Interspecies Parenting: How Pet Parents Construct Their Roles

Abstract

This qualitative study explores a widespread contemporary family form, the interspecies family, to understand how people who count their cats and dogs as family members describe this process of becoming and maintaining family. We focus on one aspect of interspecies families—pet parenting. We find that even though individuals say their pets are family, not all consider themselves to be parents or engaged in pet parenting. Participants with human children differed somewhat from those without human children, suggesting that family form shapes pet parenting experiences. Childless participants draw heavily from larger cultural narratives surrounding parenting to construct the parent–pet child relationship. Those with younger human children talk about the relationship primarily from a place of difference, while those with older human children construct the relationship in similar ways to childless individuals and emphasize similarities between raising children and pets. This study contributes to the literature on family change and human–animal relationships within households.

Keywords

pets parenting families animals and society interspecies

Personal Reflexive Statement

Nicole Owens. As a researcher, my work is situated at the intersection of family, human–animal interaction, food, and health. In my personal life, I am a pet parent to two adorable cats. My cat family members have inspired me to march for farm animal welfare, protest rodeos, and become vegan. The research presented in this article explores one facet of human–animal relationships. Specifically, we show how parenting operates in a human–nonhuman animal context.

Liz Grauerholz. For most of my academic career, I’ve been interested in power and social inequalities, especially gender inequality. As my understanding of intersectionality grew, my focus expanded to interlocking oppressions and eventually to understanding how speciesism is part of the larger picture. Long been active in the feminist movement, my recent activism focuses on helping animals escape abuse and exploitation, especially factory farming. I share my home with two humans, two dogs, and two cats.

The ways family is conceptualized and accomplished, including its symbolic meanings and functions, have undergone considerable change over the past century. One of the more intriguing changes is the incorporation of nonhuman animals as family members (Albert and Kris 1988; Belk 1988, 1996; Cain 1983; Gillespie, Leffler, and Lerner 2002; Greenebaum 2004; Hirschman 1994; Sanders 1999; Veevers 1985). Although research has documented the movement toward considering pets as family, less understood is exactly what is meant by pets-as-family. This study explores whether people who count cats and dogs as family consider this relationship as a form of parenting. Specifically, do people who count their cats and dogs as family members identify as pet parents? If they identify as pet parents, how do they construct this parenting relationship? Do these constructions differ depending upon family composition (e.g., the presence of human children)? The answers to these questions provide a clearer picture of what it means to “do family” in contemporary society and provides a glimpse into a common but little-understood phenomenon in the United States, the interspecies family.

Literature Review

The study of human–animal relationships is often considered a “boutique” topic and trivial compared to issues and problems facing humans (Perrow 2000:473). This view belies the pervasiveness of nonhuman animals in society and the ways they shape every aspect of human society including consumption, environment, relationships, the economy, and media. Indeed, Irvine (2008:1954) notes, “non-human animals are so tightly woven into the fabric of society that it is difficult to imagine life without them.” Sociologists who study families and relationships have been reluctant to acknowledge the importance of animals in understanding how humans create and maintain intimate ties, yet studies show that pets have a powerful effect on these relationships. For instance, pet ownership/attachment to pets has been shown to be associated with weaker social networks among young adults (Stallones et al. 1990), pets can inform fertility decisions (Laurent-Simpson 2017), and pets are considered important to the socialization of children (Melson 2003). Ignoring the role pets play in families results in a woefully incomplete picture of contemporary family life.

Pets are animals that are named, are not consumed for food, and primarily live in the homes of humans (Thomas 1991). Currently, more people live with pets than children (68 percent and 55 percent, respectively; American Pet Products Manufacturing Association 2014; U.S. Census Bureau 2015). The ways in which individuals relate to their pets have also changed significantly. The majority of pet owners consider their pets to be family members, and rates as high as 95 percent have been noted in The Harris Poll (PR Newswire 2015). Americans are more likely to agree that pets should be considered family than that the same-sex couples without children should be considered family (51 percent considered pets to be family compared to 32 percent who agreed that two men with no children or two women without children would be considered family; Powell et al. 2010).

The rise in households who consider their pets to be family did not occur in a vacuum; major shifts in families since the last half of the twentieth century contributed to this phenomenon. In particular, delayed age at marriage, the deinstitutionalization of marriage (e.g., increased cohabitation and increase in numbers of individuals who remain unmarried), increase in child-free/childless women, experimentation with varying family arrangements as a matter of choice, and new pathways to parenthood have opened the door to reorganizing and redefining marriage and family in major ways (Amato et al. 2007; Blackstone 2014; Cherlin 2010; DeOllos and Kapinus 2002; Smock and Greenland 2010; Umberson, Pudrovska, and Reczek 2010). Living without human companions, along with increasing legitimacy of nontraditional family forms (Smock and Greenland 2010), has opened the door to gratifying emotional and psychological needs in more diverse ways including with nonhumans. As Blackstone (2014) notes, many childless families create strong and emotionally intimate relationships with their pets. The confluence of these two societal shifts—changing families and changing relationship to animals—has given rise to the interspecies family. For many Americans, pets are no longer considered property but close companions and even children.

