Mom Has Had It With Her Sister-In-Law Who Insists 'Parenting' Two Dogs Is Harder Than Parenting One Child — 'I Genuinely Don't Understand Her'
Choosing to be a parent or a "dog mom" are equally valid. But the two are not the same.
When I'm at my crankiest, I like to repeat the refrain that "all the wrong people have kids, and all the wrong people have dogs."
In recent years, both endeavors have seemed to become a magnet for the most unhinged, self-obsessed people among us. They've turned these normal, natural parts of life into some kind of marker they seem to think confers special status.
If you need a better example of how utterly bonkers this whole thing has become, look no further than a mom on Reddit who is absolutely at her wit's end with her dog-loving sister-in-law.
A mom's sister-in-law insists that being a dog mom is harder than parenting a child.
The mom's Reddit post feels like it could have been ripped right out of a Mother's Day Twitter argument. You know — the ones that erupt every year when some dog owner insists that being a 'dog mom' is just as worthy of celebration as actual motherhood and that to suggest otherwise is exclusionary and hurtful.
Then, like clockwork, the specific kind of mom who thinks she gave birth to the Second Coming and everyone owes her some kind of debt for doing so gets mortally offended and posts a 76-tweet thread about how the mere suggestion is somehow an affront to womanhood or whatever while everyone normal on Earth screams "SHUT UP BOTH OF YOU" in unison.
This mom on Reddit thankfully isn't that kind of mom, but her sister-in-law is DEFINITELY that kind of dog owner. The mom wrote that her friend keeps "constantly comparing" the two — but she takes it a step further than you'd expect from even the craziest of dog lovers.
The dog mom claimed that her life is harder because she has two dogs and the mom only has one baby.
"I always thought people were joking or over exaggerating when warning about people who view having pets equivalent to parenting," the mom wrote in her post, "but my sister-in-law will not stop comparing her dogs to my child."
Her sister-in-law insists that her day-to-day is harder because, while the mom only has one baby, she has TWO dogs — which is double the work, according to her. And she goes to great lengths to make the assertion, it seems.
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"She also feels the need to one-up me about everything," the mom added. "For example, if I say I’m tired [because] my child was up all night with the flu, she'll say she hasn’t slept all week [because] her dogs kept her up." Oh, brother.
It gets worse. While discussing how she only wants to have one child for financial reasons, her sister-in-law said, "She understands because she has TWO dogs that keep her from being able to go out just as much, if not more, than my toddler does so she can confidently tell me it’s not for me."
But here's the real kicker, as if that's not all absurd enough: the mom herself has THREE DOGS in addition to her toddler! "I genuinely don’t understand her behavior," the mom said in conclusion, and pretty much the entirety of Reddit was right there with her.
This is patently absurd, and among the dumbest things, anyone has ever said. No, but like, seriously.
Now listen. I don't have kids and have never wanted to, and the online culture around deifying parenthood and especially motherhood makes me itch. I also like dogs more than most people. I am definitely biased in a dog mom's favor. And yet, even I cannot brook this woman's utter insanity.
When I go to my brother's house I have to disappear into the basement to "take a phone call" to get a break from my nieces' and nephew's constant energy. And I love them to death! They're my favorite people on Earth! But they are SO MUCH OH MY GOD.
And the problem is, you cannot tell a child to "go lay down" or lock them in another room for respite like you can a dog without, you know, abusing them and damaging their psyche for their entire lives. The two are simply not the same, and the suggestion is ABSURD.
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Or, as another parent on Reddit put it, "Compared to my toddler, I’d say my dog is 80% pillow." Or, another: "I can’t put my 1-year-old out in the yard when I need to clean my house." I mean, you can… but if CPS gets called or a falcon comes and picks it up by the diaper and flies off to its lair, you'll not garner much sympathy from the legal system!
It's hard not to feel like the sister-in-law isn't trying to compensate for some sensitivity or something — we are currently awash in a frankly horrifying level of judgment towards women who can't or don't want to have children at the moment, after all.
But that doesn't make this any less ridiculous. The simple fact of the matter is that if having kids were as easy as having a dog, a lot more people would have kids instead. These are apples and oranges, and admitting it doesn't devalue dog ownership any more than someone climbing Everest devalues your morning stroll. Just chill. You sound crazy!
John Sundholm is a writer, editor, and video personality with 20 years of experience in media and entertainment. He covers culture, mental health, and human interest topics.