[geeks] pets as childern was Breeding, etc.

[Chris Byrne]

>you know, immediately after bill and i married we were inundated by
>folk's good wishes and asking how soon children would be expected. its
>apprently the american dream. get married, buy a house, push out a few
>babies. *shrug* to each person we explained that no children were
>possible but that we had cats and a dog instead, and we received many
>comments. mostly they were of the pitying kind. 'oh, so sorry to hear
>that'. my response is 'why? i'm not. i have 4 children already.'

My wife and I are also in the same situation. It is very unlikely we will
ever be able to have children because of medical difficulties Drea had as a
teenager, so she has transferred her 'mothering instincts' to our cat. She
literally refers to geist as her baby sometimes, and not in a cutesy way, in
a serious way.

After geist hit about a year old she started wanting another one... I've
noticed the same thing in many moms. Once their first kid gets out of
immediate babyhood they want another baby. It's quite remarkable really.

I mean I love my cat very much, she is a member of our family, but I
certainly have no problem leaving her alone for a long weekend. Drea
basically goes nuts leaving the cat alone for more than a day. And she's
completely convinced that, much like a small child, our catis helpless and
defenseless without us.

Lets face it folks, on a survival traits scale, cat's have it all over
humans. A human being is unlikely to survive on their own before they reach
the age of 13 to 18 (physical maturity) whereas after about three months,
cat's are pretty much good to go. As Richard Jenny once said "If you leave a
dog alone in the house with no food, in a week or two he'll die. On the
other hand, you come back after two weeks and find your cat frying up your
goldfish"

Unfortunately with the Ireland move we are most likely going to have to
leave Geist with Dreas mom. This is really hurting the both of us, but
especially Drea. She's taking it just as hard as a mother would having to
leave her child. In fact it's the main problem we are having with the move.

Chris Byrne