Interspecies Parenting: How Pet Parents Construct Their Roles

Abstract

This qualitative study explores a widespread contemporary family form, the interspecies family, to understand how people who count their cats and dogs as family members describe this process of becoming and maintaining family. We focus on one aspect of interspecies families—pet parenting. We find that even though individuals say their pets are family, not all consider themselves to be parents or engaged in pet parenting. Participants with human children differed somewhat from those without human children, suggesting that family form shapes pet parenting experiences. Childless participants draw heavily from larger cultural narratives surrounding parenting to construct the parent–pet child relationship. Those with younger human children talk about the relationship primarily from a place of difference, while those with older human children construct the relationship in similar ways to childless individuals and emphasize similarities between raising children and pets. This study contributes to the literature on family change and human–animal relationships within households.