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Pet Peeve Du Jour: Being Your Dog’s Parent

This is an entirely unjustifiable complaint, and I’ve no right to ask anybody to change their behaviour on this point, but I’m just going to say it: It weirds me out when people, in talking to thier pets, describe themselves as “Mommy” or “Daddy”.

You’d think this was the strict domain of the eighty-year-old woman with twelve cats, but I frequently hear young people in my apartment get all paternal on their pets. The most recent example saw a woman in her early twenties mewing to her chihuahua in the elevator about “Mommy feeding her”. What can I tell you? It just creeps me out.

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Darren Barefoot is an author, speaker and digital strategist. He’s the co-founder of Capulet Communications, and co-author of “Friends With Benefits: A Social Media Marketing Handbook”.

8 comments

  1. Erm, DH and I are both guilty of this one. We got our cats when they were only 3 months old, so you start talking to them in gentle voices, like babies. And I guess it just snowballs from there.

    I have yelled, “Wait till your father gets home!” when one of them does something stupid too.

  2. I hear ya. If you don’t have a pet or don’t speak to your own pets that way, it can be weird, but on the other hand, it fits if the pet thinks of his caretakers as a mother or father.

    Some people think of their pets as buddies, but then we don’t often snuggle and stroke our buddies. Others, take a more parental approach, while some handle the relationship in a more formal way. Still, all are better than those that get downright gross with their pets; y’know the types that make you feel like you need to leave the room to give them a moment. Now, that’s bizarre.

  3. I have a small 15 yo dog, and it really is like caring for a little old person/baby. He’s deaf, has cataracts, has trouble eating solid food (tooth extractions), and he doesn’t like to be left alone at night (who knew a dog could lay on such a guilt trip when one arrives home in the wee hours?!).

    I don’t hesitate to admit that he gets lots of attention and special treatment. He is my puppy and part of my family.

  4. Guilty! my wife and I, childless as we are, often refer to ourselves as Mommy and Daddy when talking to our cat, Smokey. We got him in Canada a few years back, and since then he’s followed us to Malaysia, and now to China. He’s had adventures on three continents (he enjoyed a few brief hours of freedom while evading quarantine officials at Heathrow Airport in London). He’s quite a kitty, and while I know he’s just a buddy, a companion, a pet….I still feel like a parent, so I’ll always be Daddy. Besides, he has thumbs (he’s polydactyl), and he’s smart as hell, just like a kid. It’s all good.

  5. Question: do people who have children *and* pets call themselves “mommy” and “daddy” to both? I couldn’t imagine doing that, but then I only have children. I used to have a cat, but never thought of myself as his parent in any capacity, as much a part of my roommates’ and my family as he was.

  6. I love dogs…but…

    Have you heard about the Vancouver dog sitter (working in Kits I think) who eschews the word “dog” for “child in fur.”

    ew.

  7. I couldn’t agree with this peeve more.
    Come over to Britain and watch as people lavish more attention on their dogs than their own children. The old maxim “children should be seen and not heard” still applies in many households here – but not for their dogs.
    What is wrong with these people?!

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