Loneliness and a longing for intimacy are real and
painful things too many people are experiencing, but pets aren't the solution.
I was in the checkout line at a home decor store over the weekend
and noticed a display of coffee mugs with various quotes and phrases printed on
them. One in particular caught my eye: “Pets are people too.” Many of the
surrounding mugs also presented pet-themed quips such as, “I’d rather be with
my dog,” “My cat doesn’t like you either,” and “Dog Mom.”
I understand these are silly and relatively innocuous coffee mugs,
but I couldn’t help but think they are somehow reflective of an unsettling
relationship that we as a culture — and the millennial generation, in
particular — have developed in recent years with pets and animals.
In his 2013 book “What to Expect When No One’s
Expecting: America’s Coming Demographic Disaster,” Jonathan Last
opens by describing the recent
apparent phenomenon in which adults, instead of having children, own dogs.
Last writes:
The evidence suggests that pets are increasingly treated like
actual family members: in 1998 the average dog-owning American household spent
$383 on medical care for their dogs; by 2006, that figure had risen to $672.
Expenditures on doggie grooming aids more than doubled from $59 to $127. In
surveys from 1947 to 1985, fewer than half of Americans reported that they
owned a pet. Today American pets outnumber American children by more than four to
one.
Let me clarify up front that I don’t have anything against pets or
animals. I just watched “Togo” on Disney Plus and cried throughout the whole
movie as anyone — or any woman, at least — with a heart would. I think animals
are cute and fascinating and that pets can occupy a unique and lovely place in
our hearts and homes.
But the real problem to
which all of this is pointing isn’t actually a pet problem; it’s an intimacy
problem.
Humans
Were Created for Intimacy
We’ve all seen and heard study
after study revealing America is experiencing a “loneliness epidemic,”
and that millennials and Gen Zers have it the worst. The digital age has given
the illusion of ubiquitous and instant connectedness but has left people devoid
of true intimacy and the social skills to pursue it, leading to declining marriageand birth rates,
shockingly low rates of sexual activity,
and alarmingly high rates of suicide.
We were created for human connection, and the need for intimacy
is one of the most innate aspects of our makeup. The very first thing God did
after he created man was to look for a suitable companion for him. But if you
recall in the creation story in Genesis 2, God’s
first attempt at creating a companion for Adam wasn’t to form Eve; it was to
create the animals:
18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be
alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him.” 19 Out of the ground the
Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought
them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a
living creature, that was its name. 20 The man gave names to all the cattle,
and to the birds of the sky, and to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not
found a helper suitable for him. [emphasis added]
Those with even the most basic level of biblical knowledge
remember the story goes on to say that God then took a rib from Adam and from
it created Eve. The contrast of God’s creation and Adam’s experience with the
animals and the subsequent formation of Eve is an important look at what does
and does not constitute the kind of intimacy for which humans were created: The animals were formed from the
ground, from outside man, but Eve was created from inside man. “This is now
bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh” (Gen 2:23).
Pets
Can’t Fix Loneliness
In one of the most profound dissections of the creation story I’ve
ever read, “The Beast that Crouches at the
Door,” Rabbi David Fohrman writes that one of the core themes of the
creation story and the fall of man is the relationship between man and beast.
“The temptation of loneliness,” writes Fohrman, “is to seek solace where it
ought not to be sought. For Adam, this would mean seeking companionship among
the animals. … [T]he animal world, for its part, might be seen as only too
happy to oblige.”
Because the first of mankind was alone, and his first attempt to
quell his loneliness was to search among the animals, it might follow that the
tendency to look to the animal kingdom to fill the aching longing for
connection — to seek the intimacy for which we were created — is imprinted in
our most ancient primitive instincts.
But as we learned at
beginning of all mankind, animals are unsuitable companions to meet humans’
needs for intimacy. True intimacy is a uniquely human trait that can be found
only in connection with other humans. Loneliness is a real and painful thing
too many people are experiencing, but a pet isn’t the solution. A pet may serve
as a distraction from loneliness, but that chasm within will only grow wider
and deeper until it is met by another human.
Pets
and animals are delightful but only when assigned an appropriate place in our
lives. Pets are not people too, dogs are not children, and we should rather be
with people than with animals. The mugs are innocent enough, I suppose, but if
you’re going to drink from one, I hope you’re at least in the company of
another human being when you do.