What does it mean for a pet to be a family member? Studies suggest that pets may be considered surrogate children (Gillespie et al. 2002; Greenebaum 2004; Turner 2001) and that a dog’s status is often elevated to “fur baby” (Greenebaum 2004; Schaffer 2009). Yet, while some researchers suggest that these animal family members are merely surrogate children for the childless or empty nesters (Blouin 2012), others find that this characterization fails to capture the complexity of the pets-as-family relationship (Beck and Katcher 1988). For instance, Irvine (2013) conducted in-depth interviews with unsheltered homeless individuals and found that many referred to their animals as family members. When talking about their animals, they discussed the depth and intensity of their relationships, the responsibility, and the caregiving, often in comparison to their relationships with other people. One woman who was living in a car with her cat stated, “You know, when you have a home, your relationships with animals take place at home. But when you’re homeless, they are your home” (Irvine 2013:85). Risley-Curtis et al. (2006:442) also found through in-depth interviews with women of color that their relationships with pets were described as “providing friendship, fun, love, comfort, and/or constancy for themselves or their children or both.” Arguably, conceptualizing pets as simply surrogate children or human replacements minimizes the human–animal relationship (Serpell 1986).

Interspecies families reflect the diverse ways contemporary Americans construct family life. Interspecies families (like all families) are social constructions, something people “do” (Carrigan 1999). This process is especially critical for families of choice including interspecies families, who are not given automatic legitimacy; these families must work at creating family relationships and meanings. One key way families are accomplished in this way is through narrative (Weeks, Heaphy, and Donovan 2001). When individuals narrate their family life, they assign meaning, claim identities, and substantiate their relationships. Narrative gives families of choice a method to describe relationships as “something we’ve created, not as substitutes—that makes it sound inferior—but as an alternative that we’ve created” (Weeks et al. 2001:35). Individuals tell stories to make sense of their family life by including, and sometimes centering, their animal family members in these stories. Examining the stories constructed by these family members can uncover how and under what conditions individuals create meaning and do family in alternative ways and also how nonhuman animals are actively incorporated into family life.

Of course, what it means to be a parent and the parenting role has undergone change in U.S. culture, and these shifts also give rise to alternative ways of defining parenthood including pet parenthood. Being a parent goes beyond being legally related by blood or adoption or assuming basic responsibilities of caretaking. In U.S. culture, especially among middle-class families, a “good” parent is involved in virtually every aspect of a child’s life—socializing them to behave appropriately, providing quality education, and attending to physical, emotional, cognitive and spiritual needs, and so on. Of course, gender profoundly shapes these cultural ideals, and women are held to higher standards than men. Hays (1996) documents how motherhood in contemporary society can be characterized as “intensive mothering” whereby mothers are responsible for seeing to all their children’s needs. The expectations for fathers have also changed from one of provider and disciplinarian to caretaker and emotional support (Humberd and Ladge 2014). In reality, studies do show that fathers are spending more time in the presence of their children, but mothers continue to bear the burden of care for children (Wall and Arnold 2007).

Beyond changing cultural and gendered expectations of parents, what it means to be a parent or who “qualifies” to be a parent is less clear. For instance, when parental rights are terminated, do the parents cease to consider themselves mothers and fathers? Studies of women who parent from prison suggest that despite physical distance and lack of coresidence, they very much regard themselves as mothers (Enos 2001). Conversely, after divorce, parents may fail to provide basic care and support (hence, the term “absentee parent” or “deadbeat dad”), but they are still considered parents by the state (Pirog and Ziol-Guest 2006). In other cases, parents may have no legal obligation to support children (e.g., if the child is from a previous relationship) but nonetheless are full participants in the child’s upbringing whether they are legally married to the child’s biological parent or not (e.g., Marsiglio 2004). These examples reveal that parenthood is also a social construction and how we construct parenting varies over time and by group and depends heavily on how individuals interpret and identify with their roles. Thus, we maintain that for individuals who consider themselves to be pet parents, it is the interpretation and definition of their role that is important, not how they actually act toward the pet or provision of care.

Research has documented the existence of interspecies families and the close connections humans have to their pets. However, little is understood about how everyday practices create these ties and our knowledge of how the role of pets in childless families differs from that of families with children is especially lacking (Blackstone 2014). This study fills these gaps by focusing on interspecies families wherein individuals describe their relationship as a form of parenting. Specifically, when people identify themselves as pet parents, how do they describe what parenting means to them? We find that not all individuals who consider pets to be family members consider themselves to be parents, but many do, and that parenting stories differed depending upon whether families also included human children. Delving into these descriptions reveals parenting to be an interpretive practice or “interactional achievement” (Holstein and Gubrium 2008:5) and provides critical insight into contemporary parenthood and family life.

Method

Data Collection and Respondents

This study uses a qualitative, interpretive approach. Semistructured interviews were conducted with 39 individuals who consider their dogs or cats to be family members (cats and dogs are by far the most common pets in the United States according to the American Pet Products Manufacturing Association [2014]). Convenience and snowball sampling were the primary means of recruitment. All interviews were conducted in person by Owens in respondents’ homes.

The interview was structured around nine open-ended questions that tapped into various family dynamics such as power and care work; the current study focuses on questions related to the nature of the human–animal relationship (“Tell me about how/when you realized you considered your companion animal a family member”) and whether it resembles human-parenting styles (“Do you consider yourself a parent [to your pet]? If yes, describe your parenting style”). Active interviewing was utilized in order to activate storytelling from various standpoints (Holstein and Gubrium 1995). For instance, Owens suggested different standpoints from which to speak at various times throughout the interview (e.g., “As a mother of human children, how does parenting compare to your relationship with your companion animal?”). All interviews were audio recorded and transcribed. Pseudonyms are used for respondents and their family members.

The sample was predominantly white (95 percent) with 28 percent identifying as Hispanic/Latino. A little over half (56 percent) were women. In terms of marital status, 46 percent were single, 44 percent were married, and 8 percent were divorced or widowed. Forty-six percent were parents of human children. Average household income was US$76,000 and average age was 36.6 years. Most respondents lived with just dogs (59 percent) or both cats and dogs (39 percent); just 18 percent lived with only cats. A list of all participants and demographics is provided in Table 1.

Table 1.

