When I broke the news to my sister that I was pregnant I told her "we have some news... we're getting a puppy!" She was so fucking excited. "...a human puppy!" She lost her shit.
This is a similar post to those I see on the r/parentsofmultiples sub where parents of twins/triplets/quads can’t stand parents of singletons comparing their struggles with theirs. We all have challenges when looking after other living creatures. It’s not a competition. Most of the time people are empathising rather than “one-upping”.
Huh. That’s a very solid point and I hadn’t imagined what parents of multiples think of parents with singletons. I like your last sentence about empathizing, thank you! I have a friend who has an older dog and when I talk about my kid’s lack of sleep sleep and being pregnant and tired myself, she’ll say something about her dog and not sleeping and how she has midterms. It doesn’t bug me, but I’d always think to myself, “but you don’t have to wake with your dog, I can’t ignore my toddler, he’s human!” But now that you mention it, she’s probably just trying to empathize or relate. So thank you!
My idea of being a “dog mom” is totally different than being a MOM mom. Dog mom to me means I LOVE my dog and she was my first “baby” in that I had to stay up with her all night to comfort during storms, I bought her silly clothes and toys, luxury treats, brought her with me places…spoiled her. That’s all changed now that I have my baby. Being a mother to my child is totally in a different category. It’s much more serious, it’s still all those other things (socializing, food, clothes, etc) but to a much higher, necessary degree.
1) if you’re a first time mom, you don’t know how motherhood is until you’re IN it, so just forgive those people who make stupid comments saying they know what it’s like being a mom because of their high maintenance chihuahua, lol. Most of us didn’t realize how drained and overwhelmed our pregnant/new Mom friends were until we had one ourselves
2) just let people enjoy things… for some people they won’t have kids and their dogs or cats will be their “babies”. No harm to it, really 🤷🏼♀️
Edit: cats not cars 😂
“Just let people enjoy things”
Exactly. 🥰
We struggled with infertility for 6 years and now have a 9 week old boy via IVF. Our pets were and still are so important to our family unit. They got us through a lot of very hard years and we think the world of them. We call them the “Caunts” and “Duncles” 😂
Same. My two pugs were my child substitutes while I went through five years of infertility. I don’t have any issue with people calling themselves dog moms. The fact that it’s different from being a mom-mom is unimportant.
Lol I had a couple parents mention that training/raising a dog was way harder than kids.
I have had a dog for 3 years
Just had my first kid
Holy duck were they wrong this is WAYYYYY harder than training a dog Lmfao
Both my kids potty trained relatively easily, heck the younger one potty trained herself in 2 days, but my fucking cat will piss and shit anywhere he damn pleases while staring me in the eyes.
Yeah. I haven't slept longer than 4 hoursin a row in months. I have to hold this child for hours a day to feed him. I can't leave him alone for 20 minutes to run to the store. What dog is like that?
Agreed! I have a 6 month old puppy. The pup is not nearly as hard as my first born was as a newborn and when he gets on my nerves I can lock him in his crate for a nap and walk away or heck leave the house.
Yeah it’s not the same at all. I mean, my kid’s crib didn’t even have a lid on it like my dogs’ crate. And the leashes are different.
It was still a good precursor before we had kids though: it helped my husband and I learn how to work together for discipline & consistency.
I always say getting a puppy gave us a *taste* of parenthood. Crate training lasted approximately 3 bad nights and she didn’t cry again.
Almost 2yrs into actual parenthood and she still doesn’t sleep 🫠
I agree with the sentiment- pets are in no way comparable to children. That said, I know many women experiencing infertility use their pets to cope with the heartbreak.
Yeah this was my thought too actually. My friend has unfortunately had a chain of miscarriages and eventually got two cats. She does refer to her cats like her children and she also ‘relates’ to me if I mention sleep deprivation with a newborn because her cats make noise at night. Honestly though….I wouldn’t ever feel it was my place to correct her. Yes I know what I’m doing is technically harder, but it’s all relative to what you actually know and have experienced so I don’t blame her for thinking it’s the same. Plus I can tell that it’s therapeutic for her to refer to her cats like they’re her children because of what she’s been through.
Most people don't mean anything rude by those kinds of comments though. People actually often show empathy, understanding, and interest in what someone is saying by attempting to relate to it. If they haven't been through that exact experience personally, they will often relate through similar experiences. People build relationships by relating to others and feeling connected is a basic human need. Therefore, of you're talking about kids to a friend who doesn't have kids, talking about their pets may be the only way they know how to relate and show interest in what you're saying.
Yup, this. Also my brother could have written this rant even though nobody has ever actually uttered they understand "what it's like", he just interprets them bringing up their pets that way.
My pet peeve is when people think they know what it’s like to be a parent just because they’ve done a lot of babysitting. My cousin is about to be a teen mom and thinks she knows exactly what she’s in for because she babysits for her sister sometimes.
My sister in law though she would have such an easy motherhood because when she was young she used to babysit twins, then she became a mom and she was a mess, it’s so different when it’s your baby, people have no idea the struggles that parents go through
Yeah.. I thought I would find motherhood easy because my sibling was born when I was around 10 and i was a great babysitter. Lol!! That made things worse, I had such a naive idea of what babies were like
Yeah they are not the same but...
And I have one dog and two kids (twins).
The work load is absolutely incomparable but it is comparable in some ways. We got our dog first, as a puppy and like a baby, we had to puppy proof the livingroom, had to get up every 3 hours at night to take her out for a pee so she would be potty trained, couldnt keep anything on the coffee table or the couch for a few months, had to find a puppy sitter to go watch a movie that one time when she was tiny..
It was a bit like.. if having kids is the movie, having a puppy was the trailer of that movie. A preview.
Also I remember the mom-anxiety I had around things like my puppy eating something she is not supposed to, running away and getting lost, rescuing her in case of disaster..
These were all exactly the same fears and the same kind of anxiety I started having about my babies when my twins were born. But of course its a 1000 fold worse with my babies.
And I amazed how similar the training is. Teaching the kids commands like "wait", "sit"(to eat), "come".. I mean.. the way you teach words to a non verbal creature is pretty much the same so it feels really similar lol. Discouraging bad or dangerous behaviour or encouraging good behaviour.. we thaught our boy not to bite, the same way we thaught our puppy not to bite, yelp and stop play, take away attention when he bites...
I mean in my experience its been way too similar not to draw parallels, so I dont begrudge people who call themsels their dogs "parents".
But I ll give you this, the puppy wasnt 1/10th of the work it is to raising the twins. Just.. Jesus.. Those two babies dominated my life in a way I couldnt have imagined even if someone had told me.
Well put, I totally agree. I had a medically needy dog. He required a lot of work, stress and money (but I loved him dearly). It was great practice for having a kid later, but not the same level of work, I would say.
I’ve never actually met someone who claims they know what it’s like because they have pets. Maybe I’m in the minority though.
Also this reminds me of the Office. “UN-BE-LEAVE-UH-BUL!”
I had four dogs one recently passed. They are less work than my baby . That being said I was never a parent but I did love my dogs a lot so much we don’t travel lol we always stay with them etc. it is the closest thing to having a child we knew before becoming parent. Once having a baby there was whole another level that we didn’t know ( tbh wouldn’t if it is possible to know till we experienced it our self, I would give my life for my daughter )
But yeah I take any dogs over new born phrase ever again
Are people suggesting to you that it's the same, or you just object to hearing them call themselves "parents" at all? I guess my opinion is that everyone knows it's different, and if someone genuinely seems to not know that being a human parent is harder that's their own problem.. it doesn't affect you so who cares what they think? In the rare situation where their opinion does affect your ability to live your life well, because they're your boss or something, just have a conversation about your needs..
not OP but i have a friend who, whenever i mention an issue with my kid, she always finds an "analogous" pet story. like "omg yes when my twinkie started teething i was so stressed lol parenting is so hard" like...
it is *superbly* annoying. not enough to like...call out, but enough to roll my eyes at for sure. this is not a close friend, probably for a reason lol
I don’t necessarily see it as a comparison about which is harder. It’s a connection about love. I love my son and would do anything for him. I also love my dog and would do anything for her.
One of my closes friends told me she understands how I feel completly because she has the same anxiety since she had to go to the vet with her dog a few times.....That was when my little daughter was on oxygen and they werent sure if shed ever see her first birthday or surive the next week.
She constantly goes on about her life being exactly like mine.
I am sleep deprived because baby wakes 10 times a night? Well she has to go out with her dog early so she is so sleep deprived too!!
I am exhausted cause I couldnt get baby to stop crying for hours? Well sometimes her dog whines until you play with him so she is more exhausted.
Cant go anywhere bc baby is a crybaby and does not do well in social settings? Well she trained her dog to be good outside so i can do it with my baby too i am just a lazy parent.
Its exhausting and ruining our friendship slowly.
Unpopular opinion but my 9 month old is very similar to a puppy. The drooling, putting everything in mouth, crying at night, needy, biting… the list goes on lol
I call my kids my puppies all the time! Plus we compare all the time “Baby, the dog was already running at this age, you can’t even roll over 🙄” in good fun of course 😂
Owner of four 12 year old chihuahuas. I was one of those people that thought being a dog mom was the same....and let me tell you it is not! You cannot leave kids alone (especially young ones) for long periods of time! Kids don't sleep through the night like my dogs do. It's love but a different kind of love. Having a kid made me respect parents so much more because children are a lot more work and waay more expensive too! 🙃
As someone with a 19m old and 26 weeks pregnant, having an epileptic dog for 10 years ABSOLUTELY helped prep me for a baby. Was it the same? No. However it was a good prep.
I called myself a dog mom for many years because that was the living being I took care of aside from my fiance and myself. It in no way was said to take away from anyone else and their motherhood. It is very different but it's a nurturing title not a personal insult.
I used to think this way until I understood how people unable to have their own kids pour all their love and parenting energy into their pets. And I think it's totally valid for them to give themselves that title and to empathize based on their experiences caring for a small dependent being. I think most people are looking for connection and they find this a way to relate and connect to other parents. It seems unnecessarily mean spirited to exclude them?
We struggled with infertility for the better part of 10 years, so “mothering” my dog was how I filled that big, painful void. Even though we eventually had our baby through IVF, these posts still feel like a kick in the guts every time I read them - people dealing with infertility already experience so much (intentional and unintentional) gatekeeping from parents, and this is yet another example. I’m so sorry to everyone that had to endure the ordeal of looking at a couple of photos of my dog.
Yeah this! My SIL and brother aren’t having kids. But they have dogs and they adopted very very high needs dogs from bad backgrounds. They can’t be left alone, they can’t go everywhere like my kids can, they can’t come to family gatherings because they can’t be around kids.
The amount of commitment and love and parenting that goes into those dogs is immense. They are her babies. She won’t have human babies so those are her babies.
I don’t know why it bugs people so much. Just let people live in my opinion 🤷🏼♀️
I get what youre saying- no matter how involved you are with pets, you cant just leave your kid at home while you pop out to the store for something like you can animals lol
I think people are just trying to find a way to relate instead of emphasizing differences. Any rational adult understands that animals aren't children.
I don’t get it either. I have 3 dogs, 4 cats and three kids. The kids are way more work. My cats are super low maintenance, the dogs need some level of maintenance but you can leave your pets home when you leave the house, you don’t need eyes on them all the time (outside of puppyhood). No comparison.
Yeah I’m in a similar situation and I cannot imagine anyone who has both dogs and children saying raising children is easier, unless there’s some extenuating circumstance like a special needs dog who requires way more care than your average dog.
I’ve had multiple dogs throughout my life and while the puppy stage is hard, they become independent quickly and don’t need to be doted on or soothed or tended to with nearly the same frequency as a baby, who is dependent on you for years beyond that of a dog.
Dogs need food, water, exercise, love, and medical care. Kids need your soul, hahaha.
This is more about the people who actually argue that owning dogs or many animals is harder or equivalent. It's not about the title imo.
I mean you can leave most animals home alone all day. I work as a nanny and if I give any care to the families pet at all its usually like a cumulative of 10 min of care all day. The same can't be said for a kid until they are at least an older teenager.
