Kids or Pets?

Featured image credit: https://dogsbestlife.com/home-page/babies-and-puppies-safely-build-early-bond/?cn-reloaded=1

People don’t usually like to compare pets and kids. Usually, I don’t like to compare them either. For me, it’s more of a personal feeling that pets are generally superior to kids. Now that is a controversial opinion to have so I don’t go around saying this to the public. But on the few occasions when I really think about it, I can’t help but notice the similarities. A friend of mine had a kid back in 2019. In fact, he was born exactly 2 days before my own birthday! While I watch him grow up through his mother’s and my facetime chats, she relates stories of many experiences, and then she herself points out how she expects that I also go through some of those exact experiences with my pups. And to be honest, she’s absolutely right!

Pups are exactly like kids and raising them both can be challenging.

1. They both need to be taught manners, from very early on. These manners are almost like boundaries that you need to set so they know what is right behavior and what isn’t.
2. They are both creatures of habit and need to follow the same routine daily, for the most part. Any deviation from the routine can upset them.
3. You need to pay attention to them (babies until they can start talking and pups, for their whole life) because they cannot tell you when something is wrong. Your observation of any abnormal behavior will alert you when something isn’t right.
4. You need to spend a lot of time with them so that you build a bond with them.
5. You are almost always cleaning up after them.
6. You need to make arrangements for any plans that don’t involve them, well in advance. The impromptu/spontaneous days of your life are a thing of the past.
7. Every moment you aren’t at home with them, you feel guilty that they are home alone or in someone else’s care. If they are in someone else’s care, you are worried that they aren’t getting the best care.
8. When they are at home, they drive you nuts with all the noise and when they aren’t at home, they drive you nuts because you can’t take the silence.
9. Some of them can have specials needs which may bring additional challenges of their own.
10. When they leave, they take a part of us away with them, leaving a hole in our hearts. Ok, here I will add a special caveat. There is always a chance that humans will be lucky enough to not lose a kid during their lifetime. Some aren’t that lucky. But it’s almost a certainty that a human will lose a pet, possibly many pets, during their lifetime. In both cases, the pain isn’t something that can be written about.

Being a woman, society has certain expectations that I will eventually want to become a mother. It is my choice that I do not want that for myself. To those who tell me that I am missing out on the joys of motherhood, I say, read this post. Who says I am missing out on anything? Just because I don’t have little humans running around and talking back doesn’t mean I am not experiencing the presence of little lives around me. That doesn’t mean my life isn’t fulfilled.

My two little furballs are every bit of a presence in my life as a human kid would have been. They keep me company, they talk to me in their own language (both vocally and through their actions), keep me up at night when they fall ill, snuggle with me in bed, wait for me at the door when I get back home, greet me as if I had been gone for a year (whether I was gone for 5 minutes or 10 hours). They get mad at me when I bother them too much. They are stubborn and can misbehave every chance they get (I have physically hurt myself multiple times while on walks since they wouldn’t behave and dragged me through the mud to go meet someone they want to. The phrase “puppy dog eyes” exists for a reason!). They are loyal. I feed them, brush them, take them to the doctor, and take them on walks. I hate going out of town when I cannot take them with me. When I don’t have a choice, I board them and keep checking on webcams to see how they are doing, every chance I get. The first thing I do when I get back home is to go bring them home too, however late in the night it may be. Every day, I dread the day when I will lose either of them. They are my family. Wherever they are, that is my home.

What I don’t have to go through is the pressure of raising good human beings. I don’t want to put myself through the pressures of trying to build a better future for a child. I don’t have to save up for their education. I don’t have to live in debt or put the pressure of student loans on the kid. I don’t have to worry about school shootings or bullies or the stress of trying to make sure I don’t create a hostile environment for their growth. I don’t have to worry about drugs or rape or any of the ugly sides of society impacting the kid. The world around us today is filled with stress and negativity. Almost every human who is even slightly different is treated badly. It may be based on race, gender, mental capability, diversity, or something else. If it’s not any of these then I am sure in the future, it will be something else. It is not something I want to willingly put a kid through. With a kid, there will always be expectations. I don’t want to live under that pressure, nor would I want to put a child through that.

So yes, while I did say that kids and pets can be compared, for me, there have never been any doubts. Pets are far superior. There is no comparison, really.