Respondents’ Demographics

Name	Human Parent	Pet-Parent	Cat	Dog	Age	Gender	Race	Hispanic or Latino	Marital Status	Degree Earned	Household Income
Jacob	No	No	No	Yes	29	Man	White	No	Single	Bachelor’s degree	US$30,000
Lucas	No	No	No	Yes	26	Man	White	Yes	Single	Some college	US$60,000
Noah	No	No	No	Yes	29	Man	White	No	Married	Bachelor’s degree	US$90,000
Elijah	No	Somewhat	Yes	Yes	32	Man	White	No	Single	Doctoral degree	US$53,000
Isaac	No	Somewhat	Yes	Yes	32	Man	White	No	Single	Doctoral degree	US$75,000
Anton	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	31	Man	White	No	Single	Bachelor’s degree	US$30,000
Ben	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	28	Man	White	No	Single	Bachelor’s degree	US$85,000
Cesar	No	Yes	Yes	No	24	Man	Black	No	Single	Bachelor’s degree	US$25,000
Franco	No	Yes	Yes	No	33	Man	White	Yes	Married	Bachelor’s degree	US$150,000
Gabriel	No	Yes	Yes	No	28	Man	White	No	Single	Bachelor’s degree	US$32,000
Ricardo	No	Yes	Yes	No	23	Man	White	Yes	Single	Some college	US$30,000
Adrienne	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	33	Woman	White	No	Single	Master’s degree	US$80,000
Camilla	No	Yes	Yes	No	31	Woman	White	Yes	Married	Master’s degree	US$150,000
Caroline	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	25	Woman	White	No	Single	Bachelor’s degree	US$85,000
Daphne	No	Yes	No	Yes	21	Woman	White	No	Single	Some college	US$0
Dara	No	Yes	No	Yes	29	Woman	Asian	No	Single	Bachelor’s degree	US$47,000
Leah	No	Yes	No	Yes	28	Woman	White	No	Single	Bachelor’s degree	US$30,000
Madison	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	23	Woman	White	No	Single	Bachelor’s degree	US$10,000
Sandra	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	27	Woman	White	No	Single	Bachelor’s degree	US$32,000
Scarlet	No	Yes	Yes	No	31	Woman	White	No	Single	Cosmetology license	US$80,000
Taylor	No	Yes	Yes	No	28	Woman	White	Yes	Married	Bachelor’s degree	US$160,000
Pedro	Yes	No	Yes	No	30	Man	White	Yes	Married	Master’s degree	US$70,000
Vincent	Yes	No	Yes	No	44	Man	White	No	Married	Doctoral degree	US$90,000
Alfred	Yes	Somewhat	Yes	No	85	Man	White	No	Widowed	Master’s degree	US$70,000
Arthur	Yes	Somewhat	Yes	No	66	Man	White	No	Married	Master’s degree	US$75,000
Javier	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	29	Man	White	Yes	Single	High school diploma	US$50,000
Oliver	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	65	Man	White	No	Divorced	Bachelor’s degree	US$40,000
Alice	Yes	No	Yes	No	33	Woman	White	No	Married	Doctoral degree	US$116,000
Martina	Yes	No	Yes	No	30	Woman	White	Yes	Married	Bachelor’s degree	US$70,000
Melanie	Yes	No	Yes	No	33	Woman	White	No	Married	Master’s degree	US$90,000
Ana	Yes	Somewhat	No	Yes	30	Woman	White	Yes	Married	Bachelor’s degree	US$120,000
Sybil	Yes	Somewhat	Yes	No	46	Woman	White	No	Married	Bachelor’s degree	US$150,000
Charlotte	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	51	Woman	White	No	Married	Associate’s degree	US$100,000
Isabel	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	26	Woman	White	No	Single	High school diploma	US$50,000
Penelope	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	60	Woman	White	Yes	Divorced	Bachelor’s degree	US$37,000
Rose	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	63	Woman	White	No	Married	High school diploma	US$100,000
Sofia	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	53	Woman	White	Yes	Married	Bachelor’s degree	US$75,000
Valerie	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	41	Woman	White	No	Married	Bachelor’s degree	US$250,000
Violet	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	52	Woman	White	No	Married	High school diploma	US$77,000

Coding and Data Analysis

Each interview was coded initially line-by-line to derive initial themes. Transcripts were coded line-by-line again using “in vivo codes” that bring to life what was going on in each sentence in a concise way (Charmaz 2006:55). Initial coding was followed by focused coding which is more “directed, selective, and conceptual than word-by-word, line-by-line, and incident-by-incident” (Charmaz 2006:57). With focused coding, we were able to sift through larger chunks of data and assign to them broader codes. The focused codes eventually turned into the categories used for this study. The larger “parenting” theme was prominent in the data, and from there, we analyzed the patterns and categories of pet parenting. It was through this process that it became clear that not all individuals who consider pets to be family members identify as pet parents, and for those that do, there are differences in the ways parents of human children and childless adults construct their relationships. Our findings explore each of these relationships to show what pet parenting means within interspecies families.

Findings

Non-Pet Parents

Although our focus is on pet parenting, it is important to note that not all participants considered themselves to be pet parents. Of the 39 respondents, 8 did not consider themselves to be pet parents at all and an additional 6 only somewhat considered themselves to be pet parents or said that it depends, even though they all considered their pets to be family members. Among the 14 who do not consider themselves to be pet parents or only somewhat, 9 were men and 5 were women. Additionally, 9 of these 14 were parents of humans. These participants described their relationship with their pets in various ways such as “roommate,” “caretaker,” “friend,” “companion,” or even “the one that can pour the food for them.” Even though they could easily be describing their relationship with a child—for instance, Alice says about her cats that she has “taken care of them and nurtured them and watched them grow up,” and Isaac states he applies “the same nurturing, loving things” as he would to a child—these individuals reject the label of “parent/dad/mom.”

