Pwhy i pet owners they are more “popular” than parents? It is the title of an article of Guardian signed by Nell Frizzell. Author of a motherhood book, Frizzell also ventures an answer. Dog and cat «are more socially acceptable than children because they simply are easier to love».
When (and why) it is better to have a dog than a child
The article is inspired by the publication of an anthology of short stories Dog Hearted, in which 14 writers explore their relationships with dogs. On the contrary, Frizzell notes, books on parenting (including his) tell the tiring side of motherhood, between feelings of guilt, anxieties and, when it’s good, self-irony. In reverse dog and cat owners are indulged and celebrated in their adoration of furry pets. To which they buy ice cream, create Instagram accounts, administer sessions with psychologists. Dogs that, more and more frequently, can be brought to the office and come introduce yourself as “my baby” without particular scandal.
Dog and cat, for them a “mass love”
As a parent, Frizzell is surprised: “I’ve been told that parenting is a ‘niche’ area of interest (81% of women will have a baby by the time they reach 45), while pets have a “mass appeal” (only 62% of households in the UK own a pet). The same people who yawn at coworkers discussing their kids in the office often regale you with stories of their cats sitting on their backs or dogs eating peanut butter.
The article also reviews the money people are willing to pay for pets and the donations that are made to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals: a society founded 60 years before the one that deals with Cruelty to Children.
Having a dog is more “convenient” than having a child
Not only – trivially – you become owners in one afternoon and parents in nine monthsand only if the genetics and the life choices they are on our side. Not only costs to raise an animal, however tall and pretentious, they are nothing compared to those to look after a child.
But, above all, the author admits: «Pets depend much, much less on you for physical, emotional or psychological support than children. They don’t hit you with years of hormonal rampage in childhood and adolescence, learn to talk, develop inflammatory political opinions, fall in love with drug dealers, or steal your record collection. In the end, if the pet in question is a total nightmare, you can give it away or take him to a shelter, with very little social stigma».
Dog owners vs parents in Italy
If the article is built, with irony, on the antithesis between two types of care, alluding, again with irony, to a antagonism between parents and owners (which does not exist), it can be useful to stimulate some questions.
The matter is far from just English. Even in Italy the dogs are depopulating, and the children are trudging along. An emblematic case is the Municipality of Piacenza, where in 2022, the Canine Registry took over, there was a real boom in adoptions of four-legged friends. In ten years they have doubled: they were 6,316 on 31 December 2012, they are 11,125 now. 11,125 registered animals against 10,335 resident children aged 0-11.
Where there are more children, fewer dogs are welcomed, and vice versa
The correlation has been studiedand it turns out that in Italy, where more children are born, fewer dogs are welcomed into the house, and vice versa. Cross-referencing the data ofdog registry, collected by the Ministry of Health on the basis of the values of the individual regional sections, with the birth rates produced by Istat, it can in fact be noted that where the birth rate is higher (Trentino, Campania and Sicily), that is, the ratio is lower. between dogs and inhabitants. And on the contrary, where the percentage of puppies in the population is higher (Umbria Sardinia, Friuli-Venezia Giulia), fewer children are born.
In other words, that is, the spirit of care – in some cases and for some people – can then perhaps be directed towards a child or an animal. But only the second form of parenting is trendy.
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