Then you’ve misunderstood.
When you’ve had children, get back to us.
Well of course I never say anything like that IRL because society won’t allow it, unless of course someone gets obnoxious about suggesting it was “just” a dog. Also, I think it’s just plain rude to tell someone that you know how they feel, because I really don’t. Everyone grieves in their own way.
Oh brother.
Uh…yeah, that’s kind of the way it worked for me. I thought my pets were the be-all and end-all. Then I had “an accident.” I didn’t think there was any possible way I could love my non-furbaby any more than my furbabies. I was wrong - and I don’t know how else to explain it than it was like a switch being flipped and that suddenly, my world was changed forever.
If that were indeed the case, I wouldn’t have a problem admitting that. What’s society going to do to me?
So, you are different, or rather what society says is the norm. Do you think that this means that all women who get pregnant by accident welcome the baby, particularly when they are women who never intended to have children? Did you actively choose to not have kids before the “accident”? You also probably aren’t the sort of person I was talking about anyway, since we don’t tend to call our dogs furbabies.
What they are doing to me here, tho worse as that would be an even bigger sin in their eyes. Most folks care what society says and thinks about them. In a worst case scenario, I could even see someone calling CPS if they heard a mother say they loved the dog more than the kid.
I’m surprised that this hasn’t been commented on, apologies if it has and I missed it. Suppose your house is on fire - whose safety would be more concerned with first, your husband or your pets? I mean if your husband was screaming for help in one room and your dog was yipping for help in another, and there was no guarantee that you’d be able to get both out before the fire consumed the rooms, which would you go to? I mean in the end it’s your husband asking you to choose, does he take a hike?
Not to defend curlcoat, but I really, really hope my wife wouldl choose the cat in this situation. Kim can carry Mrs. Whatsit easily; she can carry me only if the previous Slayer happens to die just beforehand and she’s suddenly flooded with mystical super-strength.
In an offshoot to the death of John Travolta’s son, this article on CNN addresses the death of children.
Relevant quote: “The loss of a child is ‘the most painful loss that humans can sustain,’ said Dr. Charles Raison, CNNhealth.com’s mental health expert.”
Obviously, he doesn’t own a cat.
But couldn’t you say the same thing to an adoptive parent? ‘When you have a natural child, get back to us.’ Couldn’t your wife say the same thing to you? ‘When you gestate a fetus and give birth, get back to me.’
I am probably just making this worse, but I see a problem with any of the examples here i.e. if someone were to save their cat from a burning building rather than the newborn they’re babysitting. But if someone chooses to stay childless and raise dogs, who cares how much they love them (or claim to love them)? What do you gain by stressing that something is missing in their emotional inventory?
No, because many (most?) people who have both adopted and given birth have told us that they feel the same quality of love for all their children, bio and otherwise. We’ve got some here on this messageboard.
I think it may actually be true that, in our culture, maternal and paternal love are not comparable. Not that one is greater or lesser, but that you can’t compare them. In my own experience, my husband and I both certainly love our daughter to pieces, but we do feel and act differently towards her. His is a much more scared of losing something precious love than mine. I hear and read it’s not uncommon for fathers and daughters to have different relationships than mothers and daughters; it’s common and normal human behavior. The reasons for this are a complicated web of evolutionary, sociopolitical and gender theory history, I’m sure.
I don’t gain anything, and I really don’t care how much someone loves their pet or what they may be missing emotionally . I just get somewhat offended when someone compares the death of their pet to the death of someone else’s child. It is only childless pet-lovers who do this, and I can’t help but notice that they never make a comparision for which they have a basis - they never compare the death of their pet to the death of a parent, significant other, or even a friend. Only to the death of a child- the one relationship they have not experienced.
Hence, the only people with a valid claim to being offended are those who have lost a child, no?
My mother has done both, and if she feels differently about the adopteds vs. the bios, she has done a heroic job of not showing it for the past 40 years! The argument made up thread that you naturally love a child more because you “created” it out of your DNA didn’t ring true to me because of this…I don’t think it’s necessarily about that, although it may be a part of it. I think it has to do more with the awesome complexity of being responsible for raising another human being. It’s just simply so much more involved…it takes so much more of your core self…than raising a dog or cat. Dogs and cats simply don’t challenge you in any kind of a comparable way. I have a cat that I have had for about 14 years. She’s a doll, and I love her. But for the entire 14 years, my interaction with her has been virtually the same every day. I talk to her the same way…she doesn’t talk back, of course. She doesn’t challenge me (in a positive or negative way) or argue with me. We play pretty much the same way (she’s been slowing down somewhat lately)…the way she likes to be petted is the same. She has had no growth or development as a being, and I haven’t either, as a result of having her. The fact is, it makes me happy to have her around. The interaction is nearly always pleasant. Certainly, I can’t say the same for my 4-year-old daughter! But I think it’s the give-and-take that you get with a little person and the complexities of them as beings that makes the difference.
My husband and I were just talking about this. Our daughter is intensely bonded to me specifically, whereas our son interacts very similarly to both of us. We don’t know if it’s their personalities that make the difference, the fact that one is a girl and one is a boy, or what. It’s probably a lot of different things.
I would think that you knew I didn’t mean something like this when I said if it is the husband who is making me choose. Obviously I would choose to save my husband from the fire.
Apparently what they get is reaffirmation that they have made the right choice for them. There is simply nothing missing in anyones emotional inventory who chooses to not have children, but there may be in those who choose to harrass them.
I didn’t say the one event they haven’t experienced. I said the one relationship they haven’t experienced. I don’t need to have lost a husband to know that his death would be more devastating to me than the death of a friend, a pet or even one of my parents. I do ,however, need to have had a friend, a pet ,or a parent to make such comparisons. I imagine if someone who had never had a pet told curlcoat that she shouldn’t let the death of her dog bother her for more than a day or two, she would be offended, and rightly so, since that person has no idea of what it is like to have a pet. Curlcoat herself said she would “obviously” save her husband rather than her dog from a fire, so she clearly recognizes a difference between those relationships, and would probably be offended if an coworker who has never been in a committed relationship compared the death of a pet goldfish to the loss of a spouse. Just as that non-pet owner has no idea of what it is like to have a pet, and the coworker has no idea of what it is like to be married, childless pet owners have no idea of what it is like to be a parent.
Well, with your value system of people vs. pets, honestly its not so obvious.
Point blank, your husband is in one room becoming overcome from smoke and your dog is in another room facing the same situation. Your husband begs your name in-between choking, and your beloved dog is yipping for you to save him in another room. You have to pick one to save first, with no certainty that you will be able to save the other one, and let’s face it, your husband IS making you choose in this situation. Which do you choose, husband or a pet?
Well, if I was a 70 year old lady, with really bad arthritis, I’d choose to die with them.
Ask the question again with a severely disabled baby in the other room instead of a dog, if you like hypotheticals.
Oh, and try and imagine how cuddly and wonderful babies would be, if they remained in that state for 10 - 20 years.
Yes, exactly! Your replies are surely somewhere within the reams of reasonable reality! Let’s both imagine that the doorknob is screaming feed your head!
Or wait, maybe you could actually reply to what I wrote instead of drifting off into a chemical induced fantasy.
Okay, I’d help the one least able to help themself. Satisfied?
I’m not a parent and I’m not a pet owner. And I fit your bill. I think there’s something wrong with people who equate pets and children and I get upset when such a comparison is made. Actually, it’s one of the things that give me a “Stop the planet I must get off!” feeling.