It's time to legitimize pet parents

Years ago, a woman in her 60s whom I had just met pulled out a stack of photos to show me how she had celebrated her dog’s birthday: in a neighborhood bar, with balloons and beer for the humans and a little cake made of Milk-Bones and chicken liver for the dog. Everyone, including the dog, looked like they were having a nice time. “Is this your only child?” I asked jokingly. She looked at me with a combination of scorn and pity. “He’s my dog, honey. I raised all my kids already.”

I thought of that moment recently when I saw the unexpectedly hilarious People magazine headline: “Kristin Chenoweth slams non–pet owners who say her dog isn’t her ‘baby’: ‘She came out of my vagina.'" The gist was this: Chenoweth, the showbiz dynamo who broke out as Glinda in the original run of “Wicked” and will play the title role in the much-anticipated musical “The Queen of Versailles,” is currently partnering with a dog-food subscription service called Nom Nom. This involves doing a lot of interviews about her relationship with her dogs, past and present. And that, in turn, has led to headlines taking Chenoweth’s joke both literally and very personally. 

There’s no question that Americans love pets: Statistics from the trade organization American Pet Products Association released in 2023 showed that 66% of Americans have pets, and that they spend significant amounts of money to ensure they’re living their best lives. But the question of whether “pet parent” is a legitimate identity (something that’s debated repeatedly and often angrily online) points to a discomfort with a world in which pets are no longer part of the family, but the family itself, full stop. The result is a sustained collision between unfettered consumerism, gender-role anxiety and entrenched beliefs about what kinds of love are valid and meaningful.