What is with all the weird hatred for the term "dog(parent)"?

It used to be “dog owner” put the political correctness police decided that humans could not “own” other living things (like pets) so they tried to push anthropomorhistic terminology (like dog mom, dog dad) in order to promote the caring relationship.

If you ask me, pet owners are owners. And stupid jingoistic jargon is just silly.

If it’s on social media, I just attribute it to people being assholes on social media, hiding behind their keyboards.

I both own my dogs and they are my dog daughters. It’s cute. Nothing more.

It’s not politically correct nor am I threatening traditional family values.

Anyone who believes either of those things might want to remove that stick from their ass.

See, that’s more where I was getting at.

It’s not a matter of “owner” being offensive, it’s people thinking calling themselves dog mom is just a liberal attempt to ruin the traditional family. Like what?

It’s very weird to me, too, and I’m a conservative dog mom. Unashamedly.

The only answer that makes any sense is that more people are choosing not to have children, which some could feel is an actual threat to traditional values. Churches are closing, same sex marriage is legal, so perhaps the changes trigger them?

Dog[parent]= renunciation of ownership = animal rights activism = liberalism = communism = Satan.
It is that simple.

Fortunately, I haven’t come across this. One of my daughters happens to have 4 legs. She’s a person – not a human person, but she is a person.

My only guess on why conservatives might push back on that is because the only things considered a “person” by conservatives are:

* corporations
* embryonic tissue

I’m conscious, and so is my cat.
That’s all.

Do you think that conservatives are the only people who know that men do not have uteri?

People are Strange

@snipsnip

That was just an example, out of many that are shared in this one specific photo.

No, I do not believe that. But they say that only as an attempt to piss people off.

For example: I saw an article about a 6 year old who ran a marathon. Some people were mad that the parents allowed this. In this specific situation, conservatives were responding “oh, so it’s okay for a 6 year old to change their sex but not chose to run a marathon?”

Do you see what I mean? It’s not as if all conservatives or only conservatives are transphobic, but in this specific situation, it was conservatives bringing it up as a way to piss people off.

The article was about a kid and a marathon, and it got turned into some weird conversation about sex changes.

So no, I do not believe it’s all conservatives. I just have not seen a liberal take issue with “dog mom”. I think even Tucker (who my dad watches) said some dumb shit about “dog moms” being a bad term.

That’s where the conservative label came into play here. No horrible bias, just my observations.

It’s cute and nothing more, both Mrs Squeeky and myself refer to our cat as our kid.
Religious ,and conservatives dislike it because I think they think people are substituting children with pets.
In this day and age it’s a hell of a lot cheaper and a lot less work to do just that.
If these people have a problem with that ,than tough shit.

Yeah now I am worried I mentioned conservatives specifically. It’s just my observations based on this stupid photo. Because it’s a huge list of shit that I’ve only heard that political group say, and then out of the blue it goes “pets aren’t kids” like it’s meant to be satirical.

It just confused me.

Some people feel when someone calls their pet “child, “son, or “daughter” it demeans the relationship between a parent and a human child.

And it ends up with people making assertions that their pet should be treaed by others as if it were a child. “Why can’t I bring my dog to the wedding?” “Fifi cat needs salmon for her dinner at your barbecue”.

I’ve seen several versions of this conversation, which have different contexts, and the people complaining about “dog mommy” aren’t all conservative. For example, some people are just saying that a human-to-pet relationship isn’t a parent-to-child relationship, and they’re just balking in various ways at some of the behavior of some humans who have adopted that mindset towards their pets.

A variation on the complaint that is ”(American) conservative” and that I find particularly er, obnoxiously not-their-business and not something I agree with at all, is the one that seems to essentially be saying, “all people have a civic duty to create and raise human children, so treating a pet as a child instead is shirking that responsibility!”

@Zaku Seems legit. I am still treated like an alien for choising not to have kids in the bible belt. Even our mom’s had trouble processing it. Shrug, our lives to lead. Dogs are much quieter. Haha.

I haven’t seen that specific objection to the term; mostly what I see is people calling it “cringe” because they judge people who treat their pets like kids. I personally find it a little “eh” (like, I have cats but I’ve never called myself a “cat dad” and probably won’t) but I don’t mind it otherwise.

@Demosthenes You should check out Cat Daddy on tiktok, it’s hilarious. The cats totally ignore his partner but love on him a ridiculous amount.

From the conservative angle, I agree with @Zaku‘s analysis. It comes down to a very rigid view of the family and how it’s supposed to look. In this “idyllic” view of the family, the highest achievement a woman can have is to bear and raise good children. Such a thing is a good and noble pursuit and should be valued by society, but they seem to be threatened by successful alternative family structures as a competing model.

I’d have to see the examples where people were saying things. Sometimes it is in context that I find the understanding. If someone is getting upset about someone referring to themselves as a pet parent, I’d have to say either they never had a pet, never had a good pet, or were really bad pet owners. I look at my little furry baby and have no qualms about calling him such.

I’ll have to watch for it, I haven’t come across it yet. The people in my life who think treating dogs like children is way overboard in the US are all liberals. They love animals and have had dogs and cats themselves, but think it just sometimes goes too far.

Where do you see it? Is there a specific place on the Internet that has that kind of posts or is it all over the Internet in general?

I haven’t seen what you said, but I’m aware of some corners of the Internet that just hate pets and pet owners with a passion, like r/petfree. They have some insanely long posts that sound intelligent at first sight, but are actually just hateful rambling if you think about it. The community actually started as a reasonable safe place for frustrated people to vent about bad pet behavior and bad owners, then it got infected with hate. One reason they gave for their hatred is that animals aren’t worth as much as human and will leave you for someone with more delicious food, therefore don’t deserve love. Some even go out of their way to say the world would be better without pets. And they are most certainly people who will say pets are not children and can’t replace real children.

Some people there either had trauma around pets and developed their hate from there. Some are just frustrated with bad owners and hate pets by proxy. Some just hate animals in general and can’t understand why people could love an animal. Anyway, those communities have been around for a long time, much long before what you are seeing now.

Maybe somehow those community become mainstream and it becomes trendy on social media to hate pets, and that is what you are seeing? Social media like trends. When something becomes the new hot thing, everyone just flocks into it, sometimes without even knowing why they are doing it. I kind of doubt some people posting have an idea what they are talking about, or they are just trying to justify their own hatred by something more “noble”.

Just a shot in the dark there because I haven’t seen what you are talking about.

Society is breaking down. Social cohesion is low. Social groups are dwindling. More people have less money and more responsibilities and public education has been defunded for 40 years.

Having a kid is hard, people are choosing not to have them. It is a symptom of a larger problem and will itself cause major problems in the future. This is just more innane pushback from the side with no ideas.

I’ve seen some pushback on these terms. Usually in the context of the child-free movement.

Mostly birthers and anti-birthers shouting over each other about babies vs pets.

It’s a bit much.