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