It is the parents that cannot let go of this, as if somehow their love for their children is cheapened by the idea that somewhere someone says they love their pets as much as parents love their children.
I was not the one that brought up murder.
With just these facts, I choose to attempt to deal with the madman, which would most likely end up in me being killed. However, if it is likely that the pet would end up being abused or killed after I was killed, that would make a big difference in the answer.
I do not have any relatives left. If we substitute husband, I would choose the husband if you are still talking about the madman and the gun. If the husband is requiring that I choose, he may end up taking a hike.
The strangers. I have nothing invested in them.
The same way that parents survive the grief of the loss of a child, except that I do not have to recover from the shock of a pet going before me, which I imagine makes it somewhat easier. Other than that, I went thru the same things that parents appear to.
Curlcoat, dear, you’re coming across as a little nuts here, and this is coming from a woman with ten dogs and cats in her apartment right now, and no intention of ever having children.
(bolding mine)
I think this is kind of important. A normal parent would not say “the love I have for some of my children.” The impression I get is that parents, by default, love all of their kids, if not equally, then at least very powerfully.
I think this is a valid point. The thing about breeding dogs is you have to give most of them up. How do you deal with this?
Would one of the parents address this, please? Is the passion parents feel for their kids sort of a modern luxury? In many parts of the world, kids frequently die very young. It seems like wealthy parents would be and often are nearly completely destroyed by the death of a child, but many people deal with it as a matter of course. So how much of that deep love that you feel for your children is, for lack of a better word, cultural?
I don’t think it’s cultural. I don’t even think it’s voluntary. I think it’s genetically encoded.
I did not want to become a father. I resisted taking responsibility for my son for quite some time after he was born; I was willing to play with him, to be a pal, but I was too young and stupid to want to be a man about it. But when he grew ill something inside me clicked, and nothing was more important, or as important, or 1/10th as important as his welfare. He would have turned 19 this year; he’s been dead twice more than twice as long as he’s been alive. But ever since he died, my grief for him has been so essential a part of me that words utterly fail in describing it. Part of me wants nothing more than to be free of that grief; a larger part of me wants never to be free of it, because I could only do that by forgetting him, and forgetting him would not only be dishonoring him but would also deprive me of the single best part of my life.
Curlcoat, you simply don’t know what you’re talking about.
In my experience, in areas of the world with high child mortality, parents love their kids just as much. But it’s like you love your 89 year old grandfather. You don’t hold back on the love just because you know it might end. But you don’t spend as much time dreaming of future plans. Instead it is about making the most of every moment. And if the end does come, you are a little better prepared to come to peace with it.
Most of these cultures have some things designed to create distance until a child is considered likely to live. Like not giving children a name until they have passed a critical point. Or a belief that the next child will be the spirit of the departed one. Where I lived they did both of these. They even had a special name for next child born after a child died- Nawissa. It translated literally into “hurts” and I was told the full meaning was “Dear god, is this child for me?” Whenever someone introduced himself to me as “Nawissa”, it nearly broke my heart. Amazing to see the living embodiment of a family’s pain and hope.
I’m sorry, but the part about letting 20 strangers die just really frightens me. I hope you’re kidding.
Trust me, she’s not.
Heck, if someone said “I’ll either kill your cat or push this button and destroy China”, I’d say “Push the button and give me my cat” primarily on the basis that madmen can’t be trusted to tell the truth.
Do they? I really don’t know, tho my experience tends towards making the answer no. Have you never known a family where one child is obviously favored over the others?
I am not hormonally attached to puppies.
The rest I snipped since I am not a parent.
Neither do you. Parents claim I cannot compare anything to the love they feel for a child because I have not experienced it. Logic dictates that you cannot compare what I feel because you have not experienced it.
Yes, I know that most folks expect that I would hold the lives of 20 strangers as more important simply because they are humans. However, humans have not exactly been kind to the rest of the word for the most part. Given 20 strangers, I would not automatically assume that they were all worthy of living over a pet of mine who has given me love and devotion for however many years. For all you know, these 20 strangers are murders, rapists, child abusers.
