When Everything Becomes a Child

“I’ve been struggling with my daughter,” a student recently told me. I’ve heard variations of this statement from more than a handful of my students over the past few months. I spend a good deal of time talking with college students, and as a political scientist, I'm always interested in what they're thinking about. We are in an election season right now, so I expect to hear about politics, the cost of living, polarization, or frustrations with government. 

Lately, though, I've been hearing something rather different—more students have been telling me about their “children.” It's not unusual to have a student who is raising a child while in school. But I’m quickly learning that these students are not referring to children at all. They are talking about their pets—or even things.

In this one particularly memorable conversation, a student mentioning her daughter’s developmental delays eventually made it clear that her “daughter” was a sourdough starter that wasn’t rising! I have brought these stories up to fellow professors, and several colleagues have told me they have encountered similar conversations in recent months. 

I admit that my initial reaction was anger. I have devoted a good part of my life to being a father, a role I adore, and I take the responsibilities of parenting seriously. Hearing someone speak about a dog, a cat, or a container of dough in the same terms as being a parent, and in such a cavalier way, strikes me as deeply offensive and out of touch. Of course, I’ve kept those reactionary feelings to myself, and the more I’ve thought about it, the more my anger has given way to genuine concern.

How have we reached a point in our society where norms and familial ordering have changed so much that intelligent young people are speaking about pets and children as though the distinction hardly matters?

I’ve had pets throughout my life, including today. I know how attached we can become to them. Caring for an animal is a real responsibility, and I don’t want to minimize that relationship because pets do provide incredible benefits to their owners. But a pet, or a sourdough starter, is not a child. Loving a pet doesn’t make me its father. I worry about what these sentiments tell us about how today’s young adults understand family, relationships, and especially children.

A Part of the Family

A 2023 Pew Research Center survey found that 97% of American pet owners consider their pets part of the family, and 51% say they are as much a part of the family as a human member. Interestingly, the answers did not vary much by age, and Pew was asking about family membership, not whether people considered themselves parents of pets.

Meanwhile, Americans are having fewer children. Provisional CDC figures put the fertility rate at 53.1 births per 1,000 women ages 15 to 44 in 2025. At the same time, the Pew Research Center found that the share of adults under 50 without children who say they are unlikely ever to have them has climbed from 37% in 2018 to 47% in 2023. Some respondents simply didn’t want children, but others cited careers, concerns about the world, and affordability.

I understand these concerns. I waited to have children for financial and professional reasons despite wanting them earlier. Could I afford it? Would my work leave room to be the father I wanted to be? New York, where I live, is its own sort of beast when you're making these decisions. 

I wonder if young people are investing affection in animals—or things—because having children seems so out of reach. 

Even with tenure and time to prepare, I continue to be amazed by the costs of raising children; it’s not easy. And making matters worse for society in general, many of my students now face a less secure future. They worry about affordability and their ability to live a decent life, and they constantly share with me their concerns about jobs, rent, and whether they will ever be able to own a home. It is easy to tell them to have children and extol the virtues, but it is harder to explain how to make that work.

Perhaps this explains some of what I have been hearing lately. I do wonder if young people are investing affection in animals—or things—because having children seems so out of reach. I honestly don't know, and a handful of conversations can't tell us that. We need more research to understand it.

How Pets Impact Fertility

As it happens, there is some interesting research on this. Anthropologist Shelly Volsche at Boise State University found in a 2021 study that adults without children reported stronger attachments to their pets than adults with children and were more likely to call themselves their pets’ parents. Meanwhile, sociologist Andrea Laurent-Simpson of Texas Woman's University examined a related question in a 2017 study and her data suggested that relationships with pets could reinforce decisions to delay having children or forgo them altogether.

More recently, the Institute for Family Studies examined survey data from nine countries and found something striking.¹ Young adults who agreed with the statement “I would rather be a pet parent” reported wanting nearly one less child than those who did not. The difference remained consistent even after accounting for income, education, relationship status, age, and other factors. While these questions are not formulated in such a way to tell us whether preferring pets leads people to want fewer children, or whether people who already want fewer children are more attracted to pet parenthood, the relationship is hard to ignore. This is particularly noteworthy when we consider how casually the language of parenthood is now being applied to animals and other objects.

I wish more of my students heard more about the pleasures of parenting, but unfortunately too many have only heard about the hardships. Yes, there is exhaustion and expense, but who is telling them how wonderful having children can be? 

A pet can be beloved without being a child, and no amount of affection for an animal can replace the kind of joy and meaning in life that a child brings.

At home, I experience the beauty of parenthood every day. My children surprise me, drive me crazy at times, and have opinions about things I never imagined they would at their relatively young ages. They are becoming their own people, which is what I want, even if I wish they would listen a little more. I have the responsibility and privilege to prepare them for lives of their own, and it is thrilling to watch them grow, question, explore, and find their voices. It is a much different relationship and responsibility than what I have with my dog.

Conversations Matter

It’s hard not to be stunned by the comparisons that started these conversations. A pet can be beloved without being a child, and no amount of affection for an animal can replace the kind of joy and meaning in life that a child brings. Which brings me back to my concern that many young people want a family of their own one day but cannot imagine how they could manage it. This is a problem that we cannot afford to ignore. 

We should make it easier for younger generations to have children, and we should be willing to speak proudly about why children matter. These conversations are important because, as a new IFS report shows, communal support from friends and family can actually help increase the likelihood of wanting and eventually having kids. For those of us who want to encourage and support young adults in their parenting aspirations, talking more about the joys and stresses that come with family life is a great place to start. 

Samuel J. Abrams is a professor of politics at Sarah Lawrence College, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and a scholar with the Sutherland Institute.

*Photo credit: Shutterstock

1. On the IFS Resource Tools Interactive, select the "beliefs about children" option, then select the variable, "It's better to be a pet parent" to see these results.