From The Realm of Things I Do Not Understand: Sanctimonious Parents

This morning I read a New York Magazine article Pets Are Not Children, So Stop Calling Them That thanks to someone in my Facebook feed liking the article. (FYI I’ll be reviewing our friendship status when I’m done here.) While I’ll confess it doesn’t take much to fuck me off, this writer made a good solid effort at it. Especially since it’s been a year since I’ve been annoyed enough to write a blog post.

First of all, it doesn’t diminish the life of a human child that I consider my two Black Labs to be my children. If it makes you uncomfortable that is an issue entirely of your own making, and most likely stems from the fact that you want praise for increasing the population count in an overcrowded world. Bully for you. You figured out how to fuck without a prophylactic. Being a parent doesn’t automagically make you a better person than someone who chooses a different path. I know you think it does, but you’re wrong.

The article implies that because I did not birth my dogs I am not entitled to call myself a parent. Not all parents give birth to their own children. The more noble of us choose to take on an unwanted child and raise and care for that life. In essence a parent is nothing more than a guardian. As a guardian it is your responsibility to keep your ward safe, sheltered, nurtured, fed and to guide it through life. If you’re halfway decent as a parent your ward will be happy, healthy, well behaved and will enjoy their life. You choose to be the guardian of a human child and I choose to be a guardian of a canine.

Why should it bother you if my husband and I choose to refer to each other as “Mom and Dad” when talking to our dogs? They are just monikers. Not all parents choose to use those same terms. I know plenty of people, myself included, that refer to their human parents by their first name. Doesn’t matter what you call someone. What matters is what relationship you have with them.  Our dogs look to my husband and I to provide them with the same love, care and guidance that a human child would. They look to us to fill the role of guardian, of parent, and we do that. In spades.

Where I really have you beat is that my children love me unconditionally. Yours will spend much of their life resenting you for the myriad of mistakes and transgressions you will make as the parent of a human child. Mine will forgive me my sins and omissions before I’ve even made them. Maybe this is what makes you so uncomfortable. I have to work really hard to fuck up my kids and make them ungrateful selfish brats like yours that undoubtedly scream “I WANT IT! I WANT IT! I WANT IT! I HATE YOU!” in the toy aisle at Target.

The author goes on to say that parenting is how we shape our future. Well, perhaps we’d be better off if the well parented animals ran the place. All I need to do is watch 2 minutes of a Trump rally to see what the blessed job of human parenting gets us.