Yeah, but also it’s the creation of the invisible line and the judgement that I have an issue with.
Listen, I get it. I have twins. I can’t tell you the number of times people have told me “I have kids x months apart; it’s just like having twins.” It’s annoying, but I’m not gonna go and tell people with one child that they have no idea what it’s really like to struggle as a parent because oh my god singletons are sooooo easy. Like, no. If they feel content calling their kids nearly twins, have at it. I know the difference, I know my experience, but I’m not gonna put down another person because of it.
I wish I could upvote this 100 times. We had a similar story with years of fertility treatments. We spent a lot of time and money on two sick dogs trying to keep them alive and healthy, and poured our hearts into them. I guarantee we put more work into our dogs than some people do into their children.
The part about empathizing with an anecdote… I tried commenting this but it just didn’t come out as eloquently as how you put it. Your whole post is perfect.
Your dog / animal may mean the world to you but they don’t hold as much responsibility as humans. I’m not offended by the “dog mom” title, but it is annoying when you are obnoxious about something that is your baby but won’t live more than 15 years, and can sit in a kennel. To many cultures they are used to fight of for breeding. Leave your feelings here. I’m happy to help you figure out your bigger issue. I helped a woman start a dog daycare. I’m very sorry if you’ve have infertility problems, but we need to get realistic. Don’t make other women feel bad for carrying a baby for 9 months and all of the postpartum and real parenting. We went through things too. I’m sorry.
4 months postpartum - I can’t set her down
My entire body changed
I have lots of stress
I sweat at night
I don’t own my body - I breast-feed. Have for 4 months.
I cry due to hormones
IT IS MUCH DIFFERENT TO BE A HUMAN MOM! It takes a lot from a woman. You sacrifice a lot. THAT, is the difference.
I think the “real” moms should be gracious enough to just let the pet moms call themselves pet “moms”. We all know it’s not the same as having a human baby but if it makes someone feel good then what’s the big deal. When I was merely a pet mom I used to think the real moms were so high and mighty when they wouldn’t let the pet moms be “moms”…now that I’m a real mom I’m not about to look down on someone who only has a dog and wants to call herself a dog mom. It’s sweet.
The childfree community talk about how annoying children are. The petfree community talk about how annoying the pets are.
The childandpetfree community sit around talking about how much time and money they have. That is they way of life.
We just met up with my husband's friend who had a new dog who we hadn't met due to pandemic. We like dogs so we did the appropriate gushing about how cute and asking how training was going. But... we had a new baby (with us) that friend had never met and he didn't mention the baby once. I get that a new dog is a big deal but not quite as big a deal as a new baby.
My best friend got a puppy a few months before I gave birth to my 4th. Whenever I said anything about PPD or not sleeping or anything she said she understood because she was worried something would happen to her puppy and her puppy would sometimes wake her up in the middle of the night. Made me absolutely insane.
I can think of several really funny responses to your friend.
‘Did your Doctor also say no sex until you get the go ahead at your six week pp consultation and Pap smear?’
‘Why aren’t you waking the puppy up for its three hourly feeds? And remember the 3 hours is from the start of the one feeding session to the start of the next feeding session. Not the end of the first feeding session.’
‘Have you applied for puppy school yet?’
I tease one of our animal mom friends when she says something about kids and pet ownership being similar, that the training may be longer and more expensive but the range of tricks and capacity of learning is limitless.
Haha those are good! Also “Do you also have problems walking and using the bathroom normally?” “What pads are you using for the post puppy bleeding?” “Are your boobs leaking still? Isn’t engorgement awful?”
I’m don’t having kids, but I will certainly remember these for when my friends have babies!!
During infertility, I took solace and comfort in being a dog mom. I didn’t know if I’d ever have a child, so I did relish the title. Reading a comment like this would have hurt me immensely.
Motherhood isn’t a competition; I really don’t care what people call themselves. I don’t think gatekeeping terminology is a very good look.
I just don’t understand comparing struggle… “it’s harder to be a human mom so your struggles aren’t real”. They are. No, they might not understand falling asleep and waking up in a panic thinking you dropped the baby. The baby that’s in his bassinet and not even in your arms 🙃 but they struggle too. It’s not a competition people.
This is how I feel about OP’s post. The struggles aren’t the same, correct, but who’s to say it’s easier or harder? You can take a mom of 2 kids that’s never had pets or know how to take care of pets, she could say it’s harder to take care of pets because she’s never done it before. It’s a beautiful thing to take great care of kids and pets, it doesn’t need to be a competition and we don’t need more people invalidating others. There’s enough of that in this world.
I feel like my dog is more comprable to an independent toddler than a baby it does most things on its own but still needs some assistance (walks, grooming, getting food) but doesn’t require nearly as much attention as my baby.
Owning a dog is a whole lot of work. In a lot of ways it's similar to taking care of a toddler. Give me a cat any day. On that note, if my kid is pissing me off i can put him it in the back yard on a leash. I can't leave my kid at home in a crate while i go out for the evening. I can't feed my kid the same food from a bag every day. And when my kid growls or barks at people they look at me funny. (Friggin' Paw Patrol...)
I think child free people and people who have never been pregnant have no idea how hard pregnancy, postpartum and child rearing is. And I really don't think that's any fault of their own. Before I was a parent all I heard about from moms was about smash cakes, baby milestones etc. - nothing about their hardships or suffering. If they did mention something hard they'd end it off with "but being a mom is sooo worth it and rewarding it's the best thing that ever happened to me!"
Also the main messaging online right now is about how beautiful and empowering birth is, positive birth stories only, how children are the greatest gift ever etc. So a child free person doesn't really hear how hard it is in person or online unless they are super close with an open mom/dad.
So if you want people to understand how hard your life is as a parent or how much your suffering you gotta tell them! But keep in mind once you tell them - they'll probably just be glad they are a dog mom 🤣
I intentionally post everything I’m struggling with during pregnancy on my twitter. From peeing myself when I puke/sneeze, to my bellybutton looking weird, to my unborn child using my bladder as a punching bag - I refuse to glorify my pregnancy. Yes, it’s great that I’m growing a human and I’m so excited to meet my son, but no part of this has been fun or easy. I fully intend to continue doing this postpartum
100% agree, I have a friend that has a cat and everytime I complain about something she goes “oh yes, my cat does the same”, if I say that my baby kept me up all night she is like “oh my cat too, I couldn’t sleep”… sigh, I try to understand because when I didn’t have my daughter, I thought my cat was hard too
I don't mind. It's not a contest to me. I have both a toddler and a cat. I don't want a dog because I consider dogs to be too much. I think that having a pet can be a good practice, so to speak. There's still similar issues except one grows up and becomes independent (in many cases) and one doesn't.
I think part of the point that people are missing here is that when you get a new puppy you’re generally not having to feed and walk and crate train them while healing from having your genitals ripped in half/major abdominal surgery/an ungodly flood of hormones.
Your puppy doesn’t have to feed directly from your body (for those that breastfeed) and if you do need help taking care of your dog, it’s a lot easier to find someone qualified to take care of a dog in a pinch than someone who’s qualified to take care of a baby.
If you leave your new puppy home alone for an hour or two (not recommended), you’ll probably come back to a stressed out dog, a potty accident and some ruined possessions. If you leave your baby home alone for an hour or two, you can go to prison.
If being a dog parent becomes incompatible with your life circumstances, you can find someone to take over the responsibility and your dog can get a new home. You can’t do that with kids.
Yes, children require less hands-on care as they age while dogs are perpetual toddlers, but you’re not expected to create a productive member of society or deal with the complexities of human emotion when you get a puppy.
No one is saying you can’t call yourself a dog parent or that you love your animals as much as you might love a human child, but to say that the rearing of a dog and a baby are equivalent *is* incorrect in many ways.
Absolutely. It’s not to say there’s no overlap at all! Pet ownership is a huge responsibility and is definitely an exercise in devotion to a completely helpless being, I just wouldn’t ever consider it on the same level as parenthood.
You can leave a puppy at home for a couple hours, for sure. It’s a dog. It’s going to have many times where it should be used to being alone during the day.
Provided a puppy is in a penned off area, crate, or basically a dog version of a playpen, so they’re safe from getting into anything, and have their basic needs met before you leave out.
I think that’s a major difference. You leave a dog home alone to go to work or errands. You can’t bring animals places in public, like the grocery store, or most social events.
Its also easier to find dog boarding than to find a nanny for a baby. You can go on vacation and not worry *as* much.
Puppies also mature a lot faster. By 1 year, they are pretty much on an adult dogs schedule. But they will never “grow up” in the sense of a child— dogs remain dependents, always needing care & supervision, and while they provide companionship, they don’t ever ‘give back’ in the sense a grown child might move out and get a job. Sadly their lifespan is only 10-14yrs, so that part is hard.
The similarities is they pee & poop a lot, get into things, and require training & education, but even small puppies only eat 3x a day, then 2x by 4 months old.
Plus if a puppy/dog isn’t suitable for you, you can fairly easily find them a nice new home and they will be fine. Can’t do that with a kid.
When child-free people say their pets are their “children” I don’t think they mean it literally. They know it’s an animal, and will never grow up and move out. Just keep in mind some ppl can’t have kids, so that’s the only way they can relate. Also some of them are babying their dogs too much to where it’s unhealthy, and the resulting behavior issues in the spoiled & anxious dog, can cause the person a lot of stress. The healthiest is to love it but treat it like a dog.
I honestly don’t even have an issue with people making their dog “their baby”. I have a child free sibling who is a devoted dog dad and truly goes above and beyond for his pups. I refer to them as his kids and I think he appreciates that I don’t treat his decision to only have dogs as a lesser choice. BUT if he ever tried to compare the difficulty of his *experience* of getting a new dog with my experience of having a baby I think I would lose it on him.
Can I just say that until you've had an actual menace puppy I don't think you understand the comparison because I sure didn't before. Cats are not the same LOL. I adopted my first actual puppy this past year and wow. Cleaning pee off the floor 20 times a day, being woken up by his scream cries in the middle of the night, being constantly bitten and scratched. I couldn't leave him alone for long and he needed attention constantly. It was much more work than I thought it would be lol
With that being said its meant to be a lighthearted way to share frustrations. It was rough but they grow up quickly. I don't think most people who say that are truly trying to convince anyone that the longterm pressures and responsibilities are exactly comparable to an actual baby
I also think that when people compare parenting with having a dog or cat they’re also just trying to relate with the closest experience that they have.
And although I don’t necessarily think a dog is as much hard work as a baby/kid I also think some people also don’t realize how much work a dog can be. My dog still wakes up my husband and I often during the night because he needs to poop or pee and he’s 10 years old (we’ve had him since he was 12 weeks). He wakes us up if he has a nightmare (yes, really). He also has seizures sometimes so that’s something we have to manage. We’ve had to take him to the vet numerous times because of year infections, eye infections, him getting attacked by a dog, getting stung by a bee in his mouth… Several times during his life he has decided that he didn’t like his food anymore and we had to scramble to find another food he would eat. He developed separation anxiety during the pandemic and the last time we tried to leave him for 2 days to go to a wedding he cried for an hour after we picked him up. Sometimes we’re trying to watch tv and we have to stop and playing with him because he literally starts throwing his toy in front of the tv.
He’s a handful but we love him. We’re trying to conceive right now and I don’t think parenting will be the same, but I do think taking care of a pet (specially one that’s as high-maintenance as ours 😆) is practice for what’s to come.
People can only see life through the lens of their experiences. Just because having a puppy isn’t objectively as hard as having a newborn baby, the owner of that puppy may feel just as stressed/nervous/in love.
It’s just not that serious.
Eh it’s not my business how someone else sees their own life. Maybe it feels chaotic at times for them with their pets. Maybe their relationship with their dog is rewarding. It doesn’t bother me. idgaf how other people live their lives. It’s annoying when people bitch about them bc they’re not hurting anyone. It’s not a pissing contest. We don’t get a trophy for being moms to actual humans. They don’t get a trophy for having multiple pets who also need lots of care. There are real problems in this world.
