I am trying to find my voice on a parenting blog.  But let me do a small rant on one thing that bothers me.  Dogs.  Specifically, dogs who are replacements for kids.  If you don’t want to have kids, well that is all well and good.  Don’t have kids, live your life.  But don’t try and claim that your “dogs” are some kind of child for you.  They are not surrogate children.  They are dogs.  They are like really tall hamsters.  Your kid gets run over by a car, people are going to jail.  Your dog gets run over, well, that sucks.

I have friends that are thinking about having kids but in the meantime they talk about their “kids”, their dogs.  They post pictures of themselves with their dogs with captions like “Hanging with the kids”.  Their mother posts things like “Loving my granddogs”.  Did your dog have puppies and then they had puppies?  They might be your “Granddogs” otherwise, no.  Get off it.

Otherwise it just seems like you like the idea of kids, the “mystique” of children, but you really don’t want to deal with the hassle, the expense, the commitment.  Instead, you anthropomorphize your dogs and try and claim parent status without having to really put in the work or commitment.  Do you get up in the middle of the night to nurse your dog or comfort it because of night terrors or bad dreams (this is rhetorical, if you answered “yes”, please seek professional help).

So, no, your dogs are not your kids.  My kid’s crawdad is not his kid.  Nor are the cats our kids.  Our dog is not related to us in any way.  We own the dog.   Various meal-worms that we raise to feed to lizards, they are not our kids.  Baby goats may in fact be our kids, but I muddy the issue.

I see cutesy but belligerent shirts and posters about “Yes, my dogs are my kids.   I am going to talk about them as much as you do your kids.”  BS.  How do your dogs do in school?  What, they can’t talk or read?  What part of the autistic spectrum are they on?  You keep them on a leash?  CALL CPS!  They aren’t kids, you need to rethink your life.  You get over it.

 

So, the Manolo has kindly allowed me use of this forum to discharge/vent/release parenting something or other.

 

Had quite the scare the other day.  The #3 child was taking a bath (3 years old) while I dealt with the other three.  Walking by the bathroom I did not hear any noise so I jokingly yelled”Hey, you’re not dead in there are you?”.  No response.  “Hey!”  “ANYDMAN!”   Nothing still.

Went into the bathroom and opened the door to the tub.  There he was, floating motionless in tub.  My heart went into overdrive and I grabbed his arm and started yelling.  He immediately started yelling and crying because who wouldn’t if you were quietly TAKING A NAP FLOATING ON YOUR BACK IN A BATHTUB!  The stupid kid (who has taken swim lessons since he was 6 weeks old) was tired and so comfortable in the water that he just laid back and fell asleep floating in the water.  Scared the hell out of me and subsequently scared the hell out of him.

There is not much takeaway from this except maybe don’t let your kids take baths if they are tired.  Several people told me that I should not let him bathe alone but I think that for a kid that is almost four, not such a big deal.  Still, hoo-boy.  That was a  cardio workout for me.