Several years ago I interviewed a 70-year-old man while conducting a study on
senior center participation. It was during the course of this in interview that
my subject was asked to recall one of his most vivid memories as a child, as
part of an assessment procedure designed to test his cognitive abilities and
memory. I paused and waited for the answer. When his reply was not immediately
forthcoming, I looked up from my interview form only to see the older man's eyes
well with tears. My immediate thought was that this man must have experienced
some great loss during his childhood - perhaps the death of his parents or the
foreclosure of the family farm. Rather, with tears rimming his eyes, he began to
relate the story. It took him back to age 8 when he saw his dog, Ben, killed by
a stray bullet while hunting. "I haven't thought about Ben for years," he said,
"but thinking about him now it seems like it was only yesterday."
The impact this pet made on my respondent when he was a child was not atypical.
Several other older respondents related similar stories concerning pets in their
childhood. Some of the stories were not as dramatic as the death of a beloved
pet, but all shared the common theme that as children pets have a real and
lasting impact on most of us.
Such unsolicited comments about pets, as brought forth in the interviews,
prompted me to pursue funding to explore the unique and curious ways in which
companion animals relate to children and other family members. My training in
family sociology prepared me in many ways for the study at hand, but in many
others I felt unequipped. In particular, there seemed to be almost no
"scientific" or empirical studies of pets in the American family, and I found
for the first time in my career that I was embarking on an uncharted journey of
discovery.
I solicited the assistance of a colleague from the University of Rhode Island,
Dr. Alexa Albert, and we set out to conduct a study of pets in family life. We
were interested in knowing more about the roles that pets played in the
"average" family. In particular, we set out to investigate how the role that
pets play might change as the family itself changed. In other words, as the
couple went from newlyweds, to the birth of children, to parenting of teenagers,
and then the empty-nest stage, did these changes also mean variations in the
number of pets in the household or the functions that these pets might play in
the family? While such questions seem intuitive in their responses, we were
again struck by how little research had been done on pets in the American
family. We found we were operating from a set of assumptions about pets in the
family that had never been well documented.
Thanks to a generous grant from the Delta Society, Dr. Albert and I were able to
conduct our study of pets and the family. We interviewed nearly 1,000 people by
telephone in Providence, R. I., and Rice County, Minn., during the summer of
1985. Most of these households had pets, but we also made sure that we included
representation from families in which no pets were present (this consisted of
about 200 households). We also conducted approximately 100 face-to-face
interviews in the homes of pet-owning families who were selected to represent
the various stages of family life. Although both my colleague and I are
collectively the owners of 5 cats, 3 dogs, 3 birds, 2 rabbits, and some fish, we
attempted to make our study as free from bias as possible. This meant that we
went into the study assuming that not all aspects of pet ownership were positive
and that many of the compelling arguments on the benefits of living with a pet
needed to be critically challenged and empirically documented. This was to be
our task.
Pets and The Family Life Course
The reasons why a family might own a pet change, as does the probability of
ownership, as the family itself changes overtime. We found that families in
which children were present were the most likely to own pets. Children
themselves often initiated the purchase or acquisition of a pet. For example,
bringing home "stray" pets is a phenomenon that seems to occur in homes in which
children are present. However, these pets that are usually considered the
child's pet are more likely to be cared for by the mother. In fact, at all
stages of the family life course, it is the adult woman in the home who is most
likely to be the designated caregiver for the pet. This, of course, may include
cleaning the bird cage, feeding the pet, grooming the pet, or purchasing
toys/food for the pet. On the other hand, adult males participate more in the
exercise of the pet. Thus, traditional gender role performance does not deviate
when it comes to the care and maintenance of the family pet.
Families with incomes of less than $8,000 were the least likely to own a pet.
Remarried families had the highest rates of pet ownership, followed by
once-married families, and lastly by widowed or never-married individuals. Thus,
it is probably safe to conclude that children not only facilitate pet ownership,
but that there is the generalized belief that is shared by the majority of
parents that having a pet for the children will bring rewards such as increased
levels of responsibility and nurturance. Yet our data suggest that the family
member doing the most nurturing of the pets and carrying the most responsibility
for their care is the wife or mother.
In both Rhode Island and Minnesota, the most common pet was a dog, but rates of
cat ownership were not far behind. In the more rural area represented by the
data collected in Minnesota, we see much wider variety in terms of the kinds of
animals the family members call "pets." Some of the pets in Minnesota included
raccoons, cows, pigs, and sheep. The urban area demonstrated much less
variability in the types of pets owned. While some critics of our study are
quick to point out that such farmyard animals are typically not considered to be
"pets" in most previous studies, we counter their arguments by stating that we
purposely left the definition of "pet" ambiguous, thus letting the families
identify any animal they felt served as a companion to one or more family
member.
While we know that stage of the family life course is related to the likelihood
of owning a pet, with those stages in which children are present the most likely
to have pets, we felt a need to explore further the exact roles and functions
that pets played in the family. One way of doing this was to ask about
attachment to the pet. Using several questions to get at the notion of
attachment, we found a pattern that was quite contrary to the pattern of
ownership. Just as those families with children were more likely to own a pet,
so too were they lowest in attachment levels for the pet. In fact, newlyweds,
the widowed, and those who had never married had the highest levels of
attachment. If this truly means that pets often supplant family members is not
clear, but it is evident that in those households that are inhabited primarily
by adults we find higher levels of attachment. We can only speculate that this
may be due to the increased amount of time the adult(s) might spend with the pet
in the absence of children or that pets do, indeed, serve as substitutes for
children.
Are Pets Family Members?
The vast majority of our sample stated that their pets were considered to be
family members. In fact, the sentiment was so strongly in favor of the statement
"To what extent do you feel that (pet's name) is a part of your family?" that 87
percent agreed strongly with the statement. Even in those households in which
pets were not present, the general belief that pets are family members was
evidenced. It was interesting to note that the main reason given for not owning
a pet at the time of the interview was due to living arrangement restrictions
such as rental agreements that prohibited pet ownership. From these
observations, it is tempting to conclude that most Americans feel pets are a
natural and valued part of family life.
My colleague and I conjecture that pets will continue to be "family members" in
the future. Our data suggest that even though families themselves may be in
transition due to higher divorce rates, remarriage, smaller family size, and
other demographic shifts, the role and function of pets in the family is likely
to be stronger than ever. If, as our research indicates, attachment levels are
highest in those households in which children are not present, then shifting
demographics that point toward single or reduced numbers in households indicate
higher levels of attachment for pets. If, indeed, as some family scholars have
suggested, the family is to be required to serve as a "haven in a heartless
world" then the presence of pets plays an even more predominant role.
Thinking back to my interviews with those older individuals who inspired the
work that Dr. Albert and I conducted, I still cannot explain why the bond
between a child and a pet is strong enough that it can bring tears to the eyes
of an old man as he recalls a childhood pet. But our data collected in "average"
families attests to the timeless bond between animal and human that continues to
play such an important role in family life.