Although the majority of both men and women claimed the identity of “pet parent,” women were much more likely than men to do so. Among the 21 women in our sample, 81 percent said they were pet parents; among the 17 men, 47 percent agreed. Men were nearly twice as likely as women to reject the label altogether or to qualify it (“depends”/somewhat). This gender effect is consistent with findings from Ramirez (2006) that showed women were more likely than men to apply labels of “mother” or “parent” in speaking about their relationship to their pets whereas men were more likely to see pets as friends, highlighting traditional gender identities and revealing how pets can become props for humans’ identity performances.

In addition, many of the participants who do not identify as pet parents were involved in the animal rights movement. For those identifying with the animal rights movement, all animals were seen as having agency, and these participants were philosophically opposed to claiming ownership or parental status. For instance, Jacob does not consider himself a pet parent and when asked the question, he states:

I don’t consider saying I am a father as it gives some entitlement over pets. I hate it when people say they are an owner of an animal because you don’t really own it. It is rather a part of your life, a companion. I don’t like the connotation. I am more of a caretaker. We just share each other’s life and I provide for them. That’s how I see it. I just have a different view on it. Most people think about it in a way that they own that animal. I don’t see it that way though. That just means that you come first. If he bites or scratches me I look at it from the point that I annoyed him. He was letting me know that he does not want me to do that anymore.

Not identifying as a parent to pet companions is consistent with the animal rights perspective that maintains pet-keeping for humans’ pleasure is immoral because it takes away the right of animals not to be treated as things (Irvine 2004). It is possible that those non-pet parents who are activists see assigning parenting roles to pets as exploitation of animals for humans’ emotional gratification and diminishing the inherent value of the animals that is not dependent on humans.

One participant who did not identify with the movement and also did not consider himself to be a pet parent seemed to adopt a more egalitarian perspective:

I almost think of it like I’m one of them, I guess. Because I don’t treat them as pets, but I make sure they have food and everything. I’ll get down here and roll around with Oreo and play with them. He has little soccer balls that he plays fetch with, and things like that. I try to interact with them on a cat level, rather than just an adult, I guess. So I just try to be one of them. So it’s not really a parent thing, I just happen to be the one that can pour the food for them.

These findings suggest that both gender and identification with the animal rights movement shape individuals’ perceptions of their pets. These participants do not borrow from cultural narratives surrounding parenting to describe their relationships with their dogs or cats but rather frame them in terms of animal rights or another familiar family narrative, egalitarianism. These descriptions differed from those of pet parents in significant ways.

Pet Parents

Our focus is on how participants who consider themselves to be pet parents describe their roles. We found these accounts differed depending upon whether they had human children and therefore discuss these separately. Both types of stories reveal insights into ways interspecies families are created and legitimated in these interspecies families-of-choice.

Childless in interspecies families

Parenthood is often considered the keystone of family legitimacy. Powell et al. (2010) found that Americans considered parenthood more important than any other factor in deciding what counts as a family. Single, cohabiting, and married participants without human children do not have access to the legitimizing parent-of-a-human claim, so they must rely on other cultural and linguistic resources available to construct family in creative ways. Pet parenting appears to be one way to achieve this status.

Among childless individuals in our study (n = 21), 16 considered themselves pet parents. These individuals describe their family life by emphasizing their role as parents in two ways: teaching and training cats and dogs to behave in public and with others and constructing family with traditional parenting language. At the same time, these childless pet parents envision a future with human children and see pet parenting as training and practicing for potential future human children.

Similar to practices and discourse surrounding parenting human children (Herbert 2004), childless pet parents discussed teaching, training, and socializing their cats and dogs to behave in public and with others. When Adrienne was asked why she felt like she was parenting her dog and cat she claims that it is, “Like teaching them what they can and can’t do, and right from wrong. Or, if they do this, they’re gonna get in trouble.” Camilla also talked about the importance of teaching her dog Max right from wrong, especially when it comes to biting and jumping (a reoccurring theme among dog parents):

I don’t want Max to misbehave while we’re doing this interview, and so I know I planned to have things in advance to distract him as if you’re distracting a child…because I don’t want him to jump on you. We’re still training him. He still doesn’t know a lot of things. We’re still trying to get him to not jump on people and biting all of that.

Socialization also seemed to be an important part of the training frame. Caroline mentions socialization when discussing pet parenting:

Lucy doesn’t really get in trouble either. If she’s chasing Molly around or chasing Angel, “Lucy, okay quit it.” I use a tinfoil cardboard to spank her on her behind when she’s bad, if she’s a bad puppy…. She’s just a puppy, you know? Whereas, Lucy didn’t get the right socialization, Molly’s not fearful at anything…. So, it’s totally different.

Just as parents stress the importance of socializing human children, socializing dogs with other animals was an important part of pet parents’ training pets to behave. When they are socialized, they respond to parents’ discipline more effectively, they interact with their siblings in more appropriate ways, and they play well with other dogs and those dogs’ family members.

It wasn’t only dog-parents who accessed these cultural frames. When Daphne was asked whether she felt like she was parenting her cat she replied, “I would definitely describe it that way,” adding:

Tigger will come up on the counter and he will put his face into your water, like your cup of water. He has a tendency to knock it over and spill water everywhere. Whenever he does that, I try to splash water on him to get him to associate that negatively…. I might get frustrated but at the end of the day, I care about him a lot. I would assume that is close to parenting.