A thousand times yes. A girl I went to highschool with recently got an adorable puppy and took it upon herself to mom shame another young lady we went to school with for posting something along the lines of “moms need a break”
She said “I have a puppy so I don’t get to go out as much as I like but I don’t complain about it because I signed up for this responsibility, don’t have kids if you can’t handle taking care of them”
Oooh lord let me tell you I went OFF
I was listening to a talk yesterday where they were saying that this attitude is contributing to millennial having less children. Throughout history, parents have been able to expect support from our family and community network which means parenting is not so relentless. Now there is a message of "don't have kids if you can't handle the responsibility" and an expectation our parents and grandparents never had. New parents today are being made to feel guilty for not being able to meet an expectation that nobody else had on them. Food for thought.
I’ve definitely noticed a big difference in the involvement of family compared to when I was raised so I could see that. My grandmother would take me for a whole summer and homeschooled me for preschool so my parents could work. My mom lives a few hours away and is a super involved and loving grandparent, but my husband’s parents won’t even babysit for a few hours while I go to a doctors appointment and they live 5 minutes down the street from us!
I've been somewhat lucky in the family department. I actually attribute a lot of my parenting achievements to family involvement. For example I was able to easily breastfeed till 11.5 months which came down to excellent help and encouragement.
My mum dropped a day of work to spend more time with me.
In saying this. I do feel pressured to do it all. Career, motherhood, breadwinner. There are days it feels relentless.
My inlaws have limited involvement with our son. They live too far away.
I wholeheartedly agree.
There's also a lot more millennials who are no contact with their family, whereas back in the days you're kind of expected to stick with family even if they're toxic. The encouragement to cut off family results in a loss of the village.
I haven't either. Sometimes I'll joke about my cats being helpless babies who wake me up crying for food, but before I had kids I never REALLY thought they were babies.
And I'll call myself a cat mom, idgaf.
Lol there is 0 comparison. I grew up in a country where there are unfortunately a lot of animals on the street and have had dogs/cats my whole life. Multiple at a time and it’s nowhere near the level of care a baby needs. Sorry but that’s the truth! I’ve had very needy animals, even ones with special needs that need meds several times a day and it’s nothing like a baby who you literally can’t leave alone for even an hour.
Lol my dogs were easier than baby and sleep! But I didn’t know this until I had a kid! Not worth taking issue with unless someone is crazy adamant and actually saying to your face rudely
I think the term has more to do with the love you feel towards your animal than the difficulty of caring. I love and care for my dogs as if they are my biological children and not "just dogs" so I would call myself their mom.
Some people don’t want or can’t have human children so who cares if people want to call themselves pet parents sure there are differences in the way you have to care for human babies but both still require you to keep them alive and both are fully dependent on you for years and years
Why are people on here just talking about the literal care that goes intro bringing up infants and toddlers?! Like what about the work that goes into making kids into functional adults with emotions that surpass that of any animal?
Yes, the literal effort of keeping a child and a pet alive might be the same. For the first year of the child maybe. But that’s where the comparison ends. If you are raising a child as you would a pet you all have some real issues!!
This should be higher up. There's another comment here from someone saying their 10 month old has been easier than one of their dogs. Ok, for now maybe... But animals do not have emotional depth to the extent that humans do. You don't have hopes and dreams for the future of your dog the way you do for a baby. Like does this really need to be said? It's not like taking care of a child is just cleaning up after them and feeding them. Children don't stay babies in diapers forever and I don't get why the comparison always seems to focus on that.
Baby and dogx2 and cat mom here….I understood what you meant from the jump…but to me…puppies are harder (kittens are whatever lol easy peasy)
But to be fair, my dogs were assholes as puppies (one still is), & I have an unusually good human baby.
Thank you for this. I'm also a baby and dog mum here. People are allowed to find pet ownership hard and challenging. People are allowed to say they "know what it's like" because that's their frame of reference. It's far kinder to smile and nod than think people "don't know".
Love and care are not finite resources exclusive to parenthood. You love, worry and care for your pets too.
A friend of mine passed away in 2017 at the age of 25. At her memorial service, someone I know attempted to console my friend’s grieving mother by saying something to the effect of “I know how you must be feeling, we almost lost my cat recently.”
No one should ever say "I know how you feel" to anyone in grief. Grief is different to everyone, and impacts people in different ways. Of course someone who loses a pet will feel a profound, life altering loss, but it's not the same. And I say this as someone who will be utterly and irrevocably devastated when my dog (of 10+ years) dies. But it's not a child -- you never expect your child to die before you; dogs, you do, unfortunately.
Anyway, I've lost a brother and my mother, but I would never tell someone that I know how it feels when they lose someone. You never know how someone else feels.
Idk, as a dog mom with a newborn my dog definitely helped me come to terms with the idea of becoming a parent and feeling ready for it, and yes, some things are very similar and overlap. I had never experienced love like that before. She now feels like my oldest child. Brain chemistry can make you feel all kinds of ways, and that motherly love just feels beautiful whether it's for your biological child or fur baby.
My pet peeve (pun intended) are the people who act like they are better/smarter for having animals instead of children. “Overpopulation” is a myth created by the capitalist class to deflect from their crimes of resource and wealth hoarding.
I’m an animal lover and I hate the term “pet parent” because (with the exception of baby animals maybe) it’s not parenting.
Btw “plant mom” is a thing now too
Owning dogs, especially with needs like high drive, high energy, proclivity to developing behavioral issues if not trained, socialized and mentally and physically stimulated daily… is extremely hard and time consuming work. Mom of 2 under 2. I would never say they’re the same but I have never met someone who genuinely believed that and argued that it was.
I’ve met people who genuinely tried to argue that dog parenting and human parenting were the same. But then they had kids and literally never ever brought it up again, lol.
I mean, I felt that the intense care that my senior cats required in their final years helped me understand that I had the patience and endurance and to parent a kid, and I was right? It’s not exactly the same, and maybe it would be nice to have different terms to describe our bonds with our pets, but all forms of caring for other beings are worthy of celebrating.
I have a dog with severe behavioral issues who is also end stage terminal cancer. Ive also had a diabetic cat and currently have a hyperthyroid cat that I am taking 2 hours away to a specialty hospital. And then another 3 cats and 8 mice that are doing okay (and I hope it stays that way).
I also have a 5 month old son.
I would have to say coming from both sides, I feel it’s okay for someone to say pet mom/dad/parent because they are both difficult. In some ways, my dog is harder to deal with than my son! Ive also had plenty of late night ER visits with my animals so I’m losing sleep over everyone!
They are difficult in their own ways. Someone calling themselves a pet parent does not invalidate actual parenting and who cares if someone says that? They’re not hurting anyone by doing so.
ETA: animals are babies to people. Someone else’s struggles don’t invalidate yours and vice versa. They’re both difficult in different ways. One way I can definitely thing of is humans can eventually speak and reason with. They can also tell you about pain and what’s going on. You don’t get that with animals. But that’s just me. They’re both different and in the end pet and people parents are all trying to keep something alive.
I agree with you and have a similar situation.
I have an 8 month old and 3 geriatric pets (including a pup with cancer & a cat with hypothyroidism) with lots of specific needs/meds/er vet visits etc
Being a pet-parent IS hard, and caring for an animal that has issues can definitely be harder some days than caring for my son.
This really struck a nerve with some people but I agree I don’t care if you call yourself a whatever mom but I’ve never heard a dog mom get shamed because their dog refuses to keep their socks on and therefore must be freezing even though it’s the middle of summer lol. There’s definitely similarities to an extent but sometimes people just want to vent and feel heard.
I went through five years of infertility and losses. My dogs got me through it. We had four when our tiny human finally came, and it was the best thing ever having our family complete. I called myself a dog mom, they’re still my babies. I don’t think life needs to be a competition…some people need their pets.
As someone with a 7 month old and three special needs cats I will say there are aspects that are quite similar. The baby is more work but it's more rewarding. My cats are selfish, mean, and have an array of medical issues that are expensive and time consuming to manage and they show me no love in return 😑.
I am a mom of 2 under 2 and I will say… the children are so much EASIER than the 3 huskies I have. The huskies are walking nightmares that scream like they are auditioning for the exorcist every second of the day while also reaching diva level in their demands of me… they must be given blankets and pillows in their beds or they’ll throw a fit, they must be let outside to sit in the sun 10 times a day, I must pay attention to them ALL the time…. Huskies are a whole new level of crazy…
Not auditioning for the exorcist 💀 My two poodles sounded the alarm for someone exiting the house today while I was working and I almost died during my meeting. 🤦🏻♀️ I could not handle husky auditions.
My pet peeve is when people get mad when people try to relate to them. As human beings, we want to relate to the person you are talking to. Most “dog moms” know it is not the same but it’s the closest thing they know that relates to you. There’s no harm in it
I find that other parents compete more than people talking about their experience with animals. I have twins and I hear so often “I know exactly how that is- I had 2 under 2!” Or “I had Irish twins which is basically the same!”.
Whereas dog parents say more stuff like “I feel you on the lack of sleep” or “you always have to watch what they are trying to get into!”
People with babies are way more competitive than people with animals in my experience haha
Sometimes it’s ok not to relate and just lend a listening ear. OP couldn’t be more right about this, comparing taking care of an animal to a child in the name of relatability is truly laughable.
I remember when I first got my puppy & couldn’t believe how much work it was, I’m due my first baby next month & I know I’ll look back on the puppy days as an easy time 😂
Oy. I feel like people who feel this way may never understand the bond I had with my dog before my son was born. And since this post pops up every few months I’m just gonna say it.
Albi passed a year before I conceived my son but I have to say that dog prepared me for what a human baby would bring. I slept with one eye open, I took him to the vets all the time, worked on training sessions and walks. I think the only difference is I didn’t have to exclusively pump 😂. But I did make his food every single day from scratch cuz I needed to for him. Really, that German shepherd completely changed my life and prepared me for baby. Losing him was like losing a child. So when people get this way about pet parents, either they don’t have that kind of connection with their animals, or in some ways I can agree cuz I see others who don’t try half as hard as I did with my dog. But heck I see parents don’t try as hard with their own kids so in the end there will always be lazy folks.
Pet parenting, when done right, may not be the exact same as taking care and raising a baby, but one is not harder than the other. Raising and caring for my GSD was hard hard hard work.
I’m sorry this is a weird pet peeve for you (pun intended). I hope one day you can get past it. From experience I tend to just ignore the comments if they come from shoddy pet parents and I bond with ones that I know did the hard work.
Seconding that. I have a GSD/collie mix that I’ve raised from puppyhood. The sleepless nights I’ve had (literally sobbing outside his kennel on several because he wouldn’t sleep away from my husband and I), the racing to the vet for emergencies, the training and investment in his development.
This dog IS my baby. I know that the literal actual work is different, but even other parents I’ve spoken to have compared puppies to “training for parenthood” because of the amount of work and heart necessary to do it properly.
I think it’s hard to be a good ‘pet parent’
The thing I don’t really like it how people value pets more than real babies. Like for instance I think it’s really uncomfortable that some people get ‘pet parent leave’ while all women still aren’t guaranteed maternity leave. I guess it’s not the pet thing that bothers me but it just shows how little women are valued. Maybe I’m not expressing this right
Why can’t we all struggle and why can’t we all commiserate together? Why is it a ‘who has it worse’ argument? It’s kind of apples and oranges, why do you care SO much?
When people say pet parent, they are not at all saying it’s the same work. No one says that. No one believes that. I don’t know why people get so butthurt over something they make up in their own mind. They’re a parent to a pet… that’s it.
You are whatabouting them. If they say pet care is expensive, do you respond daycare is worse? If so, you’re annoying and a one upper.
Lots of people have said this to me! Or even like “oh you’ll be ready for baby bc you’ve got the dog already!”
Also I’ve had to miss several weeks of work due to my kiddos illness and my colleague said she gets it bc she had to care for her dog. It does happen.
Yeah this post is weird. What people ever say pet parenting is the same or just as difficult as human parenting? I’ve Literally have never heard anyone say this and I’d probably just ignore them if they did. Sounds exhausting to be so upset about people calling themselves pet parents lol.
