Friday, May 9, 2008

Pets and kids




Yesterday the girls and I went out to a mid week, late afternoon farmer's market. The crowd consisted mostly of Moms and kids. There were kids in bathing suits running around in the water fountains, some good food and a lot of bad live music.

I had Anjali in my tow and Maya was walking they played a little in the water fountains. As we sat down with a taco we saw a lady pass by with a small stroller and there was a cage instead of screen. I empathized with her as I can remember some situations where I could have used a stroller with a cage. But wait it wasn't a kid it was a dog in the stroller!

By then I was intrigued, so are there other people doing the same or was this woman one of kind walk-the-dog-in-custom-stroller lady. As any busy mom of two would do I came back and googled it right away and ahoy! Here it is. Looks like there are others, enough for someone to sell these online.

I want to dish out some juicy comments but I will exercise restraint because I don't get the whole pet thing. Maybe this attitude is just our family. We never had any pets growing up, not even a fish, nada. I do remember catching some bugs and saving them in a box till they died. The only person in our family who showed some affinity for animals was dadi, my paternal grandma, feeding the street dogs every morning.I think that was more a part of collecting brownie points with God (good karma) more than any love of animals or pets. She also mentioned that she didn't feed the cats because the cats eat with their eyes closed so they don't count towards good karma. Go figure... I don't even remember asking our parents for a dog.

Partially it could be cultural also. I see far few Indians, for that matter Asians owning pets than other cultures. One of the standard reply I hear from parents is "Why do we need pets, we have kids?". Is the reverse also true? Are people substituting pets for kids in all the ways down to strollers? I've heard people give their last names to the pets and address themselves as Moms. Again I'll reserve my judgement.


This post will not be complete without mentioning(thanks Ravi for bringing this to my attention) the "kid leashes". I've seen people walking with their kids on leashes some attached to the backpacks.


Well the trip to the farmer's market was good I scored a free cloth tote and got Ravi's favorite granola for 2$ less than the health food store. As for the lady walking her dog in the stroller and people with kids on leashes, each to her own. Why not?

ps: I have a lot of time these days on my hands hence so prolific on the blog. There are reasons I cannot reveal now but maybe after the storm has passed:-)

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