Anton, a cat-parent, also echoed another parenting narrative: schooling. About his cat, he stated: “Yeah, I’m his dad, definitely. I mean, I take care of him, whatever he needs. Take him to the doctor, feed him, water, let him out. If there was cat school I’d take him there.”

Teaching, training, and disciplining human children are accepted as typical parenting practices in Western culture. By applying these cultural frames, pet parents construct their relationship as parents. Socializing dogs with other animals is almost identical to the way human parents discuss the importance of socializing their human children. School is one place where primary socialization occurs and pet parents do not shy away from employing this narrative resource. Jumping and biting may be important to pet parents’ stories because they resemble how human parents teach their children appropriate physical boundaries when interacting with other children and adults. By highlighting human-parenting strategies (socialization, schooling, and discipline), childless pet parents can borrow from cultural parenting narratives in order to establish themselves as legitimate parents.

A second strategy used by childless respondents was to borrow parenting language while constructing family. All realities are constructed and maintained with language, and family identity is no exception. The names assigned to objects and subjects allow actors to act based on the meanings assigned to those names (Berger and Luckmann 1966). Childless participants who consider themselves pet parents talk about their family lives using shared language on parenting. Words like “mom,” “dad,” “son,” “daughter,” and “baby” were brought up throughout the interviews. A word search in the overarching pet parenting narrative document revealed that baby was one of the most common family words used within the parenting transcripts.

Although parenting language was common for all those who considered themselves to be pet parents (191 total mentions of parent), it stood out as a major theme within childless interspecies families’ stories of pet parenting predominately because of how it was used. Of the 191 total mentions of parent, 118 of the mentions were by the childless pet parents. The word baby was used approximately the same amount of times by pet parents of humans and childless pet parents (78 total mentions, split approximately in half by each group). However, when parents of humans use the word baby in their parenting narrative, they are mostly referring to their human children, whereas childless pet parents are primarily using the word baby to discuss their cats and dogs. Scarlet discussed how she felt when other family members minimize her parental relationship with her dog:

It makes me sad almost. I’m like, ‘How could you say that?’ I love my dog…. It’s sad, like she’s not good enough or something compared to kids, having a baby. Which I get it, but she is my baby.

In addition to baby, “children” was used 93 times in the larger pet parenting document which included the pet parenting narratives of both the childless and human parents (to provide some context, the word “dog” appeared 365 times in the larger pet parenting document and was split almost evenly between groups with childless pet parents mentioning “dog” 178 times). When pet parenting narratives of the childless were separated from pet parenting narratives of human parents, the word children arose as more commonly used in childless pet parenting narratives at 53 times compared to human parents at 40 times. Dara (a childless pet parent) used baby and children interchangeably: “Absolutely. They are my babies. They’re my children and they come first.” Interestingly, the more gendered version of children, daughter and son, was only used referring to a cat or dog one time each and both times they were uttered by each member of one cohabiting couple. First, Ben calls the cat his son, “He’s better known as the son” and then almost immediately after Caroline (his girlfriend) calls the dogs her daughters, “I totally call my dogs my daughters.” The frequency of baby and children over daughter and son may be due to the more widespread use of these words in general, making it much easier for pet parents to access them for making claims on family identity. It may also suggest that gender is not the master identity for animals that it is for humans, and animals do not “do gender” in the way humans do, thus gender does not frame interactions between humans and animals as it does for human–human interactions (Ridgeway 2011; West and Zimmerman 1987).

Two more parenting words were expressed almost as commonly as baby and children: Mom was mentioned 69 times overall with 37 of those instances in childless narratives pet parenting narratives and dad 50 times with 30 of those instances in the childless pet parenting narratives. Adrienne names herself mom but her cohabiting fiancé “guy” instead of dad: “I’m like, ‘When we have kids, you’re gonna be the nice guy, and I’m gonna be the mean mom’.” Although Dara has only been dating her boyfriend a few months, she calls herself mom and her boyfriend dad, despite not initially identifying her boyfriend as a member of her family at the start of the interview. Dara was asked to clarify how their family was constructed. In other words, could Blake be a daddy to the cats when Dara was the mommy, and did Dara not include Blake in her family? Did this resemble some other family arrangement, more like a stepfamily? She states:

That’s a good question. I do call Blake their daddy because I’m their mommy. I guess Blake would be a part of my family. Our relationship is still pretty new. It’s less than a year, but he’s very, very important to me. He’s a really great friend, a great partner. He’s amazing. But I don’t think that we necessarily have to be in a relationship in order for him to be their daddy. He’s interacted with them. He’s been with them. If Blake and I were to ever break-up and we’re in a situation where I needed someone take care of them, and I know he would help me out, I would still consider him their daddy.

It appears that pet parenthood is fairly fluid. When couples live together, pet parenthood can be claimed by both parties. “Mommy” and “daddy” were most frequently used once couples romantically involved were living together, married or not. These specific parenting words were not used to describe partners who did not live with the participant or to describe other family members or roommates who lived with the participant.

A majority of childless participants construct their family identity as pet parents. Naming dogs or cats baby or calling oneself mom or dad of a pet is a family identity announcement. These participants receive family identity placement when others act toward them with the shared meaning behind that family language. Although obstacles may occur when family claims are not accepted, the word pet parent is widely used and accepted throughout contemporary culture (Schaffer 2009). Language, and in this case words, provides participants with tools to construct their family identity with names that hold shared meaning.

Among these childless pet parents, a third theme emerged: training and practicing for future human children. This narrative tool was not so much employed to stake claim to parenting or family identity as it was to highlight how pets make individuals better future parents. These pet parents seem to view parenting of pets and parenting of humans as existing along the same continuum of caring and taking responsibility of children. For instance, Cesar noted:

I want kids, but I want them later on in life. I’ve gotten the opportunity to be prepped in some regards, being alone on my own in adulthood. Responsibility for life was something I’d not yet had. In that regard, I really wanted to get a dog for training purposes. I don’t know who said it, but…somebody said, ‘Before you have a child, get a dog.’ That’s a good step to go about it. From the initial moment, I knew it was a commitment.

