People care more about dog ownership than people becoming parents?

[ElektraAbundance]

This has always had me wondering as both a dog owner and parent.

Ive noticed how having a baby is actively encouraged by lots of people. Colleagues, family members, friends etc. People ask other if they want kids, that they’ll make a great mum/dad etc.

This is regardless of living in a small house/flat, being skint, poor mental health or being in an early on relationship.
I remember years ago saying to someone me and DP wouldn’t be having a baby until we’d moved somewhere bigger and we’re met with ‘It’s fine, I had 3 kids in a 1 bed flat at one point. You make room’ and about finances ‘you just manage.’

On the flip side, if someone even thinks about getting a dog, it is so discouraged.

It’s met with:
Thats a lot of work!
Their expensive!
You work full time?!
You have to walk them everyday!
Your house/garden is too small
Its a huge commitment

As though having a baby isn’t any of those things or less of a commitment.

If people put as much thought into having a baby as they did dog ownership the world would be a very different place.
Why is this?

i have a dog and a child.

no idea what kind of dogs you have but I have mad many a duvet day over the years with my dog and not had a destroyed house and pee everywhere.
The first year of training a puppy is hard but after that daily walks, food and a cuddle is fine.

Whether you have a new born, toddler, child or teenager it is definitely harder mentally, emotionally and physically. It’s much more expensive also.

If you honestly believe having a dog is harder and needs more thought out into than having an actual human being then I don’t know what to say.

I mean theres no denying having a baby is a far bigger decision than getting a pet! But theyre different... I guess people have more to say when someone says they're getting a dog as opposed to having a baby because babies grow up and become more independent, go to school etc. Having a dog is like having a baby for 16 years. You don't need to take a baby for a walk 4 times a day so it can poo, and you don't get 9 months off work to settle the puppy when you bring it home. You can't just hop on a flight for your annual holiday with a dog, and you can't take them with you on day trips or Weekends away unless you go to very specific dog friendly places. In my experience dogs are more of a burden than kids, and I say that as someone with 2 dogs who I love to pieces. I would always explain these things to any of my friends who expressed interest in getting a dog, maybe I'm wrong to, but there are far more people who get dogs and realise its too much work so send them to a shelter, than there are people having kids and trying to sell them on because they don't suit their lifestyle.

I'd never comment on someone having a baby because, like I said, it's a much bigger decision and not just a sales transaction like buying a dog!

(Just to be clear - I do NOT think dogs are more work than children. Not at all. Just in case my PP made it sound that way!)

It’s because having a baby is seen as a woman’s right (the responses on a recent thread defending women oopsing men on the basis that women need to have babies a good case in point). Any suggestion that it might not be the most sensible idea for Mary to have her 6th child whilst living in a small flat and/or living pay check to pay check is seen as deeply misogynistic.

Having a dog is seen as a privilege so people react differently.

My dog is sadly no longer with us, though he lived to a good age. It took a good couple of years to be able to leave him reliably, and until he hit middle age, he did need a great deal of exercise and stimulation - which he absolutely got.

If you read my post, I didn't say it was a harder commitment, I said it was a different commitment, with italics on the 'different' to emphasise this.

You put it so eloquently what I’m trying to get at.

Even a poster on here has just broke down point by point why having a dog is so hard and so much work and how babies you have a limited time frame to have. Like it’s fine to just have an actual human being even if your skint, unhoused etc. but a dog?! Oh no look how hard they are; they stay infants forever!!

I wish people thought and had as much compassion for actual humans as they do dogs.

Someone posts they having a nasty DP who solely owns the house, no money and little family support and are pregnant. Everyone’s like ‘keep the baby, ditch the dp’ but if you changed baby to dog, they’d be flamed! Rightly so. But why don’t babies get that right too?

But isn’t it just evolution? We’re geared to want children and to encourage other people to have children, from instinct and hormones and some kind of Neanderthal DNA hard-wired coding to make sure we’re all encouraging each other to procreate.

The human race would die out if we didn’t do this to each other. We’d be fine without dogs, though, so we don’t have that sleeper agent “Ooh, you should have one!” auto response to a dog as we do a baby. Babies are a heart decision and dogs are a head one. And our instincts are centuries out of date, still working to an era where you’d have a village to raise a baby, and no climate crisis to consider.

Mind you I wish the dog owners in my neighbourhood who leave their crap everywhere had thought a little bit harder about “am I willing to pick up mounds of poo from the pavement?” before the embarked on dog ownership, so not everyone does run through all the considerations.

Very good points OP. Mind you, I think some people have a bloody irresponsible attitude to both pets and children. As a previous poster said, children deserve so much better than being brought up in chaos with everyone just about coping.

I agonised for years about having children. Yes, I probably would have 'coped' but I didn't want to spend a huge chunk of my life just 'coping'. I wanted life to be much more fulfilling than that, and I knew deep down that I would not have managed well with the relentlessness of parenthood. I can also see the appeal of having a dog - I like dogs, but I REALLY don't want to organise my life around one, or have to get up and walk the dog at 7am 365 days a year. So no babies or pets in this house - that's sad at times, but you have to make these decisions with your eyes wide open

But if you can’t do it before a baby then it’s gonna be 10x harder WITH a baby.

If I say to you, I have a top floor 1 bedroom flat, work full time and often overtime to clear my overdraft so work 60 hours a week out of the house. I have a new relationship with DP of 1 year but he’s also in debt and has poor mental health so is unable to hold down work and sleeps a lot, but I’m 39 and really want dc.

How would you respond?

Now change dc with dog. How would you respond?

That’s very insightful of you and very responsible. I wish these kinds of conversations and considerations were the norm.

@Daisychainsx Thats exactly my point though Daisy.

