Holy shit. My irony meter just exploded. Tell you what, when you decide what it is, exactly, that I am saying, you let me know, mmkay?
anaamkia, I’m fairly busy as well, so I’m going to quit hijacking this thread (won’t someone pleeeeeze think of the animals!!??) and if you want, you can start a GD thread about it. I’m going to lunch.
In the meantime, my position is still: you love your pets, but they ain’t your kids.
So, it is less of a stretch for someone who’s never been pregnant to equate pets with children. Is that a fair statement?
IMO? Yes, I can see that. I would qualify it by saying that our opinions change over time with experience, and parenthood would probably change one’s perceptions as it applies to pets as kids.
As someone who’s never been pregnant, doesn’t want or enjoy the company of children for the most part, and who has had pets all my life, I have no problem with equating the value of my pets in my life to the value of some (but not all) people’s children in their lives.
And no, that doesn’t mean that I value an animal’s life over a human’s life. It does mean that I’d rather make allowances for an animal’s presence in my life than perhaps that of the vast majority of humans.
This being the Pit and all, I’m sure someone will take offense at this or call me a whacko (or worse) for it. :rolleyes:
Pity your reading comprehension is broken past repair.
Is stupid your substitute for caffeine? You know as well as I that there are plenty of people - several on this board - who do not mean “my pet is my child” as hyperbole. Saying “My pet is my child” is a good honking whallop away from “Will you please pass the butter, Pet?”
As a note, I was neither having an apopleptic fit, nor was I shrill, nor raving in my comment. Again with the steaming mug of stupid.
So what is the physiological thing the exists between a woman and her biological child that doesn’t exist between the same woman and her adopted child?
As for fathers, imagine a cuckold who unwittingly raises another’s child and one of his own. Is he likely to experience a different bond with each?
That’s almost certainly wrong. Human infants go for the nipple. They’re terrified of heights usually, and darkness often makes them uneasy. Humans learn language in a staggeringly impressive fashion, totally unlike that of other animals. Humans are scared of snakes. There are plenty of human instincts.
While I’ve not read it yet, I’ve heard great things about The Blank Slate a book that claims that a huge number of human behaviors are instinctual. There’s no concensus about the huge number, but I’ve never heard anyone deny that humans have any instincts.
Daniel
I’m offended, your a Whacko. 
Actually you sound like a perfectly normal person who hasn’t had kids. My one sister has never had kids and has always treated her animals as the near surrogates. She is well adjusted and has no problems.
Pre-kids I treasured my pets very highly , I still do. When my dog got run over I was heart broken. I do love my kids far more. If I had to get rid of the cats for my kids, I would work hard at finding a great home, but the cats would be gone. I think this is fairly normal.
I think what you posted is fairly normal.
Jim
If we’re going to go along with the anal hair-splitting that’s going on here, then the “they ain’t humans” crowd is going to have to go one step further:
Your children are not your kids. A kid is a goat. Are you saying that a human child = a goat? That’s delusional thinking.
Or you could lighten the fuck up and realize that people don’t always mean things literally.
Not so. My boy, Left Hand of Dorkness, already listed some generally accepted ones. Chances are your profs are products of the 70’s and early 80’s when it was “trendy” to question whether humans retained any instinctive behaviors.
You know, Trunk, this thread has devolved into a discussion of everything from maternal instincts to the differences between hyperbole, simile, and metaphor. The one thing that I still haven’t seen adequately addressed is why your undies are in a twist over somebody else’s feelings about their [dog|cat|children|other animal]. Who cares? If somebody thinks their cat is the reincarnation of the Buddha and they want to spend their afternoons rubbing its belly and chanting, so what? As long as they’re not hurting anyone else, it makes no difference whatsoever.
And, for those people who think their pets are just as important as children (assuming for a moment that such people exist), don’t you think it’s perhaps better that they don’t have any children, Trunk?
Use of technology is in no way equal to urbanization. The area I live in isn’t any more (or less) urban because the farmers use high-tech tractors, the ranchers sell cattle through live Internet auctions, the construction workers have iPods, and the truckers have satellite TV. As for working in town, it’s the suburban dwellers that are likely to work in town, not the rural people.
Your premise is flawed.
I’m confused. I don’t think I said anything about the psychological bond, just the physiological/biological one. As I said before, I believe the emotional bond (and psychological one, as well, I’m assuming) develops over time between an adoptive parent and child, as opposed to being there from the start. And I believe the bonds that both natural and adoptive mothers share with their children eclipse the bonds of pet ownership. Again, that’s just my opinion.
Doubtful, but then I’d already acknowledged that I’m not sure fathers have the same biological bond with their children that mothers have.
Yeah, and kinda weird that it only seems to be in relation to your posts. I have a great remedy, though. I’ll just stop acknowledging them.
How do women who never realize they are pregnant fit into this equation? Based on this author’s assertions (not backed up by any references to peer-reviewed scientific research that I could locate) all women who are pregnant should be having an interest in imagining & caring for her child as a result of those endocrine changes. What, then, is “wrong” with those women who don’t realize they’re pregnant until they go into labor?
Isn’t it possible that, as might have been the case in Kinsley’s rat research (see above), the endocrine & brain changes are “priming the pump” to encourage post-natal bonding rather than being themselves the source of the bond?
The author of the book your linked article is based on is a self-proclaimed “social philosopher” whose CV doesn’t really read like that of someone involved in rigorous scientific research.
He seems to have made some intuitive leaps which, though possibly based on sound neuroscientific research done by others, are questionable.
Which means you can’t prove it. But let’s say you’re right, which you probably are. Is there some sort of objective threshold of love that must be crossed before the word “kids” can be used? You might say that yes, and that threshold is humanity. But then why?
Let’s try a thought experiment: Let’s say a woman, who is a cat owner, suffers some peculiar sort of brain damage. She now has the same amounts of whatever chemicals in her brain as a new mother has. Furthermore, she brings these attachment chemicals to bear on her cat, for whatever reason. Biologically, her attachment is no different than that of a new mother. Does she now have the right to call her cat her kid? In fact, doesn’t she have that right more than an adoptive mother?
It seems people are trying to go to great extremes with the “what ifs” in order to prove that people with pets have the same kind of relationship with those pets as parents have with children.
What’s the percentage of pregnancies are hysterical pregnancies? And isn’t this going to a severe extreme to simply get me to acknowledge that, yes, she loves that kitty the exact same way as she would a human child?
What percentage of pregnant women don’t realize they’re pregnant until they go into labor?
I think we’re entering the realm of the ridiculous here, people.
Umm, they’re idiots?
Without a doubt, I’m sure :D, but (in answer to Maureen) no matter how small a percentage of pregnant women we might be talking about, if the bond between a mother & her biological infant is a biological imperative that begins before birth, why would some women be exempt from it?
Par for the course. You’re going to extremes to prove that only certain beings are worthy of being called kids.
And you never answered my question.
Not at all. Psychologists love cases of abnormal psychology because they teach us so much about normal psychology: it’s in the brain-damaged, the insane, the unbalanced that we’re able to see what features are necessary for sanity, healthy brains, and emotional balance. Bringing up extreme and rare cases is perfectly valid.
Daniel