Cesar was single, but other participants who were in committed relationships made conscious decisions to prepare for human children by parenting cats and dogs. Madison said:

We’ve talked about this because we do plan on having children one day…. I feel like we’ve made this progression. Shadow [a cat] took about this much responsibility [hands facing each other, about 6 inches apart] and Charlie [a dog] takes about this much responsibility [hands facing each other, about 12 inches apart]. We always joke that since we’ve already planned a budget, feeding schedules, taking them out, and things like that, it’s almost like we’ve been training to have children.

In these cases, integrating current pets with potential future human babies is an ongoing conversation. Madison continues:

So, we’ve already thought about how to integrate human babies with our fur babies. We watch the puppy crawling up into their little playpen or whatever. We totally intend on letting them play. I’m sure the puppy is going to cuddle with them…. It’ll be different but I feel like it won’t change that much.

Some participants had even considered specific ways human children would be incorporated into the existing interspecies family. Taylor, for example, talked about what she would tell her future children in the event that they wondered why the pets were able to sleep with them while the human children were not:

I teach parenting, and I read about the stuff and have to…. I don’t really believe too much in your children sleeping with you but with my dogs, it’s different…Our children might be like, “well the dogs get to sleep with you,” and, we’re like, “but that’s different.” I think it is okay sometimes for children to sleep with their parents but I don’t think it’s a good idea to do it all the time.

Interestingly, most of the participants who discussed practicing parenting with cats and dogs as a way to prepare for future human children did not mention being pregnant, trying to get pregnant, adopting, trying to adopt, and many were not in committed relationships. Nonetheless, these descriptions suggest that pet parenting is not viewed as a permanent alternative to human-parenting. Many participants discussed pet parenting as training and practicing for potential future human children, suggesting that they desired and planned to have (human) children in the future.

Parents in interspecies families

Among the 18 participants with human children, there were 10 parents of younger human children and 8 parents of older human children.¹ Three parents of younger human children considered themselves pet parents and 6 parents of older human children considered themselves pet parents. These parents narrated their pet parenting differently than pet parents without children, and there were also some differences between parents of younger children and parents of older children. Parents of younger children narrate pet parenting by comparing parenting pets to parenting children. These narratives included talk of difference. They also included narratives of guilt over how their relationship has changed with their pet since their family grew to include children. Parents of older human children narrate parenting by comparing parenting kids and pets, but they emphasize similarities. They also include narratives of finding joy in providing for pets both physically and emotionally. Finally, these pet parents also merge narrative strategies resembling the childless narratives (e.g., discussions of training and/or discipline) and the narratives of parents of younger children (e.g., parenting children requiring more involvement).

Whereas childless pet parents stressed socialization, parents of human children spoke less frequently about teaching and training their pets to behave in public and with other people overall, but when it came up, the tone was different. These narratives are more about acceptance in one way or another. For instance:

I think I’m even more lenient with the dogs than with my children (Sofia). We try to teach him manners (Javier). It’s all you can do is try. (Isabel) Sometimes his barking is the one thing we feel we can’t control. (Javier)

Interestingly, one pet parent of human children discussed training herself when her dogs are acting out in public:

It’s funny because I’ll be walking them through the neighborhood and everybody knows I work with dogs, and my dogs are the worst. “You know what I mean?” As far as when I’m out in the public, they’ll do the big barking and the not listening. That was really hard for me because I didn’t get that from other dogs [dogs she worked with]. I had to train myself into learning that my dogs were my children—going back to family—not my clients. (Valerie)

Overall, pet parents with human children focus on other aspects of pet parenting when narrating family life.

The most striking contrast in descriptions of pet parenting was between parents of younger children and childless participants. While some parents of younger children noted that their dogs or cats helped prepare them for human parenting (a theme that emerged among childless individuals), parents of younger children stressed how different the two types of parenting are. They often compared parenting before and after they had children. For example:

…it’s so much more involved than having a pet. Your pet can give you love, but they don’t understand everything that you need to do to raise a child…. It’s a totally different dynamic. (Sybil)

We felt like we were good parents for Buddy [dog], therefore we felt like we could be good parents for Liam as well, obviously on a different level…. It’s not the same. (Isabel)

Especially before I had children, I was their [her three cats’] mom. I think maybe now because I have children of my own, and they [the cats] know that and they [the cats] know our lives and our house is so crazy with the boys and stuff…. Once I had my first son, I mean, everything changed. I never knew I could love someone so much, you know what I mean?…. Whereas I absolutely 100 percent love animals and I love my pets, it’s very different. My children, yeah, the love is so different. (Ana)

This theme of “difference” was the most common one to emerge among parents of younger humans. Participants stressed different emotional ties, different investments of energy, and different amounts of work. Isabel remarked that “Your son never leaves your mind, ever. Buddy you can put to the side because, I don’t know, I feel bad saying that but, you can just separate it.” In some ways, our findings are similar to Shir-Vertesh (2012) who found that pets occupy the status of “flexible personhood” whose treatment depends upon changing life and social circumstances their owners face. That is, pets who are perceived as family members and children can be demoted or even relinquished in short order such as when a human child enters the family (Shir-Vertesh 2012). In our study, the value of pet-children does seem to be diminished although these respondents claim that the pets are still their children. In addition to the diminishment characteristic of flexible personhood, our study reveals a sort of disparate or differential parenting within families wherein siblings are treated differently by parents (Turkheimer and Waldron 2000; Wallerstein and Lewis 2007); the current study suggests that within interspecies families, the arrival or presence of younger human children often leads to differential parenting.