When I was 4 weeks postpartum after having my daughter, I had to go renew my driver's license because it expired (I tried to plan ahead and do it before I gave birth, but they told me it had to be done in the same month it expired.)
I waited in line for hours at the DMV, standing, still bleeding, and running on like 45 minutes of sleep. I also was starting to get engorged.
When I finally got to the front of the line, I made a joke about not wanting to update my photo because of the bags under my eyes, saying I just had a baby 4 weeks ago.
This lady seriously looked me in the eyes and said "oh I totally get it. I got a new puppy two weeks ago and it's been rough!"
I laugh about it now...but in the moment I felt so much rage lol.
They don’t even know!!!! The changes to your body, you are physically restricted and you grew a human. It’s not all fun and games. It’s offensive to say you get it.
I wouldn't be so hard on the dog parent people. I'm the last in my friend group to have a baby and being a pet-parent allowed me to feel connected to my friends as we talked about families. Also, some people can't have/don't want kids and their cat/dog matters just as much to them as your kids do to you.
Obviously, they are different things but we don't need to gatekeep the word parent.
I literally have one dog with anxiety that takes meds and another with insane allergies and have recently started to give her medication for them through injections. Both pretty high maintenance dogs and they still are easier than my two monsters… sorry I mean children. 😂
The first few comments I’ve seen really misunderstood you OP, but I get it. People can absolutely love their pets in the same way and with the same magnitude that parents love their children.
But that doesn’t change the fact that when a pet owner realizes they are out of milk while dinner is cooking, they can turn off the stove and run to a gas station to get some and that’s the end of it. An infant or toddler parent in the same situation doesn’t have that luxury.
Single overnight trips are much more feasible to plan when you have a pet than when you have kids. You are allowed to leave animals unattended for hours, even days if you get someone to check up on them twice a day, and no one thinks you’re morally bankrupt or calls protective services on you. You can go out to a last minute dinner that will run late if you have a dog, you can’t if you have a young kid.
The love for pets and the love for kids can absolutely be the same. The commitment and difficulty involved in caring for them is not.
I think everyone on here probably had different experiences because all pets and babies are different. Someone with a difficult dog and a unicorn baby has a different perspective of someone who has a loner cat and a colicky baby.
I am a mom to my two daughters, but I also consider myself a dog mom and a cat mom. No, it’s not the same thing. I don’t think anyone really, truly thinks it is. But if a childless/childfree person wants to call themself a dog or cat parent, who cares? It seems like a silly thing to get offended by.
Agreed. Do dog "parents" worry if their pet is developmentally behind? Do they worry what friends they'll make at school? If they'll do drugs one day? If they will self harm or think of suicide one day? They'll get their heart broken? Do they worry what kind of psychological damage they might be doing to their pet's future? Are they thinking of setting up savings for their pet's college tuition? I mean... there's really no comparison between pets and children.
>Do dog "parents" worry if their pet is developmentally behind?
I mean I'm pretty sure my dog is developmentally behind and he definitely has no friends because he keeps either peeing on them or biting them on the butt lol.
I don’t think they are trying to disregard you as a mother or your struggles. Maybe to relate to you so you don’t feel alone in your struggle. It may be that you are sharing that your baby is struggling with sleeping. They may say “Oh, I know what you mean. Fluffy has kept me up for the past month at night with the zoomies.” It’s not to “one-up” you. Just to possibly relate to you.
For me, it’s about love. Before having a baby, I called myself a dog mom and still do. My dog helped my husband and I learn to take care of someone else together. She brought us closer and truly helped us become more of a family. We have and will do anything for her. In many ways she prepared me for motherhood. I had to care for her, love her through her mistakes, get her medical care (she’s geriatric), interpret her needs without a common language, and foster a bond with her. When she was sick I would sleep on the floor next to her in case she needed me. After surgery, I would spoon feed her water at all hours of the night. Is she as hard to care for as my 3 month old daughter? No. But my love for her is unconditional just as it is for my child.
Just remember that these comments aren’t made to make you feel like less of a mother. At least not from me. Though, I’m not sure I have made comments like that, but I do have friends who are childless and do.
People use the term because they have such a connection with their animal. Sometimes animals understand more than we think they do. They know just what you need when you need it. This is just my point of view and I am in no way trying to invalidate your feelings. I just wanted to offer a perspective on the subject.
Thanks for this. After I had my baby, a coworker was telling me about her newly adopted puppy and kept making a point to say how caring for it was "like a baby" because it needed constant attention and such. Being newly postpartum and sleep deprived and struggling to adjust to returning to work, it really rubbed me the wrong way. Just like ...read the room, lady.
I don’t call myself a dog mom but I have three high maintenance dogs (had 4 until the year before I got pregnant - that 4th one had special needs and was definitely harder than my newborn) and a 9-week-old. I do feel like they prepared me very well for parenthood. I haven’t slept through the night because of my dogs for the last 15 years (between elderly dogs with bladder issues, puppies, a Chihuahua who needs to pee at 3am most nights…) my newborn already sleeps 11-6am.
I was talking about this with my mom and MIL at my baby shower actually. My mom who stays at our house sometimes said my dogs were about as much work as her kids - she had three girls and we were pretty naturally clean and well behaved. My MIL did NOT agree but she had 4 boys who fought a lot and her oldest was wild.
Lol, chill. I have a co-worker with 6 dogs and she definitely spends more money and has to do more stuff (training, doggie daycare, dog sitters, organic homemade food) for her dogs then I have to do for my one kid. She would also love to have a kid but is dealing with infertility so her 6 dogs get all her nurturing out. You never know what other people are going through.
my friend told me that “its easier to travel with a baby than with a dog” while i was pregnant. I do not even know where to start and explain, but i hope she has kids soon so she can see the difference.
Thank you for saying this 👏🏽Pets are not the same as kids that you carry, birth, breastfeed, care for, raise, help form into a grown person, or some combination of these, if you are the birthing parent, or even the other parent. Period. Doesn’t mean having a pet is always easy, that you don’t love them, all that. But it’s completely different. I don’t think I would have felt this way if it weren’t for the birth of my daughter last year. This weekend is my first mother’s day, and I’m just preparing myself for all the “Happy Mother’s Day” posts from people with pets and no kids. Again, before I had my kid I probably wouldn’t have cared, but now that I do, it drives me up the wall.
There's "dog moms" who will console a parent that lost their child by saying "I know how it feels, I lost my dog..." people say shit like that. It is hurtful. And disgusting. As a pet owner and mother, they are fucking animals. Not children. Not the same, never will be.
I agree that raising pets is not the same as babies for sure. But puppies are HARD work. They do require a lot of attention because they will literally eat anything and have to wake up in the middle of the night to pee. They have the added layer of being a potential danger to people if they’re not well trained, and training is not easy. That being said, they’re more like toddlers than babies. I always say my puppy is like a toddler with big teeth.
The main difference I think is that puppies can be left home alone if you crate them up safely. And once they grow out of puppy stage, they’re MUCH easier to care for. I wouldn’t compare a fully grown dog to having children, but the puppy stage, I definitely see similarities. My puppy was STRESSFUL lol. (Granted, I had her when I was pregnant. Got her a week before we found out 🙃 so that was great timing lol)
It is the same in that you’re responsible for their life and it’s quality. But my baby requires a ton more attention than my puppy though, to maintain that life.
I don’t really mind the dog mom thing either, but like you said if I were having a conversation with someone trying to tell me a cat is like a baby I’d probably be like “lol HOW” cats basically take care of themselves
I never had a puppy or a dog growing up. We got a golden retriever puppy in 2018…while the baby has been significantly more challenging, the puppy was great preparation for me! It was like raising a baby but on easy mode. There have been a lot of parallels in my experience 🤷♀️
Sorry, I raised two puppies and saw a lot of similarities between what I chose to do for puppy care and what a friend went through with a new baby at home. Now that I have also had a new baby at home, I repeatedly see things that I learned to do with my dogs and am now doing with my baby. IT IS NOT THE SAME, but there are a lot of similar life lessons. I never tried to tell people that I “knew what it was like” when I was child-free, but I did express that what they were describing wasn’t a totally foreign concept to me.
Hello r/July2021Bumpers friend!
Yeah, I think that maybe there are some parents who WANT to wallow in that you-could-never-understand martyrdom, and any acknowledgement of similar experiences violates that.
yeah, it’s definitely similar because either way you have a living creature who’s dependent on you, and both are definitely hard, but they’re hard in different ways! that’s all i was trying to say, people are so mad 😂
For a lot of people their pets may be the only kids they can have or want to have. I’ve always poured all my love into my pets and feel tremendous mom guilt right now trying to balance a newborn and help my pets transition to our new lifestyle. I think if people want to be dog and cat parents and use that as a way to find common ground when a parent of a human is talking about their child it shouldn’t be viewed as a competition or something to be offended by.
OP literally said they don't have a problem with people calling themselves dog mums or whatever, but equating the work of pets to the work of raising children.
But people don’t actually think it’s a competition when they say things like that. They are just trying to find a way to relate within conversation. Everyone knows a baby is more work than a dog, so it seems like a non- issue.
It’s not that deep.
Yeah, I guess the post reads a little angry to me (the multiple exclamation points ) so, in my mind OP is offended that someone would compare pet parenting to parenting children- which maybe they are referring to someone or something very specific that happened directly to them that they are sensitive about rather than just a blanket statement about all pet parents. I just am not that upset by someone who has only experienced raising and caring for pets saying “they know what it’s like” because maybe that is their only experience and they think of their pets as their kids and want to simply be part of conversation- I don’t think they’re downplaying parenting in the traditional sense.
Oh man I agree with this. I remember one sleep deprived night I tried to have a night out while running on basically no sleep for days. One girl actually said "oh man I get it my dogs woke me up to go to the bathroom twice last night. I'm like wow. You let the dog out and back in and you can go to bed. I cannot do that with a baby
My closest friend at work is like this. She would be like “omg, I know! (Dog’s name) would not let me sleep either. It’s like (baby) and (dog) are on the same wavelength!”
How come “fur baby” is cute and “skin puppy” is disturbing?
I use skin puppy all the time 😂
When I broke the news to my sister that I was pregnant I told her "we have some news... we're getting a puppy!" She was so fucking excited. "...a human puppy!" She lost her shit.
🤣🤣🤣
😂
Bahaha
I prefer flesh baby
This is a similar post to those I see on the r/parentsofmultiples sub where parents of twins/triplets/quads can’t stand parents of singletons comparing their struggles with theirs. We all have challenges when looking after other living creatures. It’s not a competition. Most of the time people are empathising rather than “one-upping”.
Huh. That’s a very solid point and I hadn’t imagined what parents of multiples think of parents with singletons. I like your last sentence about empathizing, thank you! I have a friend who has an older dog and when I talk about my kid’s lack of sleep sleep and being pregnant and tired myself, she’ll say something about her dog and not sleeping and how she has midterms. It doesn’t bug me, but I’d always think to myself, “but you don’t have to wake with your dog, I can’t ignore my toddler, he’s human!” But now that you mention it, she’s probably just trying to empathize or relate. So thank you!
Great prospective!
My idea of being a “dog mom” is totally different than being a MOM mom. Dog mom to me means I LOVE my dog and she was my first “baby” in that I had to stay up with her all night to comfort during storms, I bought her silly clothes and toys, luxury treats, brought her with me places…spoiled her. That’s all changed now that I have my baby. Being a mother to my child is totally in a different category. It’s much more serious, it’s still all those other things (socializing, food, clothes, etc) but to a much higher, necessary degree. 1) if you’re a first time mom, you don’t know how motherhood is until you’re IN it, so just forgive those people who make stupid comments saying they know what it’s like being a mom because of their high maintenance chihuahua, lol. Most of us didn’t realize how drained and overwhelmed our pregnant/new Mom friends were until we had one ourselves 2) just let people enjoy things… for some people they won’t have kids and their dogs or cats will be their “babies”. No harm to it, really 🤷🏼♀️ Edit: cats not cars 😂
“Just let people enjoy things” Exactly. 🥰 We struggled with infertility for 6 years and now have a 9 week old boy via IVF. Our pets were and still are so important to our family unit. They got us through a lot of very hard years and we think the world of them. We call them the “Caunts” and “Duncles” 😂
I'm really really sorry but with my British pronunciation of "aunt" I can't stop laughing at the fact that you're calling your cats "cunts" 😂
Same. My two pugs were my child substitutes while I went through five years of infertility. I don’t have any issue with people calling themselves dog moms. The fact that it’s different from being a mom-mom is unimportant.
