welcome to the fest

So, I'm a pet sitter in real life. I see the girl puppies and kittens teach the boys pretty much right from birth to respect "No" as an answer.

I had a pretty troubling experience today where a baby puppy boy engaged in some non-contact attention seeking behavior. He's a good person but he just didn't understand that what he was doing was wrong.

I can't do what the dogs and cats do and just bite him. What's the human equivalent of a warning growl? I tried the zero eye contact, changing the subject, etc.


This puppy is a REAL puppy. Prefrontal cortex is not developed at all. He is in a strong household but it's in no way rad fem.

I think, since that's a young baby boy, saying no, and being strong, should be good enough. Babies will push our boundaries, regardless of sex. Don't let them. Push back \o. Show no means no, even if you have to yell a little. There's no... short cuts.

Thank you. So "Puppy, put a shirt on please" should be okay, yes?

havocsmom wrote:Thank you. So "Puppy, put a shirt on please" should be okay, yes?

Probably not, hahahah lol. Not gonna lie, my experience with children are slim, but, how old is the child again? If he's 2 or younger you might need to put the shirt on him yourself.

If you're willing to be a little more explicit about what happened I might be able to proffer some thoughts.

The problem solved itself! I really like what I'm seeing from the younger boy puppies in our part of the world. Thanks, everybody.

It's not just puppies.

I used to babysit. One day I show up and Big Boy Puppy has a lump on his head. Story I hear: he and Little Sis Puppy had been sitting in the window until he shoved her onto the hard tile floor. She came back up and apparently nearly KO'd him with a metal firetruck.

What makes the difference is what comes after, in terms of who is punished, and how that's addressed.

Is it an USA thing to call kids "puppies"? Sorry, I'm used to see you all as mostly children-haters. Not only because of stereotypes but because of actual research on child-adult relationships throught the world. USA mostly treat their own children as some kind of disease and that sickens me.

Well, I've got 4 kids - all adults.

Now, I've not done research of any sort but that doesn't really sound right - as an across the board rule.

That said, I can only talk from my Australian experience and some international friends.

The wife and I had to fight at least one negative influence - being my brother in law. An angry lad who went to grain pains to explain to our very influence-able boys (esp the elder) that a partner needed to be dumber than you so that you can dominate her.

Given that neither of their partners are weak willed women who will be 'dominated by the man' I think the right message got through to them.

Z6IIAB wrote:Is it an USA thing to call kids "puppies"? Sorry, I'm used to see you all as mostly children-haters. Not only because of stereotypes but because of actual research on child-adult relationships throught the world. USA mostly treat their own children as some kind of disease and that sickens me.

Would you please clarify what you mean about the part I put in bold letters in your comment?

Rogue Kitty wrote:

Z6IIAB wrote:Is it an USA thing to call kids "puppies"? Sorry, I'm used to see you all as mostly children-haters. Not only because of stereotypes but because of actual research on child-adult relationships throught the world. USA mostly treat their own children as some kind of disease and that sickens me.

Would you please clarify what you mean about the part I put in bold letters in your comment?

Sure! A couple years ago I had this class (Idk how you people call the classes you have regulary... is it like "subject"? anyways it lasted the whole semester, one of many I was taking) at university that was about the social and psychopedagogical basis of learning, and one the text books was written by a researcher called Barbara Rogoff that studied (2005) societies throught all the world and how they taught they children, be it academically, socially, everyday human interaction. Here's a link for the portuguese translation (only to show):https://www.amazon.com.br/Natureza-Cult ... 8536303123. She found USA people, mostly white people, had small families, only father, mother and 1 or 2 children, low contact with elders or young from branches of the family, which reflects and feeds into the individualistic society you people live. This is further aggravated by her finding on how adults viewed children, specially other children: she said something like, you saw children as a "necessary evil". Children aren't allowed to express themselves on public places like restaurants and others people's houses, and are often hostilize by their normal behavior. They mostly on interact with the mother in their early ears, which creates dependent whiny spoiled children that are poorly able to deal with a large group of people. You can try and look more about Barbara Rogoff , google it.

So, it’s true that I don’t have kids of my own. I do have five nephews and a niece. I use the “baby puppyâ€￾ term as an endearment and also to remind myself that I can’t hold a pre-teen to the same rigorous standard as I would an adult.