Or maybe parents that would be willing to see 20 strangers die instead of their one child.
Good one.
Likewise, for all you know, those 20 strangers are the meaning of someone else’s life, brilliant surgeons or artists, etc.
And, yes, most parents would rather see the strangers die.
Not insecure, not hostile, just continuing to point out that you are guessing your level of emotional attachment is more than that of a parent - which you have no experience of. You misrepresent my posts when you state parents don’t understand pet owners when I was a pet owner before I was a parent. I understand both situations, when you don’t
You are not a parent. Your animals are not little people and if you are so disdainful of parents as a group, why are you so very desperate to equate yourself with us? All us murdering abusive people (because there’s never been a pet owner who abused their animals?) why are you so keen to be noted as one of us, without the hassle of dealing with those kids you dislike.
I am not insulting your love for your pets (show one post where I said your love for your animals was not real)- I’m saying you’re not a parent. There is a difference, which you’re happy enough to use as an excuse to insult us. Why can’t you take what you’re so freely dishing out? You’re the one insisting that your lack of experience as a parent makes you more aware of how parents feel than they do.
That’s what this thread is about - not how much you as an individual may love any particular animal, but whether equating kids with pets is offensive. Pet owners are not parents. Read your own posts and note how many insults you’ve used. Accusing us of being abusive, neglectful, unaware of what ‘real’ love is because we don’t understand how much you love your dogs. Denying our love for our children has less meaning, because *you *can’t understand it.
But you have no frame of reference beyond hearsay. Animal abuse is less reported than child abuse, your use of headlines as proof of unloving parents just confirms that society as a whole considers animals as less important than humans.
Go to any animal shelter and see what ‘loving’ owners do to the helpless creatures in their care - pet owners have no moral superiority.
So, if the love is biological, and not really a moral or philosophical choice, how noble is that love?
No doubt the love is real, or at least as real as any other though or emotion.
But if its not really a choice then?
Philosophically, I guess one could argue a cold hearted Vulcan who “cares” for and raises a child has a “better” love than some batshit crazy emotional human who “loves” a child just because they just can’t help themselves…
I suspect it is much the same as how people lived with a lot of nasty facts in the past.
At some times and places, past and present, people had to live with stuff like being taken as slaves, raped by raiders, seeing half the population die of plagues, living in trenches or bombed-out basements during war, regular starvation, etc. etc.
And even in the best of times, life would have been a lot harder - think of how people would have suffered without modern dentistry, just to mention one thing.
People would have suffered many things which we, in a more pampered age, would find horribly and even destabilizingly traumatic if they should happen to us. Seeing many children die - not to mention, if you are female, facing the chance of death in childbirth yourself - are just a small subset.
I suspect what happened was this: some people could handle the horrors, and some could not - and went mad, committed suicide or simply died themselves. Maybe in some cases the shared sense of suffering made people more prone to identifying with the group rather than the individual, or with supernatural aid - hence more tribal, more religious, etc. which would have provided some comfort for the afflicted.
Nobody is arguing that anybody’s love is more noble than the other. I don’t think parents are trying to say they are better people than pet owners.
I am.
Apologies to those that talk to Mr. Barky or Ms. Whiskers for hours on end and imagine that they’re not only being understood, but interacted with on a social level, but ‘loving’ an animal, at least to the extent that has been mentioned here, is as absurd as ‘loving’ a lamp, or a shoe, or a paperclip.
To imagine that the fondnesss one feels towards a pet (or a lamp, shoe or paperclip) is in any way similar to the love one feels toward a child—or ANY human being, for that matter—is so ridiculous that I question the mental health of anyone who feels that way.
I think you’re confusing me with someone who uses the word “noble” in regards to things other than argon, xenon, helium, radon, and the one I always forget.
Also, you do realize that Vulcans are entirely imaginary and thus are of limited use for this discussion, right?
If human babies stayed defenceless as long as pets do, you might be persuaded to change your mind. A dog or cat can be said to be exactly* like a baby - they have a consciousness and needs and are unable to express it. Where is the radical difference?
- p.s. Well, not exactly, but you know what I mean.
