By deferring kids for \u2018fur-babies,\u2019 the dog-boomer generation is missing out on the real joys of parenthood and pets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you grew up with dogs (as I did), you know that something bizarre and sad often happens when a mother dog loses her puppies. With hormones and maternal instinct coursing through her, she will frequently adopt inanimate objects as \u201creplacement-puppies.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Usually, she chooses something like a boot, hat, or stuffed toy. Mother cats do the same thing, typically with socks. Whatever the object, the animal will carry it around, lick it, attempt to suckle it, protect it, and otherwise pour all of her energy and nurturing instincts into it\u2014often for much longer than she would an actual litter of puppies or kittens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Something in her brain is soothed by the non-living replacement, but ironically, this replacement-puppy can prevent the mother from trying again to bear actual young. Her instincts are permanently misdirected, wasted on an object that will never be her real offspring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even sadder is when humans do the same thing. I\u2019m not talking about mothers who have lost their babies. I\u2019m talking about men and women, especially from the millennial generation, who have chosen to indefinitely postpone having children, yet still feel the unshakeable urge to parent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This urge is natural. It\u2019s good. It was placed in us to let us know that our reproductive systems are in prime shape to marry, build a home, and raise children. As the father of three, I can also say what a joy it is to feel the tug of those parental instincts and fulfill them as God intended.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But for many in my generation who are also approaching 30, children (and the ideal prerequisite for children, marriage), are still out of the question because they\u2019re too expensive, too time-consuming, and might cramp their style. Those nurturing instincts don\u2019t go anywhere, though. A disturbing number of young adults are directing them toward substitutes\u2014not boots or stuffed toys, but dogs and cats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m convinced that psychology manuals 200 years from now will identify \u201creplacement-baby syndrome\u201d as a diagnosable epidemic in my generation. For an unbelievable number of millennials, pets\u2019 original purpose\u2014to be shaggy companions and useful partners in work and housekeeping\u2014has been superseded by a role they were never intended to fill: replacement child.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is now commonplace to hear young people my age unironically refer to their pooches and kitties (I\u2019m horrified to even write this) as \u201cchildren,\u201d \u201cfur-babies,\u201d \u201ckids,\u201d \u201cgirls,\u201d \u201cboys,\u201d or \u201csons and daughters.\u201d Likewise, it\u2019s not at all unusual to hear pet-owners refer to themselves as \u201cpooch parents,\u201d or \u201cmommies and daddies.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Christian musician Nicole Nordeman recently posted an account<\/a> on Facebook of a couple she overheard at the airport holding a FaceTime call with their \u201cbaby\u201d and his \u201cgrandparents.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThey are cooing and gushing and exclaiming \u2018well look at YOU, big boy! So big! So handsome! Are you being so good for Nana???\u2019\u201d These \u201cparents\u201d pester their own parents with questions about baby\u2019s feeding, pooping, and playtime, and \u201cnearly collapse with joy\u201d when \u201cbaby\u201d comes back on screen for a last goodbye. \u201cMommy and Daddy love you,\u201d the couple squeal. \u201cYou are the best boy! We\u2019re coming home so soon!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nordeman says she turned around to sneak a look at this sweet baby who\u2019s so beloved by his parents, only to find\u2026a yellow Labrador retriever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n How much embarrassment must it bring those \u201cgrandparents\u201d to participate in such a call? How badly must they want real grandchildren, instead of pet-sitting an attention-smothered dog? How much grief must they feel watching their child waste her parental instincts on an animal while they\u2019re forced to play along in the couple\u2019s sick and disturbing charade?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Maybe not much, because they\u2019re likely very busy. After all, being a \u201cpet parent\u201d is hard work. This strenuous delusion usually involves pretending animals are humans, as with a viral Pinterest post<\/a> by a woman who huffs, \u201cDon\u2019t say I am not a Mom just because my kids have 4 legs and fur. They are my kids, and I am their mom.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Millennials, it turns out<\/a>, are twice as likely as baby boomers to buy clothing for their pets, an industry which, along with other forms of \u201cpet-pampering,\u201d amounted to $11 billion last year, and markets such essential items as pet strollers<\/a> and pet slings<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Other times, replacement-babies require pet parents to pretend they, themselves, are animals. Feast your eyes, for example, on this new cat brush<\/a> that allows users to role-play by inserting it in their mouth like a giant tongue and \u201clicking\u201d their kitty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Corporations have incorporated the replacement-baby epidemic into marketing campaigns. Consider this eyeroll-inducing new Sprint commercial<\/a>, in which Instagram pretty boy and Jesus-lookalike Topher Brophy proudly refers to his dog as \u201cmy son,\u201d and confers with him about wireless plans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many in my generation naively think of their dogs and cats as \u201cpractice babies,\u201d hoping to test the waters of parenthood on a child that won\u2019t resent them for a lifetime or wind up in prison should they fail. Never mind that dogs would probably resent being treated like lab rats if they could understand human motives. Certainly, they don\u2019t appreciate being carted off to the animal shelter when their \u201cparents\u201d tire of them. But how many couples misdirect their parental instincts toward a door-shredding, constantly shedding nightmare and then decide they can\u2019t handle kids?