To think you don't love your pets half as much once you have kids

[ishouldtryabitmoreachday]

We have a dog. We had him a couple of years before I had a baby. We'd had a previous dog together and my parents had a dog when I was in my teens. But I just don't love my dog like I did before I had kids.

My dog is looked after, he's walked twice a day, groomed and wormed, flea stuff and is part of the family. He goes most places with us, but I just don't have that love I had before I had kids. It's hard to explain, is it just me .. AIBU?

OP, I don't think anyone should berate you for being honest. If that's how you feel, it's how you feel.

The love I have for my dogs is a different kind of love that I have for my kids. But both, equally, intense.

If I had to save one or the other; it would be my child.

If someone offered me 5 million in exchange for my dogs, I can, hand on heart, not part with them. There are times when I would have parted with my naughty child for a fiver!

They are (dogs) an integral part of my life.

They stay the same.

As much as I adore my children, I sometimes wish I'd adopted 20 dogs and remained childless. Less heartache.

Yes, perhaps, that's horrifying to some. But not in my mind. Because it's my mind, not yours.

I think the people who love their dog more than / the same as their children either have fundamentally failed to bond with their children or they have problems and issues elsewhere. Loving animals is lovely. I do too. I can imagine caring more about my dog than people I don’t know. But your own children? That is all wrong to me.

@potter5

I am a member of a specific breed of dog club on FB. Recently a woman posted a request for methods to discipline her dog as hitting him hadn't worked. I responded saying that she was a disgrace and didn't deserve a dog. She told me to shut the fuck up!

I think that there are varying degrees of love for a dog.. OP still loves her dog but her child must take priority.

She hit her dog? Ffs, I can’t believe anyone would actually admit to that.

With every thread like this I read, I further understand why we have such a growing MH problem in the UK as evidenced by the sheer emotional incontinence of so many; the scale of the vitriol directed at those who recognise there should be a hierarchy within a household dynamic where the pet doesn't trump the baby!

I mean, feeling the same love towards the dog as you would had you actually given birth to it is weird.

Okay, so frequently here we have:

"YABU, love isn't a finite resource, you can love two things" - Well no shit. But for a lot of women, the love they feel when they have their children immensely outweighs the love they previously felt for their pets, because science. Maybe they do love their dog the same as before, but the love for the child now feels more intense. Considered that?

"Poor dog shouldn't be neglected now you've had children" - well done. That's basic empathy right there. But F- for literacy, as nowhere did OP say she is neglecting her dog. She made it very clear that the dog is getting all the same treatments as before DC came along.

"Your dog can tell it's not as loved as your kids" - your kids can tell they're not as loved as your dog. That's when they start lashing out at school, acting up at home, it becomes all kinds of a shit show.

"you shouldn't be a dog owner OP" - I have never said this before in my entire life, but there's a first time for everything: If you love your dog more than your kids, you shouldn't have kids. Find your kids a new forever home, where they'll be loved like actual human beings. Then you and your dogs can run away into the sunset guilt free.

Well done OP you’ve just experienced a true mumsnet baptism of fire!

I had the same over ten years ago regarding my wonderful dog Baiseyboo.

In honesty I think you are confusing loving less to loving differently. You sound like a lovely dog mum.

I know what you mean, I still love my cats but don't sit and cuddle them as much anymore as I've always got a child on me and when I don't I like the space. I do still enjoy a cuddle with them when it happens, but it's not as common.

atalsohuman

Yes. She admitted it.
She got very defensive when I told her that she shouldn't be allowed to have a dog.
Would have reported her but she's not in the UK.

I actually felt like this, yes I know super unpopular opinion. I had a difficult pregnancy and PP pre eclampsia to deal with and a poorly newborn. I was knackered and poorly myself - dog was seen to but I didn't have the energy for her anymore. My brother actually took her as he and his partner wanted a dog anyway and could give her more time. Do I regret it? No.

I totally agree OP, I used to adore animals but as soon as I became a mum it all changed. I still loved them but they were very much down the chain in my priorities.
I still cared for them properly but as they died they weren’t replaced. Sadly I never rekindled my love of animals in the same way.

If you love your pet as much as your children then you can’t be much of a parent.

@LunchBoxPolice

If you love your pet as much as your children then you can’t be much of a parent.

Or you love your pet A LOT.

No also, sorry.

There is something very weird and quite chilling about those who love their dog and child “the same.”

Anyone claiming to love a pet more than their child is weird, weird, weird.

I think what a poster said upthread about people not being able to handle human relationships, so preferring pets is spot on.

A human being your own off spring is not even in the same league as an animal - I hope all these people are hardcore vegans too who think the animal is comparable. A dogs life is not worth any more or less than any other animal (I eat meat).

I think that’s true as well IPity and it probably passes down too.

If you grow up feeling that your emotional and physical needs are at least on a level with a dog, that’s not a healthy environment to grow up in.

I'm the same op. No guilt about it either.

This thread is so weird 😳 of course you continue to love your pets but obviously you love your kids more intensely, you’re programmed to do that. I’m sure not one of the posters giving the OP shit would save their pet before their kids

I agree OP to a certain extent. When our daughter was born, I struggled with the dog. Like you he was cared for and walked etc but he worried me around the baby, always sniffing at her and whacking her with his tail etc. I found myself resenting him. Once she was a little older i worried less and things got better. It was just a blip with the pressures of a new baby.

Wow, I don't understand the vitriol directed at the OP.

Yes, we have a dog and yes, I totally understand where you're coming from. Having a traumatic birth and unsettled baby left me emotionally 'spent' in the early months. I didn't have anything left for my husband, let alone the poor dog. That doesn't mean she wasn't loved, wanted and cared for. It just means a bomb went off in my emotional landscape and it took a while for the dust to settle.

No pets here so can’t relate exactly. However I wonder if it’s just because all your focus is on the kids now and you just have less love to give.

I found this however now kids are teens we all love the animals as much as I did before

This thread is bizarre.

I have 2 cats who I love and adore but there is no comparison between my love for them and my DS. He comes first every time. Before my DS came along I was a lot more over the top about them, wouldn't let them out after a certain time of night etc. Now I don't have the energy to have those same worries and they are actually probably happier to be less restricted. I still love, cuddle and fuss them though.

One poster above said her dogs needs came first above her dd, I really can't understand that thinking.

@icansmellburningleaves, is it a wind-up?
If not, there will be topics about you as DM on Mumsnet in a few years time from your children.
If you don't want your children to spend years in therapy, you need to think of getting therapy/help yourself, to become a loving mum your dc deserve.

@devildeepbluesea,

I don't understand this either, are you saying that your DD knows that looking after the dog is always a priority over looking after her/spending time with her etc? Does she get the same amount of time one on one with you(without you getting distracted by the dog) as the dog gets?

And for people who baby their dogs, isn't it a well known fact that dogs were not bred for being the centre of attention and it turns them into unhappy neurotic needy creatures? Dogs thrive on distinct hierarchy and being able to fulfil their destiny of helpers and companions, not some kind of overpetted soft toys.
I'm sure for this reason OP's dog is much better off now for this very reason :)

This is the post I was referring to.

Yesterday 23:35 puppymouse

Nope. Had our dog two years before DD and he's the source of much annoyance to her because I won't allow her to so much as criticise a hair on his head and his needs come first because he can't advocate or speak up for himself like she can