Why are pet owners more popular than parents?

It's true that pets are easier to look after than babies - but their owners have some undeniably strange behaviours

Here's an opinion that will get me locked in a crate and pelted with scented cat litter: pets are more socially acceptable than babies because they're simply easier to love.

Last month, Daunt Books published a new anthology called Dog Hearted, in which 14 writers explore, in beautiful, sometimes funny, often melancholy essays, their relationships to dogs. I'm not sure I can imagine a similar title ever being written about babies. Books about parenting (and I include my own) are all called things such as The Most Awful Thing I've Ever Done, or Why Did Nobody Tell Me This Was So Utterly Crap? or How the Hell Did This Happen?

Nell Frizzell is the author of Holding the Baby: Milk, Sweat and Tears from the Frontline of Motherhood

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