Randi Kreiss

A modest proposal: Have dogs, not children

Posted

I hate to be crass, but kids are really expensive.

If you’re considering whether to make a baby or get a dog, know that a child can cost you in excess of $245,000 until age 18. And that’s not a really pricey kid who goes to private school or plans on a medical degree. A dog, on the other hand, if it lives until 18, will cost — at the very high end — maybe $15,000. There has never been a dog that demanded or received an allowance or required new shoes every few months.

Generally speaking, it’s much more cost-effective to get your cuddles from your cocker spaniel. Dogs are in their ascendance. The purchase or adoption of dogs is surging. What’s more, the people buying them are the same demographic that in other times were having kids: people in their 20s and 30s. It follows that these dog owners treat their pets just like kids. Surely you’ve seen the brown-eyed, snowy bichons being wheeled about in strollers. This is out-and-out baby replacement. Surely you’ve witnessed the proliferation of fake “service” animals trotting onto airplanes and into restaurants.

Dogs aren’t permitted on public transportation, including our LIRR, unless they’re legitimately certified as service animals or confined to carriers. Nevertheless, they’re ubiquitous on trains and in the subway. People flout the law, figuring they’ll get where they’re going before the sheriff rounds them up.

Young dog owners, a.k.a. “Mom” and “Dad,” devote the same time and attention to their animals that, in another time, parents dedicated to their children. Still, it’s a bargain. However much energy and money you spend on your Chihuahua, a child would cost more. Think braces and college prep classes.

With the new dogs-as-kids paradigm, many 20- and 30-somethings travel with their pets, staying at a growing selection of dog-friendly properties. We generally avoid such places, because my husband doesn’t want to sleep in a room where a dog slept. I don’t see that it makes much difference: a weird, hairy, hygiene-deficient human as the previous occupant, or a dog? I might choose the dog, in the hope that it didn’t actually use the bed.

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