Not all young children are “baby puppiesâ€￾. Many have enough emotional intelligence to be treated as adults. It’s a sort of shortcut which I didn’t explain at all in my previous post and I’m not sure I’m explaining well now.

Anyway, I love kids. I can’t have any myself but I am lucky enough to get plenty of chances to support them and teach them and tell them stories and run around conventions with them. I get to take them to places where they can learn to do things they want to do.

My post was about a pre-teen human who has otherwise been kind and courteous but was acting inappropriately. I learned later that he’d suffered a TBI and he was acting appropriately the next time I saw him.

I agree with you that we don't do as well connecting our children with their elders as we used to. But. in this particular case, the child in question lived with his grandmother in the family home until her death.

Anyway, I'm sorry that my question was poorly framed. I have a lot to learn!

It's cool! I realized you individually wasn't a child-hater, but I stand firmily by what I learned and observed onthe internet. Plus, we really don't have a custom of comparing children with other animals, even as endearment. I mean, I don't. And the few people I imagined would, really don't like children. Or think dealing with children is the same as having a pet. Which is not only disrespectful towards children, but to mothers. "Pet mom" is the most sexist disrespectful shit I have to see nowadays. No, you puppy aint a human baby, it ain't a child. You don't waste night and days awake to deal with them, you don't worry half as much when they get sick, it's not as expensive, and it's not as exausting to the mother thaat had to expend 9 months of her life with her body going throught exaustive transformations, painful transformations, giving birth and nurturign and being ACTUALLY 24/7 with the new born baby. It's just... don't disrespect mothers. Don't banalizee the meaning of being an actual mother. I just can't deal with "child-free" child-hating minimizing selfish jerks.

Hmm, really? I do get it on some level, I think that people who don't want children for whatever reason, and invest that emotional energy into pets, are often ridiculous in the eyes of parents such as myself but you seem excessively angry about it.

Whilst some of them are perhaps disrespectful of actual parents, either actively or as a by-product of over-stating their (self-perceived) pet parenthood, I don't think most of them are - I just think they're slightly mental.

Perhaps you've come across more overly belligerent pet parents than I have. Or perhaps you are just more easily triggered by these things than I am.

I'll be honest, I don't 'get' people who actively don't want children but I don't have a problem accepting it and only in a very few instances have these people given me the impression that they actively dislike children as a species.

I've known a few people whom were you could say "pet mom" and a lot of the time it seems to be centered around their childhood. For one I know it was because her mother unbelievably manipulative of her and her sister, so when she thought about having children with her husband at the time she adopted a couple of dogs to see how she felt about taking care of others. It was shortly after that she decided that she didn't want children because she could see herself falling into the same manipulative tendencies her mother used on her and refused to even risk putting a child through what she had endured.

The other reason I've seen for "pet mom" behavior is the substitution of children either because they believe they can't afford to raise children at that time or because they don't have a partner they want to have children with and not wanting to be a single mother. That isn't to say all of them are respectful of mothers, some are quite offensive and mean about it while others are unbelievably entitled wanting more leeway even at the expense of mothers of actual children.

As for active dislike of children, I'll attest to my own dislike of children which took years of therapy to sort out; childhood trauma. I was tormented horribly as a child by other children and it's been hard to shrug off, even still I merely fall into the "tolerate" territory though I no longer actively flee from them in situations. It's one of the primary reasons I have no desire to have children myself, I don't know if a child of my own would be immune to my issues on that. It also doesn't help that I'm aware enough of myself that I would play favorites even if I could get past my issues, and that behavior is entirely unacceptable.

And now onto the concept of using pet names and assigning children animal traits as a sign of endearment. I blame animals being romanticized; a lot of people have very unrealistic views of animals, for instance hippos are often described as cute when in reality they are one of the most dangerous animals humans interact with on any regular basis. It's not an uncommon courting behavior, or just in general, to describe other's features with a kinship to animals and other non-human things. In this particular instance I'm going to guess that the OP was using puppy in the sense that said child wore his emotions on his sleeve, like how it is often easy to tell how a puppy is feeling with it's behavior.

I know I'm new here and hopefully I didn't rattle on too much, but I'm hoping that's a contribution to the conversation.