Sign up, and you can make all message times appear in your timezone. Sign up
Mar 2, 2021
10:17:26am
Tiburon Contributor
These "parents" of dogs don't bother me at all. It is a common human emotion to
feel that you, as an actual parent of actual children, have had to give and sacrifice for the benefit of society. And then to see some other pet parent chumps take claim for having done the same thing (and perhaps not even realize how much sacrifice and cost a real child actually takes compared to a dog/cat/bird/lizard/etc. - and then not even realize that YOUR children are going to pay for THEIR social security benifits) - all that can be quite frustrating as a real parent to observe. I think this is the source of why so many actual parents are annoyed with pet 'parents'.

I take a different stance. If a particular couple would rather have a dog than a child - that is probably the right choice - for them and for me. There is a reason they don't want to have children. For whatever their reason, the result is that they would probably turn out to be subpar parents. And while I believe that to be a successful parent is not a very high bar, it might just be too high for people who prefer to have pet 'children' instead of real children. In that case, it is actually better for society that they don't have children, and leave that task to those of us who do want to have children and can raise them to be beneficial to everyone around them. And while they may regret their decision to not have children, that regret would not have made them better parents 30 years ago.

So I do understand why it galls you see pet parents trying to take credit for all of the sacrifice and cost that you and others actually endure with real children. But overall, pet parents are great for society! They are responsibly passing on a task that they may not be suited for. And if they incur any costs to society or to my children, it is probably worth it.
Tiburon
Bio page
Tiburon
Joined
Sep 1, 2011
Last login
Mar 28, 2024
Total posts
754 (0 FO)
Messages
Author
Time
3/2/21 7:36am
3/2/21 3:04pm

Posting on CougarBoard

In order to post, you will need to either sign up or log in.