“They Call Me His Mommy”

Abstract

This chapter develops extant literature to examine the types of identities that are ascribed to pets when human children are part of the household structure. For example, both parents with children currently at home and empty nesters provide narratives suggesting that their children were apt to assign “brother,” “sister,” or “sibling” to the family animal companion. Alternatively, some parents shared that they had thought of the family dog or cat as a sibling for their only child. The concept of boundary maintenance explores the strict boundaries that parents draw between their human children and the family dog and cat. While these boundaries remain intact throughout their children’s childhood, they appear to blur a bit when children leave the nest. This results in the emergence of a “caretaker” identity for empty nesters in which some parental behavior emerges related to the dog and cat, but not in the intense manner with which it is present for childfree or childless families.