AIBU to think that losing a cat is NOT the same as losing a husband?

[MummyDoIt]

Just had a conversation with a friend whose cat has been put down. Now, I'm a pet owner and have lost pets in the past so I'm well aware of how much they become part of the family and how you grieve for them when they die.

However, I was rendered speechless when friend said to me 'you know just how I'm feeling because it's the same as when your husband died.' Er no. No pet, no matter how well-loved, can possibly compare to a husband and father to your children. I know how I felt when my last cat died and I know how I felt when DH died and it was certainly NOT the same!

Oh bog off.
Society is not suffering because some of us think that valuing cats as equal to children, is barmy!!

This thread is far too silly for me.

Pictish...No, it's suffering because some think they are arbiters of what is and isn't of value. Can you not see that the person/animal is actually not the point - it's the grief felt, the GRIEF. That's the point.

Telling people to 'bog off' is silly, perhaps you're right, go and find another thread to disparage people you don't agree with on.

Of course I can see that - I'm not a fridge!

However, I can also see that announcing you love your cats as much as your kids on a parenting forum, would produce some hilarity and/or disbelief. To think otherwise would be very naive and unrealistic.

As I said - I'm not responsible for Zukie or anyone else on here.

If this were a cat lover's forum, the response would hacve been different, I'm sure. But it's not.

OP - what a shocking thing for your 'friend' to say. I hope she is feeling thoroughly ashamed.

Sorry for your loss :(

pictish... I really hope that MN is more than a parenting forum. I just don't see that there's a 'league table' and, if there is... who's responsible for drawing it up?

Zukie is also a parent, if that makes a difference to you. No, you're not responsible for her or for anybody else but why so aggressive? MN is supposed to be a support forum.

I just don't get the angst/anger on this I suppose. Grief is grief, love is love... whatever the source.

Yup Daily Heil still going strong...

Blimey, people. I've been known to throw around a few 'it's only a cat' comments myself, I'm not really an animal-lover, but fgs that doesn't mean other people aren't allowed to feel differently. If zukie finds that much love and comfort in her cats, then I'm very pleased for her. It certainly doesn't make her a 'mentalist' - what a foul thing to call someone.

Some 'friend' to say something like that. Unbelievable.

I'm not being in the slightest bit aggressive...I am, however, being dismissive.
That is because I don't agree with, or relate to Zukie at all, in what she says, and neither do I have to. That's my point - I don't have to agree with, or pander to Zukie's eccentricity regarding her cats. YOU can if you like, but to take exception to me NOT, by telling me I'm being horrid, is just silly.

If a poster doesn't want the negative comments that come with loving their cats as much as their kids, then they should refrain from posting about it on an internet parenting forum. Obviously.

I am sorry for your loss and your 'friend' is an insensitive idiot - many are when faced with bereavement, sadly.

As for Zukie, she is entitled to feel as she likes as long as she doesn't express it to someone recently bereaved. However, I would bet good money she has never experienced the death of one of her children and I hope she never does. There is no point in trying to imagine the pain, it is impossible to do and most people are lucky enough not to have to experience it in their lifetime. Anyone with pets will likely experience the death of a pet.

Parting shot - no-one is saying that Zukie isn't entitled to enjoy companionship and comfort and love surrounding her pets....that's what pets are for!
However, to attach as much worth and importance to them as her kids is imo inappropriate.

Anyone who argues about that to the opposite, is just arguing for the sake of it. Yes Zukie can love her cats as much as her kids if she likes...but don't expect total strangers on the internet to be impressed...that is all.

Impressed? No. Feel compassion? Yes. I feel compassion for anybody who is grieving. I don't feel the need to set a yardstick for that.

Its alarming how wrapped in themselves some people are, never ceases to amaze me!

I have lost many pets and been devastated by their death, BUT it isn't the same as losing a person and shouldn't be compared to that loss when speaking to anyone especially not to someone who has lost their husband - unforgivable.

....and I'm not sure I would consider this person a "friend".

I think it goes without saying that someone who equates the love for their animals to the love for their children has deep issues.