<\/p>\n\n\n\n College Humor provides some much-needed ridicule<\/a> of this idea, and shows why it\u2019s a sign of a weak relationship more than it is of cautious parenting (if our marriage falls apart, at least only the dog will suffer!). But there\u2019s a more serious and long-lasting consequence of millennials\u2019 choice to substitute babies with animals, even temporarily: They aren\u2019t getting around to actually having babies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In September, the Washington Post <\/em>reported<\/a> on findings from research firm Mintel that quantify the replacement-baby epidemic. Young Americans are less likely than their parents to own a car or a home, and half as likely to be married as Americans were 50 years ago. But we have a handy lead over the baby-boomers in one area: pet ownership. The frontrunners of the millennial pack who\u2019ve already entered careers could be rechristened the \u201cdog-boomers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Three-fourths of Americans in their thirties own dogs (for the purposes of this study, all adults 37 years old and younger were considered \u201cmillennials\u201d), and half own cats. When you compare them with the population in general, only half of whom own dogs and just over a third of whom own cats, the surge is obvious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Writing at Forbes<\/a>, Erin Lowry blames the perceived costs for this shortfall of children. As pricey as dogs can be if you treat them the way this Manhattanite does (she buys her dog expensive food, paw cleaning, surgery, pet-sitting, and pays to fly it places), her $5,000 in receipts are still nowhere near the reported sticker price of a kid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimated in 2013 that the average annual cost of raising a child in a two-parent home runs somewhere between $12,800 and $14,970, and much more if you live in a major city. That\u2019s a quarter of a million dollars before each child reaches adulthood, which doesn\u2019t include college or post-adulthood basement-dwelling. If you have three kids and a single writer\u2019s income like I do, that should make you weak at the knees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But of course, it\u2019s not true, because as James Breakwell points out<\/a>, fathers like he and I will never see that much money, yet our kids are still alive. Texas A&M University finance professor H. Swint Friday points out<\/a> that the USDA numbers are \u201cmisleading to the point of outrageous,\u201d and concocted largely based on \u201cpolitical objectives.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The economy of scale, thrifty shopping, buying things used, and having a spouse willing to stay home and care for the kids drastically cuts childrearing costs. But perhaps because many of them were pampered, millennials have come away with the distinct impression that raising children is a vocation reserved for those with Batman\u2019s bank account. It\u2019s not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I can tell everything I need to know about a person by whether he \u201cgot a dog,\u201d or \u201cadopted a dog.\u201d The pretense that buying luxury items like indoor pets is somehow altruistic or noble will strike future observers as one of the oddest habits of the millennial generation. It\u2019s even becoming common to hear pet owners tell the story of how they \u201crescued\u201d their dog or cat, as if they snatched it from a burning building at the peril of their own lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In reality, most of them simply visited the pound and picked the cutest furball they saw. I\u2019ve never met someone who asked shelter workers, \u201cWhich dog is scheduled to die first?\u201d and took home whatever mange-riddled chupacabra emerged from the back room. When you go get a dog, you are doing something you want to do. Portraying it as a sacrificial act of virtue is just indulgent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The same goes for virtually all of the bizarre activities that characterize the replacement-baby plague. Whether it\u2019s strollers, costumes, complicated grooming, or being confined to one-bedroom apartments in Brooklyn that smell like Febreze, we\u2019re fooling ourselves if we believe our animals enjoy any of this play-acting. I suspect dogs hate owners who treat them this way. They don\u2019t want to be pushed around in a carriage, sung to sleep, or sent to daycare. They don\u2019t want to be your surrogate infant. They want to be your pack-mate\u2014your hunting companion. They want to chase down something in the woods and rip its still-beating heart out, together. They are, after all, descended from wolves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We have instincts to raise children. Well, guess what? Dogs have instincts, too. \u201c\u2026the bloodlust, the joy to kill,\u201d writes Jack London in \u201cCall of the Wild.\u201d \u201c\u2014all this was Buck\u2019s\u2026He was raging at the head of the pack, running the wild thing down, the living meat, to kill with his own teeth and wash his muzzle to the eyes in warm blood.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Does this bother you? Do you find this distasteful? Then you shouldn\u2019t own a dog, because it is at the core of what they are. This is the instinct that makes dogs so eager to fetch a Frisbee at the park, and what makes cats hours of fun if you\u2019ve got a laser-pointer. The reason man domesticated such animals in the first place was because of the joy they brought him\u2014not as replacement children, but as animals.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Millennials desperately need to shake the delusion this pets can stand in or prepare us for babies. Not only is it depriving us of the joy of children and misdirecting our parental instincts toward things that were never meant to receive them, it\u2019s depriving many of the true delight of pet ownership. For both humans and animals, these delusions are sad distortions of instinct that leave only barrenness in their wake. But there is one key difference: dogs and cats don\u2019t know any better. We do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n G. Shane Morris is a senior writer at BreakPoint<\/a>, a program of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview. He\u2019s also written for Summit Ministries and The Christian Post, and blogs regularly at Patheos<\/a>. Shane lives with his wife and three children in Tampa, Florida.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/kmi2.kr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/image-7.png\")
The Rise of \u2018Fur Babies\u2019<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s Hard Work Pretending Animals Are Humans<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Choosing Pets Over Progeny<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Your Dog Doesn\u2019t Want to Be Your Child<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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