The Child-Like Role of Dogs in Western Societies

I once watched a woman hold her little dog over the glass at the pizza bar in Whole Foods. Was waiting for the dog to drop a free sausage link onto the pizza below.

Placing dogs into shopping carts is another one. Dogs rub their dirty buttholes on the same surfaces where you later place your fruits and vegetables.

As a lifelong rescuer of pit bulls and other "problem" dogs, I can see how that role I've picked for myself aligns and contrasts with how others view human-dog relationships.

we have a good relationship with the children we raised, along with their children. Our dog, however, is always with us and it just feels good to watch after her. We don't consider her a child, just a very good, non-verbal friend.

I thought that was ridiculous because these are just animals. It sucks when they die but it’s not the end of the world.

Another car nearby killed a little child and her father and that one was much more horrific to me.

But now it makes sense: to these people the two incidents were equivalent. I suppose that is normal, what with all the stories of animals caring for the young of other animals. Neotenic characteristics seem to have cross-species impact.

Very cool. Thank you for sharing this.

I believe there are a few things leading many people to choose pets instead of children to fulfill their desire to nurture:

1. The trauma theory of psychology.

Pop psychology today seems to assume that babies are born perfectly mentally healthy, except for any genetic mental illnesses they inherited from their parents. Then at some point, if they're unlucky, they experience some sort of trauma, often at the hands of their parents. That trauma inflicts a mental illness on them. They can treat it with therapy and/or meds, but the assumption is that the illness is irrevocable. (Don't believe me? The next time you're talking to a friend and they bring up therapy or mental health medication, ask them when they think they'll be cured and can stop.)

The implication here is that as a parent, you've got basically nowhere to go but down with regards to your kid's mental health. If you are yourself perfectly mentally healthy and pass on no predispositions to your kid, and you parent them flawlessly 24/7 for eighteen years and dodge every possible trauma, then congrats you didn't fuck them up. Anything less than that and you're a bad parent. Which leads to...

2. Impossible parenting standards.

Media is constantly filled with all of the various ways a parent can do a bad job. Start the car moving down the driveway before they have their seatbelt on? Bad parent. Let them walk to the park on their own and risk being abducted? Bad parent. Give them access to junk food? Bad parent. Don't put them in enough extracurricular activities to pad their college application letter a decade from now? Bad parent. Too many extracurricular activities so they don't have enough free time in which to learn initiative? Bad parent.

It is unending and demoralizing the ways in which parents are made to constantly feel they are inadequate. When I was a kid, if another kid fell playing and broke their arm, it was just "OK, kids get hurt." Today, it's "Why did you let them do that?" Parents have never spent more time with their children than they do today, but our culture still tells us it's not enough. Or, if it does, they tell us it's too much.

Mix that with the previous point, and having a kid with any mental health challenges is not just a tragedy but your fault as a parent.

3. Long-term pessimism.

I know many people who truly do believe the world is fucked because of climate change and politics. Not only do they not believe any potential children of theirs would be raised in a world worse than they one they grew up in, they don't even have faith that world will be functionally habitable at all.

Best case, they believe their children may thrive only because they happen to be born into privilege while other children in poorer locations will suffer catastrophically from climate change. So the best outcome they can imagine is a profound failing of moral justice.

Meanwhile, consider pets:

1. Rescued from trauma.

Most pet owners get their pets from shelters. The animal may actually have had trauma before being adopted, but the owner wasn't morally responsible. Instead, they are the rescuer that saved the animal from further trauma. If the animal bounces back and has great behavior, then it's a testament to the amazing resilence of animals and the benefits of compassionate ownership. If the animal always has behavioral issues, well it's not their fault they were traumatized and what a good owner they have to take care of them in spite of those challenges.

2. High but meetable standards

Standards for pet ownership are certainly high here too. Long gone are the days of putting the dog in a doghouse in the backyard and giving them a scoop out of the giant cheap bag of Alpo every day. Pets are expected to be fed healthy food, kept inside and safe, given good vet care, and lots of interaction and enrichment.

Those standards are high but attainable. You can just do those things and feel like a good pet owner. And the pet will certainly make you feel like a good pet owner. Their expectations are low and it's easy to exceed them.

3. Shorter life span

If you believe the world is doomed, then a living being that will never outlive you and have to figure out how to make its without your support is a blessing. You don't have to feel guilty about the fact that in a thousand tiny ways, you contributed to climate change that will end up harming a loved one decades from now.

As in many things, most people are willing to ignore any aspect that is not what's in their face, and appealing to them.

There are many other aspects to the thoughtless use of other animals to assuage a human's mental illness.

One of the main ones is projection: the animal can't speak, or otherwise precisely express themselves. Into this silence, the human is able to inject whatever narrative they desire. This leads to people claiming that the animal is much more responsive to their needs, and provides greater solace than another human. This solace is purely in the mind of the beholder. No one knows what the dog is thinking, therefore it's thinking exactly what we want it to think.

Another aspect of the entire pet issue, that I haven't seen otherwise mentioned in the comments, is the disruption to the public peace caused by many dogs. I have seen a couple of comments about dog shit, which is a major problem, but noise is also a significant issue.

Both of these are primarily the fault of negligent owners, which are the overwhelming majority of modern US pet owners.

You know what we all need? Another article about LLMs.

I’m very disappointed to see such wide adoption of pets, especially dogs, as “replacements” of children in adult lives. I do not think it’s healthy for adults to do this because it infantilizes the adult. It is actually very sad, almost pitiful to see it happen. I think pets are wonderful for children because it helps them to develop a connection with living beings that aren’t humans, to see emotions are a universal trait.

More frequently I see now grown people wheeling their dogs in baby carriages. If this is some cosmic-scale humor by nature because we have overpopulated the planet and it’s intentionally sabotaging the environment, then I’m afraid the joke is on us.

Declining birth rates are clearly a response to the deterioating economic conditions of most people. Stagnant real wages, skyrocketing costs, ever-more inaccessible housing and so on. Housing debt, student debt, medical debt. The cost of childcare can reach $3000/month per child. If you want your child to have the best opportunities, it may well cost $1 million or more between all those costs to raise a child. At a time when people can barely provide for themselves.

Of course pets are surrogate children for some people. And even that's being ruined by capitalism as private equity moves into the vet space to squeeze every last dollar from people.

Another aspect to this is social control. One reason Western societies have been relatively stable is the method of control is treats, basically. Social media, pets, smartphones, etc all mollify the masses. In more totalitarian societies, the threat of violence is a more typical method of control. Think of something like the Stasi in East Germany.

The profit motive is destroying the treats. If you're on the verge of homelessness and can barely feed yourself, skyrocketing costs of pet ownership are a real issue. We're rapidly approaching a point where people think they'll never be able to retire and really have nothing to live for.

Rather than the ultra-wealthy being slightly less wealthy so the rest of society, which is necessary for their wealth to exist, can have something good in their lives, we're instead becoming increasingly oppressive. Over-policing, militarizing police, crushing protests (as per this last weekend in LA), etc.

Things are going to get a lot worse before they get better. And to think, all a lot of people need to be happy is a roof over their head, not having to have 3 jobs and being able to have a dog.

They drain resources and get free care while offering no benefit other than satisfying maternal urges which were designed to work on human babies. Puppies are 100 percent part of the reason for the westernized world’s population problem.