It is not and will never be the same.

Because the reality is that when you take on an animal, you already know it is going to die, by sheer virtue of the fact that animals don't live as long as humans.

Of course it is sad when an animal dies.

But anyone equating that with the loss of a human being seriously needs professional help, and tbh probably shouldn't have animals if this is how deeply their loss affects them.

From what I read the OPs friend has never had a husband or children, so she will never know how that grief feels.
Her only experience of loving something has been transferred to her pets.
It's more sad than insensitive IMO.
I think she was trying to empathise but it came out very clumsily.

Before I had DD I genuinely thought I loved my dogs as you would love a child. Then I had DD, and everything changed. I would be devastated if anything happened to either of my much loved dogs, but if anything happened to DD, or DH...I don't think I could go on.

I do understand the sentiment to an extent, if you have no partner or DC and your dog/cat is your companion in life then naturally the emotion we convey on our partners or children will be transferred to them. However in that circumstance I would still know, on some logical level that my losing a dog was not on the same level as a friend losing a child, say. And even if I genuinely believed it was, I can't believe she verbalised the thought!

Just because someone would be devastated when their pet dies it doesn't mean they don't care if someone loses their husbands.

When FABCat dies I know I will be more devastated than when my grandparent died. The fact being they were in my life for minutes compared to my 17 years with my cat and they weren't bothered about me at all until they could use me for money. Should my husband or children die then my grief for my cat wouldn't come close.

Grief is like love. It doesn't have a limit.

It would be equally tactless to say 'oh, it's the same as when my husband died' when someone just lost their dog. All comparisons should be avoided.

I think that what this thread shows is that grief is about oneself - not about the individual who has been lost. It's about how much you feel that you have lost. About how the loss has/will change your life.

So comparisons are fruitless and almost always hurtful.

And to someone whose life is hugely involved with caring for/sharing a home with an animal, the loss of that part of their daily life can be shattering.

But it's about them - not the animal. It's not saying that the animal is, in some quantifiable, objective way, 'worth' as much as a person.

It's a tangent, but for some reason I'm reminded about how, even as little as a century ago, people would expect to have more children, and also expect to lose one or two. That until a child reached a 'safe' age, attachments were seen as less secure. I wonder how grief worked then - thinking of how my own feelings for my child seem so primal, I can't imagine them being less so had I lived in a time where she would have been far more likely to perhaps not make it to adulthood. I can't imagine being less distraught than I would now if the worst happened. But what this thread indicates that grief is so relative, relative to what the individual means to your life - so maybe I would have felt differently. Just as if my main companion in life were my cat, I'd feel distraught to a comparable level when it passed away.

Zukie I think many posters were shockingly rude to you, haranguing you and asking distasteful questions (Sophie's Choice).
It is ironic given the outrage over the original insenstive comment!
I don't empathise with you (even though I have a much loved moggie) as I love my dc a million times more, but you stated your case without malice and you are entitled to your opinion.
I'm sorry you had a shit childhood and glad your dc and cats give you joy!

An elderly friend told me that the loss of her pets (several cats and dogs over the years) was second only to the loss of her parents in terms of the grief that she felt. She had decided that it wasn't worth having any more, because she couldn't face losing them.

A lot of people do grieve very deeply for their pets. We did when we lost one of our cats. I don't think people should be so judgey about other peoples' grief.

One of my favourite quotes is: ""Until one has loved an animal, a part of one's soul remains unawakened." (Anatole France).

And Mumsnet - a support forum? Really? PMSL!

I can't say my mogs mean the same to me as DS but I can absolutely say that until I gave birth I would have equated my animals to every other human. I suspect that few of the people on this thread have known truly hopeless loneliness and the way that animals can provide the only reason to go on for someone in that situation. DS is now my reason to live and certainly I would die if I needed to make him safe but I remember very well how I reacted when I lost pets prior to motherhood and I was inconsolable, reacting with a violent grief which those who had a lot more to live for found very difficult to handle.

What the OP's friend said was insensitive and crass but from her perspective probably quite rational.