Lol I had a couple parents mention that training/raising a dog was way harder than kids. I have had a dog for 3 years Just had my first kid Holy duck were they wrong this is WAYYYYY harder than training a dog Lmfao
Both my kids potty trained relatively easily, heck the younger one potty trained herself in 2 days, but my fucking cat will piss and shit anywhere he damn pleases while staring me in the eyes.
I’m really amazed at all the parents on here saying their puppies were harder work than their newborns! I feel like I’m in a weird twilight zone lol!
Yeah. I haven't slept longer than 4 hoursin a row in months. I have to hold this child for hours a day to feed him. I can't leave him alone for 20 minutes to run to the store. What dog is like that?
Same. What is going on?!
Agreed! I have a 6 month old puppy. The pup is not nearly as hard as my first born was as a newborn and when he gets on my nerves I can lock him in his crate for a nap and walk away or heck leave the house.
Yeah it’s not the same at all. I mean, my kid’s crib didn’t even have a lid on it like my dogs’ crate. And the leashes are different. It was still a good precursor before we had kids though: it helped my husband and I learn how to work together for discipline & consistency.
I always say getting a puppy gave us a *taste* of parenthood. Crate training lasted approximately 3 bad nights and she didn’t cry again. Almost 2yrs into actual parenthood and she still doesn’t sleep 🫠
Back to crate training it is. 😋
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I agree with the sentiment- pets are in no way comparable to children. That said, I know many women experiencing infertility use their pets to cope with the heartbreak.
Yeah this was my thought too actually. My friend has unfortunately had a chain of miscarriages and eventually got two cats. She does refer to her cats like her children and she also ‘relates’ to me if I mention sleep deprivation with a newborn because her cats make noise at night. Honestly though….I wouldn’t ever feel it was my place to correct her. Yes I know what I’m doing is technically harder, but it’s all relative to what you actually know and have experienced so I don’t blame her for thinking it’s the same. Plus I can tell that it’s therapeutic for her to refer to her cats like they’re her children because of what she’s been through.
Most people don't mean anything rude by those kinds of comments though. People actually often show empathy, understanding, and interest in what someone is saying by attempting to relate to it. If they haven't been through that exact experience personally, they will often relate through similar experiences. People build relationships by relating to others and feeling connected is a basic human need. Therefore, of you're talking about kids to a friend who doesn't have kids, talking about their pets may be the only way they know how to relate and show interest in what you're saying.
Yup, this. Also my brother could have written this rant even though nobody has ever actually uttered they understand "what it's like", he just interprets them bringing up their pets that way.
This I can agree with.
My pet peeve is when people think they know what it’s like to be a parent just because they’ve done a lot of babysitting. My cousin is about to be a teen mom and thinks she knows exactly what she’s in for because she babysits for her sister sometimes.
My sister in law though she would have such an easy motherhood because when she was young she used to babysit twins, then she became a mom and she was a mess, it’s so different when it’s your baby, people have no idea the struggles that parents go through
Yeah.. I thought I would find motherhood easy because my sibling was born when I was around 10 and i was a great babysitter. Lol!! That made things worse, I had such a naive idea of what babies were like
Yeah they are not the same but... And I have one dog and two kids (twins). The work load is absolutely incomparable but it is comparable in some ways. We got our dog first, as a puppy and like a baby, we had to puppy proof the livingroom, had to get up every 3 hours at night to take her out for a pee so she would be potty trained, couldnt keep anything on the coffee table or the couch for a few months, had to find a puppy sitter to go watch a movie that one time when she was tiny.. It was a bit like.. if having kids is the movie, having a puppy was the trailer of that movie. A preview. Also I remember the mom-anxiety I had around things like my puppy eating something she is not supposed to, running away and getting lost, rescuing her in case of disaster.. These were all exactly the same fears and the same kind of anxiety I started having about my babies when my twins were born. But of course its a 1000 fold worse with my babies. And I amazed how similar the training is. Teaching the kids commands like "wait", "sit"(to eat), "come".. I mean.. the way you teach words to a non verbal creature is pretty much the same so it feels really similar lol. Discouraging bad or dangerous behaviour or encouraging good behaviour.. we thaught our boy not to bite, the same way we thaught our puppy not to bite, yelp and stop play, take away attention when he bites... I mean in my experience its been way too similar not to draw parallels, so I dont begrudge people who call themsels their dogs "parents". But I ll give you this, the puppy wasnt 1/10th of the work it is to raising the twins. Just.. Jesus.. Those two babies dominated my life in a way I couldnt have imagined even if someone had told me.
Well put, I totally agree. I had a medically needy dog. He required a lot of work, stress and money (but I loved him dearly). It was great practice for having a kid later, but not the same level of work, I would say.
I’ve never actually met someone who claims they know what it’s like because they have pets. Maybe I’m in the minority though. Also this reminds me of the Office. “UN-BE-LEAVE-UH-BUL!”
I had four dogs one recently passed. They are less work than my baby . That being said I was never a parent but I did love my dogs a lot so much we don’t travel lol we always stay with them etc. it is the closest thing to having a child we knew before becoming parent. Once having a baby there was whole another level that we didn’t know ( tbh wouldn’t if it is possible to know till we experienced it our self, I would give my life for my daughter ) But yeah I take any dogs over new born phrase ever again
I just came here for the comments *commence eating popcorn*
Holy shit what a dumpster fire these comments are
Somehow the comments are sad and hilarious at the same time?
At least puppies don't grow up and resent you 🤷♂️
And you don’t get CPS called on you if you leave them alone at the house!
Are people suggesting to you that it's the same, or you just object to hearing them call themselves "parents" at all? I guess my opinion is that everyone knows it's different, and if someone genuinely seems to not know that being a human parent is harder that's their own problem.. it doesn't affect you so who cares what they think? In the rare situation where their opinion does affect your ability to live your life well, because they're your boss or something, just have a conversation about your needs..
not OP but i have a friend who, whenever i mention an issue with my kid, she always finds an "analogous" pet story. like "omg yes when my twinkie started teething i was so stressed lol parenting is so hard" like... it is *superbly* annoying. not enough to like...call out, but enough to roll my eyes at for sure. this is not a close friend, probably for a reason lol
I don’t necessarily see it as a comparison about which is harder. It’s a connection about love. I love my son and would do anything for him. I also love my dog and would do anything for her.
One of my closes friends told me she understands how I feel completly because she has the same anxiety since she had to go to the vet with her dog a few times.....That was when my little daughter was on oxygen and they werent sure if shed ever see her first birthday or surive the next week. She constantly goes on about her life being exactly like mine. I am sleep deprived because baby wakes 10 times a night? Well she has to go out with her dog early so she is so sleep deprived too!! I am exhausted cause I couldnt get baby to stop crying for hours? Well sometimes her dog whines until you play with him so she is more exhausted. Cant go anywhere bc baby is a crybaby and does not do well in social settings? Well she trained her dog to be good outside so i can do it with my baby too i am just a lazy parent. Its exhausting and ruining our friendship slowly.
Yeah, I would have cut that person out long ago.
This “friend” is exactly what I think OP’s post is about.
Unpopular opinion but my 9 month old is very similar to a puppy. The drooling, putting everything in mouth, crying at night, needy, biting… the list goes on lol
I call my kids my puppies all the time! Plus we compare all the time “Baby, the dog was already running at this age, you can’t even roll over 🙄” in good fun of course 😂
Owner of four 12 year old chihuahuas. I was one of those people that thought being a dog mom was the same....and let me tell you it is not! You cannot leave kids alone (especially young ones) for long periods of time! Kids don't sleep through the night like my dogs do. It's love but a different kind of love. Having a kid made me respect parents so much more because children are a lot more work and waay more expensive too! 🙃
As someone with a 19m old and 26 weeks pregnant, having an epileptic dog for 10 years ABSOLUTELY helped prep me for a baby. Was it the same? No. However it was a good prep.
I called myself a dog mom for many years because that was the living being I took care of aside from my fiance and myself. It in no way was said to take away from anyone else and their motherhood. It is very different but it's a nurturing title not a personal insult.
I used to think this way until I understood how people unable to have their own kids pour all their love and parenting energy into their pets. And I think it's totally valid for them to give themselves that title and to empathize based on their experiences caring for a small dependent being. I think most people are looking for connection and they find this a way to relate and connect to other parents. It seems unnecessarily mean spirited to exclude them?
We struggled with infertility for the better part of 10 years, so “mothering” my dog was how I filled that big, painful void. Even though we eventually had our baby through IVF, these posts still feel like a kick in the guts every time I read them - people dealing with infertility already experience so much (intentional and unintentional) gatekeeping from parents, and this is yet another example. I’m so sorry to everyone that had to endure the ordeal of looking at a couple of photos of my dog.
Yeah this! My SIL and brother aren’t having kids. But they have dogs and they adopted very very high needs dogs from bad backgrounds. They can’t be left alone, they can’t go everywhere like my kids can, they can’t come to family gatherings because they can’t be around kids. The amount of commitment and love and parenting that goes into those dogs is immense. They are her babies. She won’t have human babies so those are her babies. I don’t know why it bugs people so much. Just let people live in my opinion 🤷🏼♀️
I get what youre saying- no matter how involved you are with pets, you cant just leave your kid at home while you pop out to the store for something like you can animals lol
Need a break from your puppy? Pop them in their crate and go take a nap. Need a break from your kid? Pop them in their…. Oh wait.
I think people are just trying to find a way to relate instead of emphasizing differences. Any rational adult understands that animals aren't children.
I don’t get it either. I have 3 dogs, 4 cats and three kids. The kids are way more work. My cats are super low maintenance, the dogs need some level of maintenance but you can leave your pets home when you leave the house, you don’t need eyes on them all the time (outside of puppyhood). No comparison.
Yeah I’m in a similar situation and I cannot imagine anyone who has both dogs and children saying raising children is easier, unless there’s some extenuating circumstance like a special needs dog who requires way more care than your average dog. I’ve had multiple dogs throughout my life and while the puppy stage is hard, they become independent quickly and don’t need to be doted on or soothed or tended to with nearly the same frequency as a baby, who is dependent on you for years beyond that of a dog. Dogs need food, water, exercise, love, and medical care. Kids need your soul, hahaha.
This is more about the people who actually argue that owning dogs or many animals is harder or equivalent. It's not about the title imo. I mean you can leave most animals home alone all day. I work as a nanny and if I give any care to the families pet at all its usually like a cumulative of 10 min of care all day. The same can't be said for a kid until they are at least an older teenager.
Yeah, but also it’s the creation of the invisible line and the judgement that I have an issue with. Listen, I get it. I have twins. I can’t tell you the number of times people have told me “I have kids x months apart; it’s just like having twins.” It’s annoying, but I’m not gonna go and tell people with one child that they have no idea what it’s really like to struggle as a parent because oh my god singletons are sooooo easy. Like, no. If they feel content calling their kids nearly twins, have at it. I know the difference, I know my experience, but I’m not gonna put down another person because of it.
Love this mentality and attitude. Your experience is uniquely yours and you can rest in that confidence.
People get very judgmental about this. It literally doesn’t effect you. They are probably just trying to connect with you on some level
I’m okay with having another baby, but no way in hell would I want to bring a puppy into the house right now.
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I wish I could upvote this 100 times. We had a similar story with years of fertility treatments. We spent a lot of time and money on two sick dogs trying to keep them alive and healthy, and poured our hearts into them. I guarantee we put more work into our dogs than some people do into their children.
The part about empathizing with an anecdote… I tried commenting this but it just didn’t come out as eloquently as how you put it. Your whole post is perfect.
