Bad Parent: Take My Pets, Please
I used to love my dog and cats. Then I had a baby.
by Melissa Anderson Sweazy
August 21, 2008
Three Fine Pets to a Good Home!
Tigger a.k.a The Kitten
Fine Attributes include:
Eating food off the dining room table, particularly in the 60 second time window it takes to get from the table to the kitchen for the baby's drink and back. He will time you.
Running underfoot while you carry the baby downstairs. Usually proceeded by a bonsai war cry to give you a sporting chance.
Crying until you personally escort him to his dinner. And then crying until you pet him as he eats. It's kind of like breastfeeding, except with zero benefits.
The Donkey a.k.a Murphy
Loves to bark while your child attempts to nap.
Loves to bark while you attempt to nap.
"Accidentally" runs over the baby while she's on the floor.
Despite hundreds of dollars and countless hours spent on training, responds to commands only if he feels like it.
The Elder Statesman a.k.a Andy
Craps on the floor of your house, sometimes behind a potted plant. Sometimes in it. Usually just in plain view.
Purrs.
This is the ad that I compose in my head, usually around three a.m., when The Kitten scratches and yowls at our daughter's nursery door. The ad gets decidedly more violent around 5:30, when both cats try to break down our door. In a blind rage, one of us stumbles over to the door and flings it open. The Kitten promptly knocks over the bedside water glass and the heavy book we use to block it from him. Crotchety, burly Andy (think Jack Palance with fur) picks a fight with the border collie, he of the nervous skin condition.
I was not prepared for the depth of my hatred for beings I once claimed to love.
Andy hisses. Murphy scratches his belly, vibrating the entire bed frame. My husband growls at the pets to cut it out.
Too late.
From across the hall, the baby starts to wail. My husband threatens to kill them all. I tell him to back off, because I want to do the deed myself.
This used to be a love story. Through some combination of luck, good looks and old-fashioned moxie, two cats and a puppy found their way into my home and my heart. I grew up with pets, so it was a fait accompli that I would cobble together a furry menagerie of my own. As annoying as they could be at times, they were mine. I had rescued each of them from an uncertain future in a shelter. There were the emergency operations for Andy, the labyrinth-like maze we set up so the Kitten could be outside, and for a brief, misguided period, the commercial agent for the devastatingly handsome Murphy. I had groomed them, fed them, cuddled with them and kept them alive for most of my adult life.
Naturally, I felt like this qualified me for parenthood. I could just see my child curling up with the kitty for an afternoon nap. She would ride around the living room astride the goofy, loyal collie. It would be a sweet, peaceful animal-baby kingdom.
And then the kid came.
We had been warned that the pets would get the shaft once the baby became the focal point of our existence. What I was not prepared for was the depth of my hatred for beings I once claimed to love, and how quickly the switch happened.
©2008 Melissa Anderson Sweazy and Nerve Media
About the Author
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Melissa Anderson Sweazy is a freelance writer and photographer living in Memphis. She swears no animals were harmed in the writing of this essay. Life in pictures is updated at bebedreamblog.blogspot.com |
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