‘Moms’, ‘dads’ are really parenting fur babies

More people are investing time, money and attention on their pets. It looks a lot like parenting, but of pets, not people. Can this kind of caregiving toward animals be considered parenting?

I’m an anthropologist who studies human-animal interactions, a field known as anthrozoology. I want to better understand the behaviour of pet parenting by people from the perspective of evolutionary science. After all, cultural norms suggest that people should be raising their own children, not animals.

Many societies are now experiencing major changes in how people live, work and socialise. Fertility rates are low and people are more flexible in how they choose to live their lives.

These factors can lead people to value defining themselves as an individual over family obligations. They can also focus on higher-order psychological needs like feelings of achievement and a sense of purpose.

I interviewed 28 child-free pet owners to better understand how they relate to their pets. They said they had actively chosen cats and dogs instead of children.

They emphasised fulfilling the species-specific needs of their dogs and cats by acknowledging differences in the nutrition, socialisation and learning needs between animals and children.

They said they were not unthinkingly replacing human children with their “fur babies”.

Other researchers find similar connections showing that these pet owners perceive their pets as emotional, thinking individuals.

This way of understanding the mind of an animal helps lead to the development of a parent identity towards companion animals.

But these findings do not answer this question: are people who choose pets over children parenting their pets?

Evolutionary anthropologist Sarah Hrdy wrote in 2009 that humans are cooperative breeders. This means it is in our DNA to help care for offspring who are not our own. This evolutionary history explains pet parenting.