Guilt was another major subtheme that emerged when pet parents of younger children were asked about pet parenting. These feelings were brought up when these parents discussed how parenting pets has changed since having children. They no longer have as much time or energy to care for the cats and/or dogs. Ana explains:

When I just had Alexander it wasn’t crazy, we just had one, but now the boys are older, and Layla’s older and walking around, it’s so much to take care of them. It takes so much of my time and energy and I think the cats know that and there have been times where I have felt bad because I felt, look, I’m so tired by the end of the day or during the day when the two little ones are napping and Alexander’s in school that I just want to sit in quiet for a few seconds, and then they come to me. I feel like they need love because they haven’t got much time and attention from me or Rick [husband] or whatever, and I feel bad and I try to love them, and that’s why we try to make nighttime as much about the cats as we can.

Isabel also says, “He [dog] wasn’t getting enough attention. I felt so guilty. I was so busy with the baby, but he is a dog. He can for a while be by himself.” As Sanders (2003) explains, humans actively engage in constructing animal identities and emotions, and this may be what we see happening here when Isabel constructs the pet as “less needy.”

In addition to the parents feeling guilty, some of the animals were constructed as depressed, sad, and/or understanding about these changes. Although these pet parents feel bad for not having as much time for their pets, they are confident that parenting a child is different cognitively, emotionally, and demands more involvement. Thus, not only are pet parents constructing their pets’ emotions, in doing so they are able to construct themselves as good parents who can recognize and prioritize their human children’s needs. We also gain insight into how disparate parenting (treating siblings differently) between interspecies family members differs from that focused on human children; when assessing their relationships with their human children, parents often don’t see or are not concerned with differential treatment (Wallerstein and Lewis 2007), perhaps because there is a strong cultural expectation that siblings be treated similarly that parents have difficulty seeing or admitting to doing so. Perhaps equally strong is the expectation that human family members should take priority over nonhuman members in interspecies families that may explain why participants are open about their “neglect” of pets.

Guilt only came up twice in childless pet parenting narratives. In the first instance, the childless pet parents felt guilty after they scolded their dog for wanting to play when the human was trying to work. In the other instance, guilt was expressed because of a disciplinary action the pet parent took which reminded him of his past:

I mean the worst thing I’ve ever done, one day I was really frustrated and kind of sprayed water at her [one of his dogs] with the hose and I couldn’t, I didn’t believe I did that. Just because that was one of my father’s tactics from the past. When I did that I think I really transformed into like, “it’s more about what I’m doing rather than what she’s doing” and if she’s going to go in the house because I’m not being responsible enough to take her out, or show her where to go…it’s so obvious now like when she has to go, she gives so many hints, all you have to do is listen. (Ricardo)

The two stories of guilt from childless pet parents differ from the stories of guilt told by the parents of younger human children. Perhaps the guilt expressed by respondents with human children is best understood as another dimension of the contemporary parenting ideology that requires parents to parent “intensively” and to feel guilty when they can’t or don’t.

Pet parents of older children describe their relationships differently than childless pet parents and pet parents of younger children. For the most part, these pet parents aren’t overwhelmingly discussing training and disciplining animals to behave, practicing for children, the differences in pet parenting versus parenting children, or feeling guilt over the amount of time they do or do not spend with their pets. They compare parenting children and pets, and they seem to find more similarities than differences and, in some ways, suggest that parenting of pets is more rewarding than parenting older humans. In many ways, they have also discovered that being a pet parent is about the joy in providing for one another. They also merge narratives resembling the childless (e.g., discussions of training and/or discipline) and parents of younger children (e.g., parenting children requiring more involvement).

As pet parents of younger children do, pet parents of older children compare parenting their pets with parenting their children, but similarities are emphasized rather than differences. When Rose was asked whether she parented her dog differently than she parented her son she said, “No. I told Elliot [her son], ‘We spoil the dog just like we spoiled you.’ I said, ‘We never left you alone and we never left the dog alone.’ Then he just laughs, ‘But she’s a dog!’” Rose tells this story which emphasizes sameness in a playful way but when I asked her whether she thought her son was joking when he laughs because his mother is comparing parenting him to parenting a dog, she replied: “No, he’s serious.” She is serious too. She says “people that don’t feel that way think you’re nuts, but we’re entitled. I’m old now and if we want to spoil our dog, we can.” Oliver, who considers himself a pet parent, also compares his dogs to kids, “They’re like kids. When I say it is bath time, Kiki will actually go in the bathroom, jump into the tub and get in the tub. Buster goes and hides under the couch or the bed. I have to drag him out to give him his bath.” Parents of older children construct their pet parenting in different ways than the parents of younger children, although they both fall back on comparisons to make their points.

In contrast to the feelings of guilt experienced by parents of younger children, the parents of older children discuss the joys of providing physically and emotionally for their pets in their pet parenting. Sofia shows how parents of older children emphasize sameness between pet parenting and parenting older children but also how both she and her pets receive benefits from providing for one another:

First thing in the morning I peel carrots, and I give them [the dogs] carrots. They love carrots. And in the middle of the day I’ll cut an apple because they love apples. If my animals look like they missed a meal, they haven’t. It’s that I feed them so much because I love them so much and I figure it’s not going to hurt them that much. I enjoy, like this morning I made eggs for them. I enjoy cooking them food. Where like now, for my other kids, I don’t have to cook them anything, except for Lance. Kristen and Jake take care of themselves. I enjoy when they [pets] have joy of food. It makes me happy. When I get them a new toy, it makes me happy. When I can do things for them and it brings them joy, it makes me happy. When they have an itch and I take them to the vet and stop it, it makes me happy.

