Surely DD is being unreasonable!?

[Amskay]

This is a bit lighthearted as the reality is, who gives a fuck?

Anyway, DD has had pets growing up - hamsters, fish, cats and a dog. The dog was the "family" pet, each DC had a cat each, same for hamsters and fish (not all at the same time!) and it was basically known as theirs - picked a name, etc. didn't have a say over their food, care, etc. though but that's obviously because they were kids.

DD has got a pet recently (it's a reptile) and she is now 18 but lives at home and has it in her room. She has paid for everything (obviously) and has absolutely all control over it I don't want anything to do with it

She keeps calling it "her first pet" and I'm like what about Scooby, Fluffy, whatever? Her answer is "they weren't my pets though?" And I'm literally like wtf. She says the reality was they were family pets so basically ours (mine and DH)...

Come on. Who even thinks like that? For those security questions, when they ask what was your first pet, I put the gerbil I got when I was 7's name, not the cat I got when I officially moved out.

Who is right?

You're right! She's being unreasonable! Her first pet indeed! Fluffy will be spinning in her grave!

First pet is the first pet you ever knew in your family as a child. Even if it wasn't 100% your responsibility, you still played a part and vice versa, so that's gotta be the first pet surely!!

I know it's unbelievable! Nothing like forgetting them, eh?

She says they were pets, but not her own pets, so they don't count? I can't even see the logic.

This is funny. I'm getting a pet in a week and it's my first pet that I've officially had full control over. Of course I count all my other pets as my pets, but they are childhood pets and were never my responsibility. This one feels very different and my first "own official pet" other family members also refer to it as that WRT me, so we all think it!

she is a teenager and thinks she is the center of the universe. when she is 25 ask her the same question.
SIBVU

I see her point

We had lots of cats growing up I was very attached to but I still see my hamster that I took away with me when I left home more as "mine"

Has she got a beardie? Ours makes me feel very maternal for some bizarre reason. Could be that

I see her point tbh.

My first house, for me, would be the first house I owned myself. Not the first house i lived in.

And tbh, i did feel differently about the first dog i bought, looked after, paid for myself.

Nope. The pet I put for security is the first pet 'owned' by me. Although perhaps it should be framed the other way - the first pet who I was owned by - and that wasn't the pets from my childhood home who owned my dm.

She is BU. Hope you're charging her for heat lamp bills.

My first pet was a tortoise. He was a family pet but he was also mine.
My first pet I bought and looked after myself was a guineapig - but he still wasn't my first pet, that was the tortoise.

You said yourself, this is the first pet she's been completely responsible for, including financially. I'm sure she loved the other pets, but I see why this feels different for her.

I do see her point. In a sense, earlier pets are like having 'siblings' (metaphorically speaking). You love and care about/for them, but they're not your 'responsibility'. Your own first pet is like having your own 'child' (again, metaphorically not in the 'furbaby' way). So whilst you can love all pets, it's a bit different when you have 'full' responsibility for one and they in turn are 'all yours'.

I expect all she means is that this is the first one she has paid for and been totally responsible for. She might be feeling a bit insecure about whether she is still acting like a child if she is living at home with no hope of affording to rent her own place. It's a difficulransition to adulthood. She is comforting herself and probably doesn't realise you feel offended by her not calling the pets she had as a child hers.

Thanks for the replies