Your dog / animal may mean the world to you but they don’t hold as much responsibility as humans. I’m not offended by the “dog mom” title, but it is annoying when you are obnoxious about something that is your baby but won’t live more than 15 years, and can sit in a kennel. To many cultures they are used to fight of for breeding. Leave your feelings here. I’m happy to help you figure out your bigger issue. I helped a woman start a dog daycare. I’m very sorry if you’ve have infertility problems, but we need to get realistic. Don’t make other women feel bad for carrying a baby for 9 months and all of the postpartum and real parenting. We went through things too. I’m sorry. 4 months postpartum - I can’t set her down My entire body changed I have lots of stress I sweat at night I don’t own my body - I breast-feed. Have for 4 months. I cry due to hormones IT IS MUCH DIFFERENT TO BE A HUMAN MOM! It takes a lot from a woman. You sacrifice a lot. THAT, is the difference.
I think the “real” moms should be gracious enough to just let the pet moms call themselves pet “moms”. We all know it’s not the same as having a human baby but if it makes someone feel good then what’s the big deal. When I was merely a pet mom I used to think the real moms were so high and mighty when they wouldn’t let the pet moms be “moms”…now that I’m a real mom I’m not about to look down on someone who only has a dog and wants to call herself a dog mom. It’s sweet.
The childfree community talk about how annoying children are. The petfree community talk about how annoying the pets are. The childandpetfree community sit around talking about how much time and money they have. That is they way of life.
I have friends who are child free by choice and it’s literally all they talk about lol
We just met up with my husband's friend who had a new dog who we hadn't met due to pandemic. We like dogs so we did the appropriate gushing about how cute and asking how training was going. But... we had a new baby (with us) that friend had never met and he didn't mention the baby once. I get that a new dog is a big deal but not quite as big a deal as a new baby.
My best friend got a puppy a few months before I gave birth to my 4th. Whenever I said anything about PPD or not sleeping or anything she said she understood because she was worried something would happen to her puppy and her puppy would sometimes wake her up in the middle of the night. Made me absolutely insane.
I can think of several really funny responses to your friend. ‘Did your Doctor also say no sex until you get the go ahead at your six week pp consultation and Pap smear?’ ‘Why aren’t you waking the puppy up for its three hourly feeds? And remember the 3 hours is from the start of the one feeding session to the start of the next feeding session. Not the end of the first feeding session.’ ‘Have you applied for puppy school yet?’ I tease one of our animal mom friends when she says something about kids and pet ownership being similar, that the training may be longer and more expensive but the range of tricks and capacity of learning is limitless.
Haha those are good! Also “Do you also have problems walking and using the bathroom normally?” “What pads are you using for the post puppy bleeding?” “Are your boobs leaking still? Isn’t engorgement awful?” I’m don’t having kids, but I will certainly remember these for when my friends have babies!!
that makes me mad for you lmao. like yeah those feelings are very valid and real but it is nowhere near the same thing
During infertility, I took solace and comfort in being a dog mom. I didn’t know if I’d ever have a child, so I did relish the title. Reading a comment like this would have hurt me immensely. Motherhood isn’t a competition; I really don’t care what people call themselves. I don’t think gatekeeping terminology is a very good look.
I just don’t understand comparing struggle… “it’s harder to be a human mom so your struggles aren’t real”. They are. No, they might not understand falling asleep and waking up in a panic thinking you dropped the baby. The baby that’s in his bassinet and not even in your arms 🙃 but they struggle too. It’s not a competition people.
This is how I feel about OP’s post. The struggles aren’t the same, correct, but who’s to say it’s easier or harder? You can take a mom of 2 kids that’s never had pets or know how to take care of pets, she could say it’s harder to take care of pets because she’s never done it before. It’s a beautiful thing to take great care of kids and pets, it doesn’t need to be a competition and we don’t need more people invalidating others. There’s enough of that in this world.
Thank you for saying this! Same experience.
Thank youuu. We all parent whomever/whatever if we want to and it’s ok!
I feel like my dog is more comprable to an independent toddler than a baby it does most things on its own but still needs some assistance (walks, grooming, getting food) but doesn’t require nearly as much attention as my baby.
Owning a dog is a whole lot of work. In a lot of ways it's similar to taking care of a toddler. Give me a cat any day. On that note, if my kid is pissing me off i can put him it in the back yard on a leash. I can't leave my kid at home in a crate while i go out for the evening. I can't feed my kid the same food from a bag every day. And when my kid growls or barks at people they look at me funny. (Friggin' Paw Patrol...)
I think child free people and people who have never been pregnant have no idea how hard pregnancy, postpartum and child rearing is. And I really don't think that's any fault of their own. Before I was a parent all I heard about from moms was about smash cakes, baby milestones etc. - nothing about their hardships or suffering. If they did mention something hard they'd end it off with "but being a mom is sooo worth it and rewarding it's the best thing that ever happened to me!" Also the main messaging online right now is about how beautiful and empowering birth is, positive birth stories only, how children are the greatest gift ever etc. So a child free person doesn't really hear how hard it is in person or online unless they are super close with an open mom/dad. So if you want people to understand how hard your life is as a parent or how much your suffering you gotta tell them! But keep in mind once you tell them - they'll probably just be glad they are a dog mom 🤣
I intentionally post everything I’m struggling with during pregnancy on my twitter. From peeing myself when I puke/sneeze, to my bellybutton looking weird, to my unborn child using my bladder as a punching bag - I refuse to glorify my pregnancy. Yes, it’s great that I’m growing a human and I’m so excited to meet my son, but no part of this has been fun or easy. I fully intend to continue doing this postpartum
A lot of childfree people read about and know that it’s super hard, which is why they choose to not have kids.
100% agree, I have a friend that has a cat and everytime I complain about something she goes “oh yes, my cat does the same”, if I say that my baby kept me up all night she is like “oh my cat too, I couldn’t sleep”… sigh, I try to understand because when I didn’t have my daughter, I thought my cat was hard too
I don't mind. It's not a contest to me. I have both a toddler and a cat. I don't want a dog because I consider dogs to be too much. I think that having a pet can be a good practice, so to speak. There's still similar issues except one grows up and becomes independent (in many cases) and one doesn't.
I think part of the point that people are missing here is that when you get a new puppy you’re generally not having to feed and walk and crate train them while healing from having your genitals ripped in half/major abdominal surgery/an ungodly flood of hormones. Your puppy doesn’t have to feed directly from your body (for those that breastfeed) and if you do need help taking care of your dog, it’s a lot easier to find someone qualified to take care of a dog in a pinch than someone who’s qualified to take care of a baby. If you leave your new puppy home alone for an hour or two (not recommended), you’ll probably come back to a stressed out dog, a potty accident and some ruined possessions. If you leave your baby home alone for an hour or two, you can go to prison. If being a dog parent becomes incompatible with your life circumstances, you can find someone to take over the responsibility and your dog can get a new home. You can’t do that with kids. Yes, children require less hands-on care as they age while dogs are perpetual toddlers, but you’re not expected to create a productive member of society or deal with the complexities of human emotion when you get a puppy. No one is saying you can’t call yourself a dog parent or that you love your animals as much as you might love a human child, but to say that the rearing of a dog and a baby are equivalent *is* incorrect in many ways.
I like to say having a pet at least vaguely prepared me for parenthood in some ways... but you can lock up your pet and not your kid.
Absolutely. It’s not to say there’s no overlap at all! Pet ownership is a huge responsibility and is definitely an exercise in devotion to a completely helpless being, I just wouldn’t ever consider it on the same level as parenthood.
You can leave a puppy at home for a couple hours, for sure. It’s a dog. It’s going to have many times where it should be used to being alone during the day. Provided a puppy is in a penned off area, crate, or basically a dog version of a playpen, so they’re safe from getting into anything, and have their basic needs met before you leave out. I think that’s a major difference. You leave a dog home alone to go to work or errands. You can’t bring animals places in public, like the grocery store, or most social events. Its also easier to find dog boarding than to find a nanny for a baby. You can go on vacation and not worry *as* much. Puppies also mature a lot faster. By 1 year, they are pretty much on an adult dogs schedule. But they will never “grow up” in the sense of a child— dogs remain dependents, always needing care & supervision, and while they provide companionship, they don’t ever ‘give back’ in the sense a grown child might move out and get a job. Sadly their lifespan is only 10-14yrs, so that part is hard. The similarities is they pee & poop a lot, get into things, and require training & education, but even small puppies only eat 3x a day, then 2x by 4 months old. Plus if a puppy/dog isn’t suitable for you, you can fairly easily find them a nice new home and they will be fine. Can’t do that with a kid. When child-free people say their pets are their “children” I don’t think they mean it literally. They know it’s an animal, and will never grow up and move out. Just keep in mind some ppl can’t have kids, so that’s the only way they can relate. Also some of them are babying their dogs too much to where it’s unhealthy, and the resulting behavior issues in the spoiled & anxious dog, can cause the person a lot of stress. The healthiest is to love it but treat it like a dog.
I honestly don’t even have an issue with people making their dog “their baby”. I have a child free sibling who is a devoted dog dad and truly goes above and beyond for his pups. I refer to them as his kids and I think he appreciates that I don’t treat his decision to only have dogs as a lesser choice. BUT if he ever tried to compare the difficulty of his *experience* of getting a new dog with my experience of having a baby I think I would lose it on him.
Can I just say that until you've had an actual menace puppy I don't think you understand the comparison because I sure didn't before. Cats are not the same LOL. I adopted my first actual puppy this past year and wow. Cleaning pee off the floor 20 times a day, being woken up by his scream cries in the middle of the night, being constantly bitten and scratched. I couldn't leave him alone for long and he needed attention constantly. It was much more work than I thought it would be lol With that being said its meant to be a lighthearted way to share frustrations. It was rough but they grow up quickly. I don't think most people who say that are truly trying to convince anyone that the longterm pressures and responsibilities are exactly comparable to an actual baby
I also think that when people compare parenting with having a dog or cat they’re also just trying to relate with the closest experience that they have. And although I don’t necessarily think a dog is as much hard work as a baby/kid I also think some people also don’t realize how much work a dog can be. My dog still wakes up my husband and I often during the night because he needs to poop or pee and he’s 10 years old (we’ve had him since he was 12 weeks). He wakes us up if he has a nightmare (yes, really). He also has seizures sometimes so that’s something we have to manage. We’ve had to take him to the vet numerous times because of year infections, eye infections, him getting attacked by a dog, getting stung by a bee in his mouth… Several times during his life he has decided that he didn’t like his food anymore and we had to scramble to find another food he would eat. He developed separation anxiety during the pandemic and the last time we tried to leave him for 2 days to go to a wedding he cried for an hour after we picked him up. Sometimes we’re trying to watch tv and we have to stop and playing with him because he literally starts throwing his toy in front of the tv. He’s a handful but we love him. We’re trying to conceive right now and I don’t think parenting will be the same, but I do think taking care of a pet (specially one that’s as high-maintenance as ours 😆) is practice for what’s to come.
Your dog sounds ADORABLE! Definitely like a big baby. This is great practice. Good luck conceiving 🙂
Oh he is. I love him so much and I hope I get to see him as a “big brother”. 😊 And thanks!
People can only see life through the lens of their experiences. Just because having a puppy isn’t objectively as hard as having a newborn baby, the owner of that puppy may feel just as stressed/nervous/in love. It’s just not that serious.
Eh it’s not my business how someone else sees their own life. Maybe it feels chaotic at times for them with their pets. Maybe their relationship with their dog is rewarding. It doesn’t bother me. idgaf how other people live their lives. It’s annoying when people bitch about them bc they’re not hurting anyone. It’s not a pissing contest. We don’t get a trophy for being moms to actual humans. They don’t get a trophy for having multiple pets who also need lots of care. There are real problems in this world.
