There are all kinds of weirdos on the internet. For example, there's an entire community of men in Japan who regularly meet up to clean public toilets...for fun.
So it should come as no surprise that some nutbag believes that, if you have pets instead of kids (raises hand), and call your pet your "child" (or "furbaby," etc), that you have a mental disorder.
Ok.
Blogger G Shane Morris writes:
I’m convinced that psychology manuals 200 years from now will identify “replacement-baby syndrome” as a diagnosable epidemic in my generation. For an unbelievable number of millennials, pets’ original purpose—to be shaggy companions and useful partners in work and housekeeping—has been superseded by a role they were never intended to fill: replacement child.
It is now commonplace to hear young people my age unironically refer to their pooches and kitties (I’m horrified to even write this) as “children,” “fur-babies,” “kids,” “girls,” “boys,” or “sons and daughters.” Likewise, it’s not at all unusual to hear pet-owners refer to themselves as “pooch parents,” or “mommies and daddies.”
Yeah. He's saying that if you do't have kids, but you DO have pets, giving those pets your love and energy is a psychiatric disorder...because you should have had a kid instead, and give your love to your offspring. Got it. Thank you, G Shane Morris. He also uses animal behavior to back up his argument. Again, thank you, sir.
I have a cat. I love him very much. Even though he can be a real pain in the rump at times, I love him more than I love most people. He is, in NO way, a substitute for a child. At least not to me. I didn't get him as a "replacement child." I got him because I love cats, and he brings me joy. It's also pretty great that cats, unlike children, can be left unattended for long periods of time without having a neighbor call CPS on me. Cats are pretty great like that.
If having pets instead of kids is a mental disorder, lock me up in the looney bin.
Also, PLEASE never introduce me to this guy. It'll be hard for me to act like a lady in the face of such lunacy.