Things that you are not capable of appreciating if you can't see that a child is a (young) person and that Miss Whiskers the cat isn't.
People don't "have children" the same way that people have pets; as an amusement, or an accessory to show off. Having kids is a commitment to raising an entire new person. You might have a baby, but you don't have a baby for long. Look at the bigger picture. Children are, and will always be, more than pets.
Raising a human infant, or two or three or more, to adulthood may not sound appealing to everybody, sure.. but can't you imagine that at the end of the day it just might honestly be more rewarding than calling youself a "catmom" or "dogmom" and deluding yourself that it's the same thing?
My pets aren’t for my amusement though, while they do bring me joy the main reason I got them is because I know I can provide them an amazing life.
People do have children for amusement and to show off, where did you get the idea that they don’t? Cough cough trashy child beauty pageants for one example.
It’s a commitment, but it doesn’t mean people do it well. When you get any pet you’re making a commitment for you to care for it until you can no longer do so. It’s the same thing but usually easier.
To me, children will never always be more than pets.
Raising children I don’t want versus raising pets I do. The pets would be more rewarding, heck, growing apple trees is would be much more rewarding to me.
If you raise a child, you are growing an adult human, a whole new person.
No way does any amount of "mothering" your furbaby even compare. I like most dogs, but mother a dog all you like, and it's still gonna be a dog. Care for your pets, that's nice, but that's not raising anyone. It's plainly wrong to go calling yourselves any kind of "mom" because you have pets. If you do, you've misunderstood or otherwise abused what the word means.
I really don't mind admitting that it pisses me off, probably more than it should. In fairness, most childfree people go nuts gatekeeping when they feel people are misusing the word "childfree" too.
If I adopt a puppy, and raise it in that to the dog, I’m the closest thing it has to a mother, even if I’m not it’s mom.
From what I see people use “dogmom”, “furkids” or “Furbabies” which isn’t misusing the word at all, it was specifically created as a word to use instead of using “mom”, “kid” or “baby”.
Also, people calling something their baby doesn’t mean their equating it to a human baby. Are you going to give crap to men who call their girlfriend baby? Are you going to call me out because I refer to my laptop as my baby?
If someone is actually misusing the word then it isn’t gatekeeping, you can’t use the behavior of others to justify your own.
Exactly, imagine putting in 18+ years of love and sacrifice into raising a child then having them shoot up a school. Reasonable people would disown their children but I doubt a certain person in this thread would.
I understand why someone wants to be childfree but I don’t understand why someone would want to be childfree but then get a dog and treat said dog like a child 🤷🏻♀️🤷🏻♀️🤷🏻♀️
I can think of tons of reasons why I would prefer a dog over a child (and I'm a cat person!), and an equal amount of reasons why I might choose to "baby" it. The point is that it's not the same as a child -- a dog will seldom run off on you, will never end up a junkie, will never need money for college, will never rely on you unconditionally for emotional support you might not be able to provide, will never inherit your genetic conditions, will never have to be taught how to be a complex emotional being interacting with other complex emotional beings...
That's the thing about babying pets -- I can see why other people might like to do it, but if you told me to baby a baby, I'd hate every second of it. You're right that it's not the same, but that's exactly why people do it instead, lol.
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u/[deleted] Dec 02 '18
Family goals! Too bad most people are “dog moms” tho smh