Women Are More Likely To Test Parenting Skills With Pets Before Having A Baby, Says Survey. And It’s Valuable Experience!

The pandemic has made me reconsider having children, because look at the world we’re leaving behind for them. On the brink of nuclear war, humanity overpowered by greed and stupidity, ravaged by deadly viruses that we haven’t even learnt to cure yet, and the environment just going to shit, biding its time to hit the reset button with the great flood of our time that washes the slate clean for our planet. Yikes. But I am increasingly confident that I want to be a pet parent, STAT. Raising a dog or a cat or any pet really is just as tasking as raising a child (at least the former aren’t ungrateful when they grow up!). And according to this survey, being a pet parent can actually teach me some valuable parenting skills for if and when I do plan on having a really human baby crawl out of my vagina!

A website called Rover.com, which offers dog-sitter and dog walking services, surveyed 500 female dog owners and found that these women did a test run to become pet parents before they had children. 46% women opted to bring home a dog first, and some 42% said that their experience as dog moms actually helped them build valuable parenting skills that they could use when they became mothers to their kids. As for another 23% respondents, they said they also planned to follow the same chronology—be pet mom before being mom to a hooman!

If you ask me, raising children in a house with a pet is a wonderful thing. I’ve seen those videos of pups with babies and how they both grow together and become besties. And Instagram optics aside, it’s just a wonderful friendship that gives your pet a hooman  to love unconditionally and who gives them pets and treatos and loads of hugs. And it makes children more emotionally intelligent and compassionate and even help them with developing better self-esteem. So perhaps being a pet parent isn’t just gonna help you, as a mother, develop parenting skills, but also be a valuable experience for your child too.

Also Read: Couple Hosts A Baby Shower For Their Pet Dog, Steffi. This Is Adorable!

Of course, it is not really necessary to have human children if you’ve got a pet baby already. In fact, these days, many women and couples are choosing to opt out of having children (for the very reasons I mentioned in the start of the article) and bringing home pets—dogs, cats, fish, tortoises, birds… the works!

The Rover survey also found that about 78% of women stated that they thought of themselves not as dog owners but as dog moms. And 75% of these dog moms referred to their dogs lovingly as ‘fur babies’, ‘son’ or ‘daughter’, ‘kid’, ‘child’, ‘baby’ or other terms, indicating that they were not just pets but pretty much like their children.

This really warms my heart! Anyone up for convincing my mom to let her daughter get a doggo so she can learnt to parent better?