Again, the comparison you make is disparate. There is very little risk of being riddled with bullets on a job interview.
Love is an undefinable emotion, being “nervous” is, in effect, reaction to a stimuli. I suppose you could define love that way too in an academic sense, but then that would apply to all love, further confounding this debate.
I think the comparison is apt. Few women have ever risked their health or lives to give birth to a puppy. 
The risks, sacrifices and dangers physical and emotional (and the rewards) of having children are in no way comparable to those of having pets - which factors into the quality of emotion that one has in respect of them, and how that quality is judged by others.
You can but a pet at a store.
Of course, of course.
That’s rather my point. I think the quality of emotion is not for another to judge.
What would you say of adopted children?
Exactly. As a non parent, how can you assume to know what parenting feels like? Those of us who have done both are uniformly saying that there’s a difference. If there were parents here saying it was the same emotion then curlcoat would have a case, but she’s got no clue what she’s comparing herself to and seems to think her ignorance gives her insight.
That their parenting experience begins when they hold their child in their arms for the first time and become parents.
I was speaking of the way that I am with my pets, as well as the thousands of other like me. I am well aware that there are people out there who merely throw a pet away when it becomes inconvenient. Many of them are parents.
I am basing the quality of a parent’s love for his child on what I am seeing. I have no idea if a majority of children are treated by their parents as I descibe, but that is quite beside the point. The claim has been that parents love their children in a way that I cannot love my pets, and the subtext has been that unless there is something seriously wrong with the parents, they all love their children more than I love my pets. I cannot see how one can love a child much at all and still allow it to go play in the street with other children it’s age, for example. Since this is a rather common thing around here, as is allowing them to play in parks next to busy streets, run about in stores on their own, run about in parking lots, etc, does this mean there are a lot of “dysfunctional” parents here? The logical conclusion to that is that parents experience a wide range of depth of love for their children, just as pet owners do.
No, that’s like saying any given news story about a parent abusing their child is proof you couldn’t love your kid.
Shrug. I don’t really care what you want to believe, but it does boil down to - you can have no idea, do you? Every descriptive term used by parents I feel for my dogs and cat. Care levels are at least the same and in many cases appear to be better for my pets. You are not me, you do not know what I feel. Simply because it is outside your experience, you label it as impossible.
I think where you might be having a disconnect, curlcoat, is that you’re assuming that your lack of desire to have children is indicative of how you would feel about the child if you actually had one. I can kind of relate because I didn’t want kids for a long, long time. When I had the first one, I was unsure of the whole thing until she was born. The moment she was born, I was in love. Imagining what it’s like is just SO completely far from the reality of it, it’s actually pretty hard to describe or explain.
Of course it isn’t the same as raising a child. Raising a pet well involves experiencing unconditional love that doesn’t go away when the pet is a teenager, knowing that the pet is always there for you, and forging a bond that you lose only when the pet dies. Housebreaking involves a couple of days and training is a fun activity you do together.
Raising a child well involves experiencing unconditional love until the baby starts to become a separate person at, what?, two years?, changing diapers for months and then working with the potty chair for more months, late night and early morning feedings for months with the possible extra joy of colic and then teething. You spend money to get an unbelievable number of vaccinations, clothes and more clothes, high chair, car seat, crib and on and on. Then after you have gone thru all of this expense of time and money, what do you have? A separate human being, that will fight with you, probably tell you that it hates you at least once, who will be selfish & moody at times, who you will need to monitor to make sure schooling is going well and s/he doesn’t get into trouble as s/he goes out into the wide wild world. And maybe, despite your best efforts, that child grows up to be someone that doesn’t like you, and maybe you don’t like who they became.
Yes, there is a lot of difference between having a pet and having a child.
Until forever.
Not true for everybody, but true for enough.
[quote=“maggenpye, post:125, topic:478735”]
Exactly. As a non parent, how can you assume to know what parenting feels like? Those of us who have done both are uniformly saying that there’s a difference. If there were parents here saying it was the same emotion then curlcoat would have a case, but she’s got no clue what she’s comparing herself to and seems to think her ignorance gives her insight./QUOTE]
The thing is, it is the parents who don’t know how people like me feel about our pets, yet you insist you do because you insist that we cannot have the same kind/depth/whathaveyou love that you have for your children. You want us to respect how you feel about your children, but you refuse to respect how we feel about our pets.
Holding my daughter as a baby I knew some or all of this will probably happen. Once or twice as I was patting her to go to sleep, walking back and forth feeling her warm baby body against me, I’d say softly, “you’re really going to break my heart someday, aren’t you?” And as I said it I fell in love with her a thousand times more. Knowing you’ll see your child grow (and the persistent tiny nagging and at times utterly heart stopping fear that you won’t) make having a child utterly different than anything else I’ve experienced.
Thinking that this ever stops shows how you just don’t get it, curlcoat.
It’s the difference between loving a thing and loving a person; unfortunately not everyone gets it.
Ah. There it is, then. Who, exactly, are “people like you”?
I wondered how long it would take before the bingos came out. I am over 50 years old, I do not have a “lack of desire to have children” (it is far more than that) nor would that change should some evil miracle happen and I actually had one. I have never had anything approaching a maternal instinct towards children, and my opinion of them tends to move in the opposite direction of the women I’ve known - the younger the child, the less I want to even be near it. Merely pushing a baby out of my body is not going to change any of that.
This “disconnect” allows me to look at children as just something that other people do, without the hormonal haze changing the way things appear. Parents here seem to think that a parent will automatically love their child from the moment of birth, even given the number of news reports about parents who abuse and murder their children. How, given this evidence, can anyone assume that any given parent must love their children more than I love my pets? There are times when I wonder if a majority of parents love their children that much.
You are saying that children love you unconditionally thruout their whole lives?
Yes, it is utterly different than anything else you have experienced. Is it more/better/stronger than what I have experienced? You will never know.
I never said that a good parent stops loving their kid, I said that the baby stops offering unconditional love at some time, which I think is around two years of age.
You are right, they don’t. A pet is not a thing.
I misread your intent. I thought you were saying that parents love their children unconditionally until the children reach age 2-ish and start acting like little hellions. No, I love my kids unconditionally regardless of age. I don’t know if my kids will always love me unconditionally or not. I have no idea what this has to do with pets, though, as the love of a thinking human being is very much different from the “love” of a domesticated animal. I’m not saying “more” or “less” – just different. You seem pretty invested in whether or not your love for your pets is more or less than the love of a parent for their child, and I honestly can’t fathom why you should care.
Those who view a pet as something more than an accessory, not something to just put out the back door when it is inconvenient. We commit to that pet’s physical and mental health in a way that parents do for their children. We grieve their deaths as we grieve the deaths of human family members. Etc. The pet food/supply business is huge - there are thousands upon thousands like me out there. Those of you who dismiss pets as things and not capable of causing a deep bond are obviously that this sort of person.
I very much doubt that there are thousands of people who would murder for their pet.
It’s very much possible to love and care for a pet and not place that love on the same level as that of a child.