get one.
Yeah yeah, um. And for for couples, though there is
more of I think it's a more recent conundrum that
has come up. This is one. This is one valid
point that you hear about people wagging their finger about
(32:56):
pet parenting. If you are with someone and you have
a pet, and that's kind of your shared custody, your
child together, what happens during the breakup I have personal
story moment I have been with. I I dated two
guys actually who had shared custody of dogs with their
(33:18):
ex girlfriends. Really, I feel like we are at a
young age for that to be happening. I don't know.
I mean they were probably in their you know, mid
twenties when they were dating and what they do and
getting shared dogs with girlfriends. Yeah, that is another thing.
Make make sure you're ready to get a shared animal
if you're going to do that. Um, But it was
(33:39):
whenever it would be their weekend for the dog. It
was always. I was patient with it. They were very
cute dogs. But it was a strange thing, you know,
because I was like, you're not wait, so you're gonna
have to go see your ex girlfriend and pick up
your dog. Okay, this doesn't make much sense, but I mean,
is that honestly going to continue for thirteen years? Like? Right?
(34:04):
So I'd be curious to hear from people listening if
you have shared dog custody with somebody, like what do
you what do you do? Like? How how can that
go on for too long? I feel like at some
point it just kind of fizzles out. I like, maybe
it's a way that you sort of hang onto a
relationship for maybe a little too long, and then finally
(34:25):
you're it's gonna go from every weekend every other week
into monthly to like in the same way that you
keep up with a person. Sometimes that yeah, there's gonna
be somebody who has more ability to care for the
dog than the other person exactly. Yeah, but hey, you
would always have a dog sitter. That's true. There you go,
so there's an upside um. I feel like we've we've
(34:45):
covered so many aspects of this top down in sideways,
from the from the extreme obsessive to the people who
just really love their pets and there's nothing wrong with that.
And uh, I do really, though, want to read that
Catherine Greer book about pets in America, A History, because
it sounds fascinating. She focuses a lot for people who
(35:08):
this might be of interest to. She focuses a lot,
apparently on the eighteen hundreds with that shift and pets
steering the Victorian era, which sounds it's like, it's got
to be full of fascinating. I wonder what the Victorians
did when their dogs sat down and started licking their
private parts. You wonder if they were just a gas
clutching their pearls. Oh man, I don't know who. I
(35:31):
don't know. Maybe they had like a like a modesty
sheet of the dog. Well, folks out there, we want
to hear from you. I know, we are sure we
have plenty of pet parents listening. Have you ever gotten
any flak from other people about your attachment to your pets? Um,
(35:51):
people who were child free by choice who might have pets,
have you heard similar arguments? And also for people who
think that this kind of companionship with animals is ridiculous?
You know, do you think it's it's too much? Let
us sell all of your thoughts. Oh and if you
want to send us pictures of your pets, please we'll
love that too. Um So, mom Stuff at Discovery dot
(36:15):
com is where you can email us that stuff. You
can also post on Facebook and tweet us as well
at mom Stuff podcast. And now back to our letters, Christen,
I have a letter here from Julia about our drunk
Arexia episode. She says, I have a different name for it.
I'm a Kiwi New Zealander currently living in London, both
(36:38):
places which cultivate a rather unhealthy drinking culture, and I
had no idea what drunk arexia was. But when you
started to explain it, I thought, oh, you guys need
eatings cheating. Eatings cheating is in you want a sandwich
before we head out? Nah, eatings cheating. It is a
phrase that has been well used by all my friends
male and female since I was in my teens are
(36:58):
drinking ages eighteen, and I even still hear it now
that we were in our mid twenties. I would just
like to point out that I would never turn down
a sandwich from you, Julia. Anyway, she says, I think
it's a combination of getting drunk or quicker and saving
yourself some money, which is what we found when we
did the podcast. But I can't handle those hangovers, so
I'll stick with a nice dinner before I go out,
(37:19):
or at least a kebab at some point in the evening.
She says. Anyway, thanks for the podcast. Just thought I
would get you in the loop with some colloquialisms from
the other side of the world. Eating is not cheating, people,
Eating is winning. Eating is super winning. It's winning. Um. Well,
I've got an email here from a listener. I'm gonna
call be just in case you'd like a little bit
(37:40):
of anonymity because she's writing in in response to our
episode on intorexia in men, so trigger warning if that
is a factor U, But she writes, thank you for
you the podcast on intorexia and men. You did a
great job, and as a recovering female interorectic and compulsive
over exerciser, I found that you covered the science and
psychology very well and it was not at all triggering,
(38:03):
she writes. In one hospital treatment setting, there was only
one boy with anorexia and he felt shamed and depressed.
There was another with bulimia, which was considered more acceptable
to his friends because he was a wrestler and he
was just trying to become a better athlete. And residential
slash intensive outpatient slash partial hospitalization, I was never with
a male. I went to Center for Discovery for residential
(38:25):
and they had multiple houses, but only one allowed males.
One thing I noticed is the lack of males as
treatment providers. Besides medical doctors, most of the counselor's nurses, therapist,
nutritionists were all women. There was a male counselor. He
was gay, so perhaps he was a bit more understanding
of having stigmas attached. However, I felt it helpful to
have male input. I also had a wonderful psychiatrist who
(38:48):
not only prescribed medicines but also was a great person
to talk to. While none of the female counselors talked
about fat food, body hate, et cetera, it was still
helpful to have a mail to balance everything. I understand
the body's morphic disorder having it myself, and I can
only imagine how difficult it would be for males to
not be fit and muscled. Girls can often change your hair, makeup,
and clothes to raise your self esteem if they might
(39:09):
not like their bodies, But guys are often stuck with
what they have and if they don't have those Channing
Tatum abs, and they're bound to feel bad. And it
seems like females and males are bombarded with celebrity slash
athlete images of the perfect bodies, so it's hard to
differentiate and remember that these people spend their lives working out,
eating right and have lots of people helping them. So
(39:30):
thank you and thank you be for writing in, and
to everybody for writing in. Mom Staid at Discovery dot
com is our email address you can Follow us on
Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast. Hit us up on Facebook
as well. Agoys, got fun stuff going on over there,
as well as on our tumbler stuff Mom Never Told
You dot tumbler dot com and don't forget that You
(39:51):
can watch us as well four times a week now
on YouTube. Head over to YouTube dot com slash stuff,
Mom Never Told You and Don't forget to to grow
For more on this and thousands of other topics, is
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