Pets as Part of the Family

One of the key ideas associated with The Personal Life Perspective on the family is that are lots of differences of opinion over who counts as family. Many people regard friends, dead relatives and pets as part of their family, for example.

This post examines the extent to which people in the UK think Pets are part of the family.

More than 90% of dog and cat owners regard pets as part of the family

According to a 2017 survey of 2000 dog and cat owners conducted by Lily’s Kitchen Pet Food:

  • 96% said they regard pets as part of the family
  • 60% admitted to being closer to their pet than to some members of their family
  • of cat owners get up at 4.00 a.m. to feed their cat
  • 30% Sign their pet’s name on birthday and Christmas cards
  • 20% say they refer to themselves as their pet’s ‘mummy’ or ‘daddy’.
  • 15% admit to having taken time off work because their pet was ill.
  • 33% let pets into the bathroom when they go to the loo…

Valentine’s Day Pet-Expenditure…

According to 2020 survey research by Pets At Home:

  • 58.6% – of pet owners reported spending between £11 and £100 on their pet on Valentine’s Day 2020,
  • 26% of respondents said they are more likely to buy their pet a gift than their partner.
  • Nearly a quarter of respondents reported they would prefer to spend Valentine’s day with their pet, rather than a love interest

This certainly seems to suggest that, for around 25% of the pet-owning population, pets are more important than their human partners.

Of course this might be because some (most?) of those respondents don’t actually have human partners! Also, the above stats have been collected by a Pet store for marketing purposes – the point being to make it seem like it’s normal to buy your pet a Valentines Day gift, so the reporting here might be selective to give the misleading impression that pets are more important than human partners, rather than pets being a kind of surrogate for a human partner.

Pet posts on social media

The Facebook Group: Our Pets are Family is certainly supporting evidence for the Personal Life perspective. Most of the posts are about pets that have been lost or stolen (yes, dog theft is a ‘thing’!), but with only 2.1K members, this doesn’t seem to be that representative of all pet-owners.

And I’m sure you’ve seen plenty of other pet related social media posts!

What do you think?

If you can think of any other pieces of evidence that either support or criticise the view that ‘pets are part of the family’ then drop links in the comments!

Signposting…

This post has been written to help students evaluate the Personal Life Perspective, which is part of the families and households module for A-level Sociology.

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