Sofia compares preparing food for her children with preparing food for her dogs. She also discusses the joy she feels when her dogs feel joy. Oliver discusses how after the children are grown, there is more time to be a pet parent, “Like I said, you’re busy raising the kids. You’re feeding them or changing their diapers and doing all that. So, it’s a whole different ball game. Once they’re grown up and gone out, then you have a pet and you’re nurturing the pet now.”

Charlotte compares pet parenting with parenting children and explains the unconditional love her dog provides and how, in some ways, pet parenting is more rewarding because pets don’t become difficult adults:

I don’t think it’s like, you don’t have to worry about them going out and getting into stuff, but you also have to be firm with them…. That’s what is funny about dogs. They do still act like little kids. They don’t grow up to become bad, old, mean angry adults with a lot of issues. They’re always there. They can’t run away from you. They’re there. They can’t talk back to you. They can’t be mean like that to you. They can’t have an attitude. They totally love you, unconditionally. You could be whatever, fat, skinny, black, white, purple, whatever. It doesn’t matter. I think they stay innocent and sweet and always have that little kid in them.

Pet parenting for these parents of older children emphasizes both comparisons (similar to parents of younger children) and intimacy (similar to childless individuals). Whether perceptions of pet parenting shift once human children grow older and need less attention or parents of older children introduce a different relationship with their pets from the start is not clear. Participants who have experienced firsthand parenting of human and nonhuman children shed insights into how similar the two are in terms of accounts of caregiving/work and feelings of unconditional love. But within these stories of their relationships with both human and nonhuman animal children is the suggestion that parenting pets is more consistently and unconditionally rewarding.

Discussion

Companion animals have come to occupy a “social place” in our households (DeMello 2012:155) including our parenting roles. This study sought to understand parenting within interspecies families and whether people who count cats and dogs as family construct this relationship as a form of parenting. This study shows that although all participants claim that their cats and dogs are family members, they did not all identify as pet parents. Additionally, interspecies family form (childless and parents of younger vs. older children) influences how these relationships are constructed. Those currently caring for their own younger children in the home often emphasized differences in parenting children and pets. These parents spoke from a place of being deep in the trenches of dealing with diapers, breastfeeding, and a lack of sleep. They were often exhausted and expressed some guilt over not having as much time for their nonhuman children. In some ways, these parents’ comments reflect a kind of differential parenting—treating children, in this case, human and nonhuman children, differently. It is unclear whether in these households, pets serve as “props” for parents to manage the impression that they are good parents. After all, given the cultural pressure to parent intensively and the value placed on children in Western cultures, how acceptable would it be for parents to openly and explicitly reveal that they place equal value to their human and nonhuman animals? Freed from such pressures, parents of older children spoke from a place of retrospection as their children had grown into adults. These participants emphasized similarities between parenting children, cats, and dogs but also hinted that parenting pets is, in many ways, more rewarding.

The pet parenting stories of the childless or child-free emphasized teaching and training cats and dogs to behave in public and with others, training and practicing for potential future children, and constructing family with traditional parenting language. The similarities between narratives of human child-rearing and animal child-rearing suggest the latter to be an alternative pathway to parenthood. In the twenty-first century, childlessness has increased, parenthood is increasingly being seen as a choice, and women are having children at later ages (Cherlin 2010; Smock and Greenland 2010). When and how women and men choose to parent are increasingly diverse, adoption and new reproductive technologies being some of other recognizable pathways to parenthood. We argue, similar to Blackstone (2014), that pet parenting may be one more strategy available to people to engage in parenting or as Shir-Vertesh (2012) suggests “to love and feel loved, without the difficulties associated with having a child” (p. 423). We did not ask our respondents whether they were childless due to infertility or choice, and there may be important differences between these two groups in terms of how they perceive pet parenting that may reveal more nuanced patterns in pet parenting among individuals and couples without human children (see, e.g., Laurent-Simpson 2017).

Defining oneself as a pet parent is not necessarily based on actions; that is, pet parents in our study do not necessarily provide greater care to their pets than non-pet parents nor do they necessarily go beyond what any pet owner should do. The pet parents in our study also did not necessarily draw upon the entire cultural parenting script (e.g., teaching a child the values to succeed in the job market), but they did rely on key aspects such as socialization. Constructionists have argued that instead of thinking about the family as a monolith, researchers should consider how the family is used narratively to accomplish particular goals (Holstein and Gubrium 2008). The same could be said for parenting. Similar to the “family-in-use,” there could be a “parenting-in-use” approach to understanding these new pathways. The foundations are already in place. Researchers have shown how parenting styles are socially constructed (Ambert 1994; Schaub 2010), how motherhood is socially constructed (Fonda, Eni, and Guimond 2013; Rousseau 2013), how fatherhood is socially constructed (Jordan 2014; Lupton and Barclay 1997), and how parents construct children’s identities even before birth (Afflerback et al. 2014). Researchers have also documented how the transition to parenthood is constructed (LaRossa and Sinha 2006), focusing on participants who identified as expecting parents. Motherhood and fatherhood are largely treated as constructed realities instead of an objective one by many gender and family scholars, but constructions of parenting are still largely based on an assumption that human children are involved. This study documented how people are able to do and accomplish parenting without having human children at all. These findings show how pet parenting is and is not constructed and the ways interspecies families could be conceptualized as a new pathway to parenthood. We argue that the growing prevalence of interspecies families and the ways they are changing the makeup of American families deserves scholarly attention.

Footnotes

Acknowledgments

We would like to extend our gratitude to the participants who opened up their homes and shared their stories with us.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Note

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