Dogs are hard work and so many considerations needs to be made. So we often make people consider these responsibilities if they mention wanting a dog.

But when it comes to dc these considerations aren’t mentioned or even thought about and people are actively encouraged to go for it regardless of the circumstances.

@ElektraAbundance As a few people have said, it’s because having kids is seen as an entitlement and pointing out adverse circumstances is classist and/or misogynistic, whereas having a dog is a privilege so you need to meet criteria.

You can’t adopt a child without being interrogated at length about your circumstances, and many people are ruled out for relatively minor things. The difference isn’t that people care more about dogs than babies, the difference is that reproduction is seen as a right.

Agree completely, having a child is seen as a human right and I really wish we could change that narrative. Children deserve better and they need much more than love.
There are far too many children in terrible situations I wish there was something we could do to reduce that.
I would never encourage anyone to have a child if anything less that great circumstances.
Stable relationship, stable housing, stable job and savings should be standard.

I agree. There are so many threads here which are someone saying they want a 3rd/4th when they are on the bones of their arse already, live in a two bed, their existing children have additional
needs etc etc and the response is never “that’s a shit idea” it’s omg chubby baby wrists!!! You must!!!!

If I say to you, I have a top floor 1 bedroom flat, work full time and often overtime to clear my overdraft so work 60 hours a week out of the house. I have a new relationship with DP of 1 year but he’s also in debt and has poor mental health so is unable to hold down work and sleeps a lot, but I’m 39 and really want dc.

The new relationship with an unstable partner in debt is a no go. If I was that person and a baby was a priority for me then I’d choose to go it alone, without them. We see on here far too often women having children with unsuitable men.

But the first part; particularly the small home is sailing very close to the ‘poor people shouldn’t have children’ frame of thinking. Which is just wrong. I don’t agree with purposefully bringing multiple children into poverty, but having one child in a one bed flat is not the end of the world. Not ideal but not the end of the world.

But the first part; particularly the small home is sailing very close to the ‘poor people shouldn’t have children’ frame of thinking. Which is just wrong. I don’t agree with purposefully bringing multiple children into poverty, but having one child in a one bed flat is not the end of the world. Not ideal but not the end of the world.

I would judge the hell out of a single person who works 60 hour weeks and is permanently in their overdraft and living in a one bed flat having a child. I couldn’t care less if that’s sailing too close to an argument about poverty. “Not ideal but not the end of the world” is not the standard that should be applied to bringing a life into the world. The only reason why this is deemed acceptable is because we think people have a greater right to reproduce than children do to a decent standard of living.

We love having our dog she is such a help with relaxation and mental health she is a fantastic companion when my DH is on nights . We are also parents enjoyed that too but our dog never asks for money or or to borrow the car which a plus 😂

Completely agree. People give less thought to the life the child will have and the circumstances they’ll be born into to that of a dog. It’s an unpopular opinion on here but I don’t think people should have kids they can’t afford to house, feed or clothe properly. If you wouldn’t do it to a dog, why would you do it to a child? Having kids is not the right or entitlement people seem to think it is.

It's not about entitlement, there's an existential imperative to reproduce.

Someone posting in desperation about missing their one and only chance to have a child is not remotely comparable to thinking about getting a pet. Comparing the two is disingenuous and you know it.

People don't kill themselves because they can't get a pet, they do about infertility.

They are not the same, that's why they're approached differently.

The human race doesn’t need to continue existing. We’re evolved enough to educate ourselves out of biological urges. If some people never find themselves in the right circumstances to have a baby but really want one - well, tough.

@ElektraAbundance Ahhh sorry I totally misunderstood!

Yeah I know what you mean, in my line of work I see a lot of people having multiple children that they can't afford to/don't have the resources or capacity to care for. It's sad for everyone involved. I think part of the issue is that maybe not many women in these circumstances discuss the process of thinking about trying to get pregnant the way people would talk about thinking about getting a puppy. They might just announce that they're pregnant, and then the deed is done and it's too late for advice. And anyone who gives advice (or suggests that it maybe wasn't the wisest decision in the first place) to an already pregnant woman who may not be in the best position to raise a child is scorned completely.
It's a whole cam of worms.
But I agree with you, anyone who advocates that you just go for it and start trying to have kids, even if you're not in a good place to do so, is irresponsible.

@tickticksnooze I have every sympathy for people in that situation (I myself experienced complete infertility in my early 30s), but recommending that a person have a child in circumstances that would be horrible for that child, simply because otherwise the person might commit suicide, is absolutely bonkers.

We aren’t just ruled by biological impulses. Suggesting that the biological imperative takes precedence over everything else, including the child’s welfare, is entitlement.

Totally see your point OP. When I was childless I took on a third rescue dog and my parents were very critical, I was early 20’s, self sufficient but I suppose young enough they felt I needed guidance and thought I was taking too much on and it might impact my career. I remember saying “you had two kids at my age and went on to have a third” and they just couldn’t understand the point I was making - ie they felt it was ok to have kids but think a dog might be a step too far..!

Personally I don't think people put anywhere near enough thought into having children 🤷🏻‍♀️

Couldn’t agree more!
So many appalling Poodly- Doodly mixes about that are completely untrained.

Snappy, snarly, spoiled and the owners haven’t a clue.
Probably a lot were rushed into and were bred on puppy farms and bought off ad sites online-

Well trained, well mannered dogs are a rarity and a delight.
Also, a bugbear of mine is aggressive dogs excused by

“ She’s a RESCYOO … From Romania!”
As it tears into some innocent dog.

How do you know if a dog us a “ Rescue “?
the owners tell you within seconds, expecting a round of applause.

This is only a recent phenomenon.
People never used to announce that their dog came from the Dog’s home.
Now it seems to be a status thing to buy from overseas.
rather than go to a UK/IE charity.