To think pet owners should stop calling themselves “dog mums” and “cat dads?”

[TheDeftAquaViewer]

It just feels a bit much when people treat their pets as if they’re children. AIBU to think this trend has gone a bit too far?

Your husband doesn't have a name?

Oddly enough, saying "where's (husband's name)?" worked fine for us.

OP could it have something to do with the fact that our pets look to us for care, attention and love, just as children do? and they can be very demanding about this. Don't dismiss that the pets themselves call out this parental behaviour in us, as they have the right to do. It isn't even a 'right,' which after all would be decreed by humans, it's something more than that - it's completely natural. I am sorry for you if you've never experienced this joyful response to a loving pet.

I’m an auntie to a number of dogs, only one of which belongs to my sibling.

Oh leave them alone! My childless Dsibs do this but each to their own…

@OonaStubbs @Pusheen467

You are taking it too seriously. No pet owner needs to be told that they can't be the biological parent of an animal 🤣
But pet owners feed them, water them, play with them, groom them, give them love, see to their medical needs, protect them so we do a similar job to that of parent. Dog/cat mum and furbaby is just a fun, affectionate thing. Using these words have never given me the delusion that I pushed my pet out of my womb.

@Comedycook We don't think that our pets are actually able to go xmas shopping either. But similar to how parents will buy gifts for babies to send to people, my family buy gifts for the dog to give to people, and we give him presents from us. It is all a bit of fun.

Yeah, ok it's a bit cringe. But if it's not affecting or harming you in any way, why bother about it? Plenty of slightly cringey things in the world that people do but that don't remotely harm anyone else.

Fur baby is worse, I think.

People can call themselves what they like. My cat refuses to have any genetic link confusion with her furless living family. Which have none of her grace or sophistication.

Our dog knows us as Mum and Dad, I very much doubt he knows our actual names!

Our only child refers to him as his brother as he’ll never have any siblings (he also jokingly refers to him as my favourite son 🙈).

He’s a member of our family and I don’t really care what others think, why does it matter to you?

My friend hasn’t been able to have children and it brings her comfort to think of her dog as her baby.

Oh dear looks like there's going to be a push from Trumpists to stigmatise pet owners as failed bio parents. Along with anti-abortionism, to avoid the imagined Great Replacement.

🤣

I’m starting to suspect that Comedycook means the ‘comedy’ part literally & is a satirist.

I don't like it and don't do it myself. An eye roll or sneery face in my head does it for me. Then I get on with what I was doing. But it's not a trend. You're wrong there. It's been happening for as long as I remember. Maybe not the "fur" bit, but people have called themselves mum and dad to their pets for a long long time. I have personal experience of hearing people say "let mum give you a brush", "go and see what dad's got for you" etc since the 1950s. Society might be falling apart but I don't think that's the reason. For what is worth, my dog knows all of us in the family by our first names. Perhaps I'm being too lax here and should insist on sir and madam? Whatever I do about it, I am sure it's absolutely none of your business and will not affect your little world one jot.

You're absolutely in your right to be annoyed by it. It won't have any effect on the trend that will continue for a long time! Sadly, individual annoyance have very little impact on society when they only account for a very small priority.

To answer your question…

No, I don’t think pet owners should stop calling themselves dog mum and cat dad.

But I do think others should stop thinking they have an authority on what other people call their pets, and thinking they have a right to want them to “stop” doing it.

It's not like they actually believe they are the parents though is it lol I am my sisters dog's auntie and he is very good boy nephew hahaha who really gives a shit about this anyway unless someone is insisting that they actually gave birth to their pet it's a non issue surely

It's a bit twee maybe but harmless, as long as their dog is allowed to be a dog, to run around and chase a ball, to go on walks and is fed proper food suitable for dogs and not indulged with food that's bad for it . I do find it irritating when people treat their dogs like a doll, dressing it up in outfits all the time (not talking about a coat for when the weather is cold) and carrying it in their handbag! Let a dog be a dog !

Well my dogs are uncle and niece in our human world.

Pope Francis, is that you?

Yeah the “Trend” to show love to our animals through infantilisation has really gone too far, only things we humans should call our babies are our partners, our projects, cars our 60” flat screen TV’s & especially our stupidly expensive massive, barbecues. ( my neighbour does)

Yes let’s be really miserly and tight with how we allow each other to show affection with our animals through the words we use.

What a great world to create, what else can we hate on today.
Good job.

Let’s all use that word ANTHROMORPHIZE a lot more because it sounds really clever and it’s ok to shame other people into hiding their affection for their pets, if you are able to show you have a bigger brain than they do by using really big long words.

I say we make all the people that love their pets, stay inside and cry all day long for being so wrong as to call their dearly beloved pet, possibly infant substitute, only thing that makes their life worth living, a Baby.

Oh by the way, it is scientifically proven that dogs respond positively to adults who use a baby voice, in other words what you think is a trend is not, it is what comes about naturally through the hard wiring in the brains and emotions of animals and humans combined, pets turn the brains of humans into a mush of love and affection it’s how they get you to bond to them to keep themselves alive.

Fur babies are babies, they are babies all life long…
YABU

Whether causation or correlation, he's not wrong.

If it makes people happy and harms nobody - keep your snout out and find something slightly more significant to worry about.

It bugs me when parents call their children 'little man' or 'the smalls' but I don't tell them it's twee as fuck, let it go

Let’s all use that word ANTHROMORPHIZE a lot more because it sounds really clever and it’s ok to shame other people into hiding their affection for their pets, if you are able to show you have a bigger brain than they do by using really big long words

Yikes! The classism! The wokery! This is the most painfully British paragraph I have ever come across here.

When people use words that are longer than average, they're not trying to shame you. They're just expressing themselves in English. Should we all just point and grunt in case someone can't deal with more than monosyllables? The English language is there for all. It's on you if you never crack open a book or look up the meaning of a word if you haven't come across it before. Other people are allowed to use the language as they see fit.

I do think others should stop thinking they have an authority on what other people call their pets, and thinking they have a right to want them to “stop” doing it.

They actually do have the right to an opinion, including the right to want them to stop doing it.

Hence AIBU and all the rest of Mumsnet and pretty much all conversation out there in the real world, etc..