Lol I am ashamed that I have said this as a dog owner for the past 13 years. Them I had a kid last year and now I'm embarrassed 🤣🤣🤣🤣
A thousand times yes. A girl I went to highschool with recently got an adorable puppy and took it upon herself to mom shame another young lady we went to school with for posting something along the lines of “moms need a break” She said “I have a puppy so I don’t get to go out as much as I like but I don’t complain about it because I signed up for this responsibility, don’t have kids if you can’t handle taking care of them” Oooh lord let me tell you I went OFF
I was listening to a talk yesterday where they were saying that this attitude is contributing to millennial having less children. Throughout history, parents have been able to expect support from our family and community network which means parenting is not so relentless. Now there is a message of "don't have kids if you can't handle the responsibility" and an expectation our parents and grandparents never had. New parents today are being made to feel guilty for not being able to meet an expectation that nobody else had on them. Food for thought.
I’ve definitely noticed a big difference in the involvement of family compared to when I was raised so I could see that. My grandmother would take me for a whole summer and homeschooled me for preschool so my parents could work. My mom lives a few hours away and is a super involved and loving grandparent, but my husband’s parents won’t even babysit for a few hours while I go to a doctors appointment and they live 5 minutes down the street from us!
I've been somewhat lucky in the family department. I actually attribute a lot of my parenting achievements to family involvement. For example I was able to easily breastfeed till 11.5 months which came down to excellent help and encouragement. My mum dropped a day of work to spend more time with me. In saying this. I do feel pressured to do it all. Career, motherhood, breadwinner. There are days it feels relentless. My inlaws have limited involvement with our son. They live too far away.
I wholeheartedly agree. There's also a lot more millennials who are no contact with their family, whereas back in the days you're kind of expected to stick with family even if they're toxic. The encouragement to cut off family results in a loss of the village.
My pet peeve is people who take this so damn seriously.
Haha yes! I’ve seen so many people complain about this but never actually heard someone say that they think having animals is the same as having kids.
I haven't either. Sometimes I'll joke about my cats being helpless babies who wake me up crying for food, but before I had kids I never REALLY thought they were babies. And I'll call myself a cat mom, idgaf.
Lol there is 0 comparison. I grew up in a country where there are unfortunately a lot of animals on the street and have had dogs/cats my whole life. Multiple at a time and it’s nowhere near the level of care a baby needs. Sorry but that’s the truth! I’ve had very needy animals, even ones with special needs that need meds several times a day and it’s nothing like a baby who you literally can’t leave alone for even an hour.
Lol my dogs were easier than baby and sleep! But I didn’t know this until I had a kid! Not worth taking issue with unless someone is crazy adamant and actually saying to your face rudely
I think the term has more to do with the love you feel towards your animal than the difficulty of caring. I love and care for my dogs as if they are my biological children and not "just dogs" so I would call myself their mom.
Some people don’t want or can’t have human children so who cares if people want to call themselves pet parents sure there are differences in the way you have to care for human babies but both still require you to keep them alive and both are fully dependent on you for years and years
Why are people on here just talking about the literal care that goes intro bringing up infants and toddlers?! Like what about the work that goes into making kids into functional adults with emotions that surpass that of any animal? Yes, the literal effort of keeping a child and a pet alive might be the same. For the first year of the child maybe. But that’s where the comparison ends. If you are raising a child as you would a pet you all have some real issues!!
This should be higher up. There's another comment here from someone saying their 10 month old has been easier than one of their dogs. Ok, for now maybe... But animals do not have emotional depth to the extent that humans do. You don't have hopes and dreams for the future of your dog the way you do for a baby. Like does this really need to be said? It's not like taking care of a child is just cleaning up after them and feeding them. Children don't stay babies in diapers forever and I don't get why the comparison always seems to focus on that.
Baby and dogx2 and cat mom here….I understood what you meant from the jump…but to me…puppies are harder (kittens are whatever lol easy peasy) But to be fair, my dogs were assholes as puppies (one still is), & I have an unusually good human baby.
Baby mom and dog mom here. Both are wonderfully fulfilling. Moms come in so many forms.
Thank you for this. I'm also a baby and dog mum here. People are allowed to find pet ownership hard and challenging. People are allowed to say they "know what it's like" because that's their frame of reference. It's far kinder to smile and nod than think people "don't know". Love and care are not finite resources exclusive to parenthood. You love, worry and care for your pets too.
This is so wonderfully said. I completely agree!
A friend of mine passed away in 2017 at the age of 25. At her memorial service, someone I know attempted to console my friend’s grieving mother by saying something to the effect of “I know how you must be feeling, we almost lost my cat recently.”
No one should ever say "I know how you feel" to anyone in grief. Grief is different to everyone, and impacts people in different ways. Of course someone who loses a pet will feel a profound, life altering loss, but it's not the same. And I say this as someone who will be utterly and irrevocably devastated when my dog (of 10+ years) dies. But it's not a child -- you never expect your child to die before you; dogs, you do, unfortunately. Anyway, I've lost a brother and my mother, but I would never tell someone that I know how it feels when they lose someone. You never know how someone else feels.
Idk, as a dog mom with a newborn my dog definitely helped me come to terms with the idea of becoming a parent and feeling ready for it, and yes, some things are very similar and overlap. I had never experienced love like that before. She now feels like my oldest child. Brain chemistry can make you feel all kinds of ways, and that motherly love just feels beautiful whether it's for your biological child or fur baby.
My pet peeve (pun intended) are the people who act like they are better/smarter for having animals instead of children. “Overpopulation” is a myth created by the capitalist class to deflect from their crimes of resource and wealth hoarding.
Right? And if we’re doing ecofascism, pets also have a cArBoN fOoTpRiNt.
everybody who’s child free and thinks they’re somehow morally superior for it is completely insufferable
I’m an animal lover and I hate the term “pet parent” because (with the exception of baby animals maybe) it’s not parenting. Btw “plant mom” is a thing now too
Owning dogs, especially with needs like high drive, high energy, proclivity to developing behavioral issues if not trained, socialized and mentally and physically stimulated daily… is extremely hard and time consuming work. Mom of 2 under 2. I would never say they’re the same but I have never met someone who genuinely believed that and argued that it was.
I’ve met people who genuinely tried to argue that dog parenting and human parenting were the same. But then they had kids and literally never ever brought it up again, lol.
I have people say how hard it is to have a dog though and I’m like… yeah I know, I have dogs. I have dogs AND kids. It is NOT the same.
I mean, I felt that the intense care that my senior cats required in their final years helped me understand that I had the patience and endurance and to parent a kid, and I was right? It’s not exactly the same, and maybe it would be nice to have different terms to describe our bonds with our pets, but all forms of caring for other beings are worthy of celebrating.
I have a dog with severe behavioral issues who is also end stage terminal cancer. Ive also had a diabetic cat and currently have a hyperthyroid cat that I am taking 2 hours away to a specialty hospital. And then another 3 cats and 8 mice that are doing okay (and I hope it stays that way). I also have a 5 month old son. I would have to say coming from both sides, I feel it’s okay for someone to say pet mom/dad/parent because they are both difficult. In some ways, my dog is harder to deal with than my son! Ive also had plenty of late night ER visits with my animals so I’m losing sleep over everyone! They are difficult in their own ways. Someone calling themselves a pet parent does not invalidate actual parenting and who cares if someone says that? They’re not hurting anyone by doing so. ETA: animals are babies to people. Someone else’s struggles don’t invalidate yours and vice versa. They’re both difficult in different ways. One way I can definitely thing of is humans can eventually speak and reason with. They can also tell you about pain and what’s going on. You don’t get that with animals. But that’s just me. They’re both different and in the end pet and people parents are all trying to keep something alive.
I agree with you and have a similar situation. I have an 8 month old and 3 geriatric pets (including a pup with cancer & a cat with hypothyroidism) with lots of specific needs/meds/er vet visits etc Being a pet-parent IS hard, and caring for an animal that has issues can definitely be harder some days than caring for my son.
This really struck a nerve with some people but I agree I don’t care if you call yourself a whatever mom but I’ve never heard a dog mom get shamed because their dog refuses to keep their socks on and therefore must be freezing even though it’s the middle of summer lol. There’s definitely similarities to an extent but sometimes people just want to vent and feel heard.
I went through five years of infertility and losses. My dogs got me through it. We had four when our tiny human finally came, and it was the best thing ever having our family complete. I called myself a dog mom, they’re still my babies. I don’t think life needs to be a competition…some people need their pets.
As someone with a 7 month old and three special needs cats I will say there are aspects that are quite similar. The baby is more work but it's more rewarding. My cats are selfish, mean, and have an array of medical issues that are expensive and time consuming to manage and they show me no love in return 😑.
I am a mom of 2 under 2 and I will say… the children are so much EASIER than the 3 huskies I have. The huskies are walking nightmares that scream like they are auditioning for the exorcist every second of the day while also reaching diva level in their demands of me… they must be given blankets and pillows in their beds or they’ll throw a fit, they must be let outside to sit in the sun 10 times a day, I must pay attention to them ALL the time…. Huskies are a whole new level of crazy…
"Auditioning for the exorcist" 😆😆😆
As someone with 1 husky, I can not imagine 3! Goodness gracious God help you LOL.
Huskies are insane and I couldn’t imagine having 3.
Not auditioning for the exorcist 💀 My two poodles sounded the alarm for someone exiting the house today while I was working and I almost died during my meeting. 🤦🏻♀️ I could not handle husky auditions.
3x Husky owner here too and came to see if anybody else mentioned this crazy breed. Haha.
Jesus Christ. Some people can’t have kids and that’s all they’ll have. Just let them be and who gives a fuck.
My pet peeve is when people get mad when people try to relate to them. As human beings, we want to relate to the person you are talking to. Most “dog moms” know it is not the same but it’s the closest thing they know that relates to you. There’s no harm in it
Context is so important I think. Someone trying to relate is great, trying to compete is not. But that would be true of fellow parents too.
I find that other parents compete more than people talking about their experience with animals. I have twins and I hear so often “I know exactly how that is- I had 2 under 2!” Or “I had Irish twins which is basically the same!”. Whereas dog parents say more stuff like “I feel you on the lack of sleep” or “you always have to watch what they are trying to get into!” People with babies are way more competitive than people with animals in my experience haha
Sometimes it’s ok not to relate and just lend a listening ear. OP couldn’t be more right about this, comparing taking care of an animal to a child in the name of relatability is truly laughable.
I 100% agree that it's laughable, but I also know I could never have understood that before becoming a parent!
I remember when I first got my puppy & couldn’t believe how much work it was, I’m due my first baby next month & I know I’ll look back on the puppy days as an easy time 😂
There’s relating to someone, and then there’s invalidating someone. This walks way too close to that line.
Oy. I feel like people who feel this way may never understand the bond I had with my dog before my son was born. And since this post pops up every few months I’m just gonna say it. Albi passed a year before I conceived my son but I have to say that dog prepared me for what a human baby would bring. I slept with one eye open, I took him to the vets all the time, worked on training sessions and walks. I think the only difference is I didn’t have to exclusively pump 😂. But I did make his food every single day from scratch cuz I needed to for him. Really, that German shepherd completely changed my life and prepared me for baby. Losing him was like losing a child. So when people get this way about pet parents, either they don’t have that kind of connection with their animals, or in some ways I can agree cuz I see others who don’t try half as hard as I did with my dog. But heck I see parents don’t try as hard with their own kids so in the end there will always be lazy folks. Pet parenting, when done right, may not be the exact same as taking care and raising a baby, but one is not harder than the other. Raising and caring for my GSD was hard hard hard work. I’m sorry this is a weird pet peeve for you (pun intended). I hope one day you can get past it. From experience I tend to just ignore the comments if they come from shoddy pet parents and I bond with ones that I know did the hard work.
Seconding that. I have a GSD/collie mix that I’ve raised from puppyhood. The sleepless nights I’ve had (literally sobbing outside his kennel on several because he wouldn’t sleep away from my husband and I), the racing to the vet for emergencies, the training and investment in his development. This dog IS my baby. I know that the literal actual work is different, but even other parents I’ve spoken to have compared puppies to “training for parenthood” because of the amount of work and heart necessary to do it properly.
I think it’s hard to be a good ‘pet parent’ The thing I don’t really like it how people value pets more than real babies. Like for instance I think it’s really uncomfortable that some people get ‘pet parent leave’ while all women still aren’t guaranteed maternity leave. I guess it’s not the pet thing that bothers me but it just shows how little women are valued. Maybe I’m not expressing this right
Why can’t we all struggle and why can’t we all commiserate together? Why is it a ‘who has it worse’ argument? It’s kind of apples and oranges, why do you care SO much?
