Praeger always writes excellent, insightful, warm essays.
He wrote “I have been troubled by the many people who announce that they do not want children — and then refer to their dogs or cats as their ‘children.’”
I agree with him wholeheartedly. On a related note, I am REALLY put off by the massive increase in the use of the term “fur babies” the past ten years to describe pets. Our local NextDoor app posts are chock full of “fur baby” usages. Ugh.
Our cats are our “grandchildren” because we will never have real grandchildren.
It’s rather toungue-in-cheek, but we do love them.