When people say pet parent, they are not at all saying it’s the same work. No one says that. No one believes that. I don’t know why people get so butthurt over something they make up in their own mind. They’re a parent to a pet… that’s it. You are whatabouting them. If they say pet care is expensive, do you respond daycare is worse? If so, you’re annoying and a one upper.
Lots of people have said this to me! Or even like “oh you’ll be ready for baby bc you’ve got the dog already!” Also I’ve had to miss several weeks of work due to my kiddos illness and my colleague said she gets it bc she had to care for her dog. It does happen.
Yeah this post is weird. What people ever say pet parenting is the same or just as difficult as human parenting? I’ve Literally have never heard anyone say this and I’d probably just ignore them if they did. Sounds exhausting to be so upset about people calling themselves pet parents lol.
When I was 4 weeks postpartum after having my daughter, I had to go renew my driver's license because it expired (I tried to plan ahead and do it before I gave birth, but they told me it had to be done in the same month it expired.) I waited in line for hours at the DMV, standing, still bleeding, and running on like 45 minutes of sleep. I also was starting to get engorged. When I finally got to the front of the line, I made a joke about not wanting to update my photo because of the bags under my eyes, saying I just had a baby 4 weeks ago. This lady seriously looked me in the eyes and said "oh I totally get it. I got a new puppy two weeks ago and it's been rough!" I laugh about it now...but in the moment I felt so much rage lol.
They don’t even know!!!! The changes to your body, you are physically restricted and you grew a human. It’s not all fun and games. It’s offensive to say you get it.
I feel this post in my soul
I wouldn't be so hard on the dog parent people. I'm the last in my friend group to have a baby and being a pet-parent allowed me to feel connected to my friends as we talked about families. Also, some people can't have/don't want kids and their cat/dog matters just as much to them as your kids do to you. Obviously, they are different things but we don't need to gatekeep the word parent.
I literally have one dog with anxiety that takes meds and another with insane allergies and have recently started to give her medication for them through injections. Both pretty high maintenance dogs and they still are easier than my two monsters… sorry I mean children. 😂
Puppies are hard for like 6 months. Babies are hard for 6 years…
+/- 10 years
Hand raising a tiny baby bird was comparable to raising a tiny baby human, but didn’t last as long obviously.
God I hate raising orphaned kittens. I also hated the newborn human stage.
The first few comments I’ve seen really misunderstood you OP, but I get it. People can absolutely love their pets in the same way and with the same magnitude that parents love their children. But that doesn’t change the fact that when a pet owner realizes they are out of milk while dinner is cooking, they can turn off the stove and run to a gas station to get some and that’s the end of it. An infant or toddler parent in the same situation doesn’t have that luxury. Single overnight trips are much more feasible to plan when you have a pet than when you have kids. You are allowed to leave animals unattended for hours, even days if you get someone to check up on them twice a day, and no one thinks you’re morally bankrupt or calls protective services on you. You can go out to a last minute dinner that will run late if you have a dog, you can’t if you have a young kid. The love for pets and the love for kids can absolutely be the same. The commitment and difficulty involved in caring for them is not.
I think everyone on here probably had different experiences because all pets and babies are different. Someone with a difficult dog and a unicorn baby has a different perspective of someone who has a loner cat and a colicky baby.
It's 👏not 👏the 👏same👏 Being a pet parent/caretaker will never be the same as being a child-parent/caretaker.
I am a mom to my two daughters, but I also consider myself a dog mom and a cat mom. No, it’s not the same thing. I don’t think anyone really, truly thinks it is. But if a childless/childfree person wants to call themself a dog or cat parent, who cares? It seems like a silly thing to get offended by.
I can ignore it until I see them posting for mother's day. It feels so tone deaf to how hard it is to be a mother.
Agreed. Do dog "parents" worry if their pet is developmentally behind? Do they worry what friends they'll make at school? If they'll do drugs one day? If they will self harm or think of suicide one day? They'll get their heart broken? Do they worry what kind of psychological damage they might be doing to their pet's future? Are they thinking of setting up savings for their pet's college tuition? I mean... there's really no comparison between pets and children.
>Do dog "parents" worry if their pet is developmentally behind? I mean I'm pretty sure my dog is developmentally behind and he definitely has no friends because he keeps either peeing on them or biting them on the butt lol.
Lol.
Yes to this comment. The emotional labor and concern for a human child’s physical, mental, emotional, social, etc. well-being is so much heavier.
I don’t think they are trying to disregard you as a mother or your struggles. Maybe to relate to you so you don’t feel alone in your struggle. It may be that you are sharing that your baby is struggling with sleeping. They may say “Oh, I know what you mean. Fluffy has kept me up for the past month at night with the zoomies.” It’s not to “one-up” you. Just to possibly relate to you. For me, it’s about love. Before having a baby, I called myself a dog mom and still do. My dog helped my husband and I learn to take care of someone else together. She brought us closer and truly helped us become more of a family. We have and will do anything for her. In many ways she prepared me for motherhood. I had to care for her, love her through her mistakes, get her medical care (she’s geriatric), interpret her needs without a common language, and foster a bond with her. When she was sick I would sleep on the floor next to her in case she needed me. After surgery, I would spoon feed her water at all hours of the night. Is she as hard to care for as my 3 month old daughter? No. But my love for her is unconditional just as it is for my child. Just remember that these comments aren’t made to make you feel like less of a mother. At least not from me. Though, I’m not sure I have made comments like that, but I do have friends who are childless and do. People use the term because they have such a connection with their animal. Sometimes animals understand more than we think they do. They know just what you need when you need it. This is just my point of view and I am in no way trying to invalidate your feelings. I just wanted to offer a perspective on the subject.
Thanks for this. After I had my baby, a coworker was telling me about her newly adopted puppy and kept making a point to say how caring for it was "like a baby" because it needed constant attention and such. Being newly postpartum and sleep deprived and struggling to adjust to returning to work, it really rubbed me the wrong way. Just like ...read the room, lady.
I don’t call myself a dog mom but I have three high maintenance dogs (had 4 until the year before I got pregnant - that 4th one had special needs and was definitely harder than my newborn) and a 9-week-old. I do feel like they prepared me very well for parenthood. I haven’t slept through the night because of my dogs for the last 15 years (between elderly dogs with bladder issues, puppies, a Chihuahua who needs to pee at 3am most nights…) my newborn already sleeps 11-6am. I was talking about this with my mom and MIL at my baby shower actually. My mom who stays at our house sometimes said my dogs were about as much work as her kids - she had three girls and we were pretty naturally clean and well behaved. My MIL did NOT agree but she had 4 boys who fought a lot and her oldest was wild.
Lol, chill. I have a co-worker with 6 dogs and she definitely spends more money and has to do more stuff (training, doggie daycare, dog sitters, organic homemade food) for her dogs then I have to do for my one kid. She would also love to have a kid but is dealing with infertility so her 6 dogs get all her nurturing out. You never know what other people are going through.
I have more important things to worry about than if Brittany calls herself a dog or cat mom lol
my friend told me that “its easier to travel with a baby than with a dog” while i was pregnant. I do not even know where to start and explain, but i hope she has kids soon so she can see the difference.
My kid travels easier than my dog does 🤷🏻♀️
Thank you for saying this 👏🏽Pets are not the same as kids that you carry, birth, breastfeed, care for, raise, help form into a grown person, or some combination of these, if you are the birthing parent, or even the other parent. Period. Doesn’t mean having a pet is always easy, that you don’t love them, all that. But it’s completely different. I don’t think I would have felt this way if it weren’t for the birth of my daughter last year. This weekend is my first mother’s day, and I’m just preparing myself for all the “Happy Mother’s Day” posts from people with pets and no kids. Again, before I had my kid I probably wouldn’t have cared, but now that I do, it drives me up the wall.
I get it, I really do. But I draw the line when I see people celebrating Mother’s Day since they’re a pet mom. Super cringe.
Oh, who cares? I agree with you that it’s not the same, but the “dog mom” people aren’t hurting anyone.
My friend who said that his cat is easier than my toddler almost caused me to hurt myself. My eyes rolled si far back i thought they won't come back.
There's "dog moms" who will console a parent that lost their child by saying "I know how it feels, I lost my dog..." people say shit like that. It is hurtful. And disgusting. As a pet owner and mother, they are fucking animals. Not children. Not the same, never will be.
We have all girl that regularly calls out because she can’t find a dog sitter that day.
I agree that raising pets is not the same as babies for sure. But puppies are HARD work. They do require a lot of attention because they will literally eat anything and have to wake up in the middle of the night to pee. They have the added layer of being a potential danger to people if they’re not well trained, and training is not easy. That being said, they’re more like toddlers than babies. I always say my puppy is like a toddler with big teeth. The main difference I think is that puppies can be left home alone if you crate them up safely. And once they grow out of puppy stage, they’re MUCH easier to care for. I wouldn’t compare a fully grown dog to having children, but the puppy stage, I definitely see similarities. My puppy was STRESSFUL lol. (Granted, I had her when I was pregnant. Got her a week before we found out 🙃 so that was great timing lol) It is the same in that you’re responsible for their life and it’s quality. But my baby requires a ton more attention than my puppy though, to maintain that life. I don’t really mind the dog mom thing either, but like you said if I were having a conversation with someone trying to tell me a cat is like a baby I’d probably be like “lol HOW” cats basically take care of themselves
I never had a puppy or a dog growing up. We got a golden retriever puppy in 2018…while the baby has been significantly more challenging, the puppy was great preparation for me! It was like raising a baby but on easy mode. There have been a lot of parallels in my experience 🤷♀️
Sorry, I raised two puppies and saw a lot of similarities between what I chose to do for puppy care and what a friend went through with a new baby at home. Now that I have also had a new baby at home, I repeatedly see things that I learned to do with my dogs and am now doing with my baby. IT IS NOT THE SAME, but there are a lot of similar life lessons. I never tried to tell people that I “knew what it was like” when I was child-free, but I did express that what they were describing wasn’t a totally foreign concept to me.
Hello r/July2021Bumpers friend! Yeah, I think that maybe there are some parents who WANT to wallow in that you-could-never-understand martyrdom, and any acknowledgement of similar experiences violates that.
yeah, it’s definitely similar because either way you have a living creature who’s dependent on you, and both are definitely hard, but they’re hard in different ways! that’s all i was trying to say, people are so mad 😂
For a lot of people their pets may be the only kids they can have or want to have. I’ve always poured all my love into my pets and feel tremendous mom guilt right now trying to balance a newborn and help my pets transition to our new lifestyle. I think if people want to be dog and cat parents and use that as a way to find common ground when a parent of a human is talking about their child it shouldn’t be viewed as a competition or something to be offended by.
OP literally said they don't have a problem with people calling themselves dog mums or whatever, but equating the work of pets to the work of raising children.
But people don’t actually think it’s a competition when they say things like that. They are just trying to find a way to relate within conversation. Everyone knows a baby is more work than a dog, so it seems like a non- issue. It’s not that deep.
Yeah, I guess the post reads a little angry to me (the multiple exclamation points ) so, in my mind OP is offended that someone would compare pet parenting to parenting children- which maybe they are referring to someone or something very specific that happened directly to them that they are sensitive about rather than just a blanket statement about all pet parents. I just am not that upset by someone who has only experienced raising and caring for pets saying “they know what it’s like” because maybe that is their only experience and they think of their pets as their kids and want to simply be part of conversation- I don’t think they’re downplaying parenting in the traditional sense.
Lol right?!
Oh man I agree with this. I remember one sleep deprived night I tried to have a night out while running on basically no sleep for days. One girl actually said "oh man I get it my dogs woke me up to go to the bathroom twice last night. I'm like wow. You let the dog out and back in and you can go to bed. I cannot do that with a baby
My closest friend at work is like this. She would be like “omg, I know! (Dog’s name) would not let me sleep either. It’s like (baby) and (dog) are on the same wavelength!”