Okay, maybe that post about how I treat Elliot like a dog was a little weird.
My point is not that I learned how to be a parent from a dog.
It's that you did.
We all did. We as a species have been co-evolving with dogs for thousands of years. How were we able to domesticate a species (the wolf) without a certain nurturing element in ourselves? A nurturing aspect very similar to parenting....
Sure, our nurturing impulse existed before we domesticated dogs. Apes have a nurturing impulse. Turtles have it too. Every species needs to nurture in order to raise its progeny.
My point is that the specific flavor of nurturing, the details of how we do it, have been affected by dogs.
Some scientists estimate that humans have had dogs for more than 30,000 years. That's a long enough period for evolution to occur.
Maybe we used to raise our children differently back in the caveman days. But over the past 30,000 years, our interactions with dogs have been woven into who we are. The aggressive tug-of-war style that works for dogs has slowly seeped over into the way we raise our kids.
Like for example: this weird penchant for aggressive play with kids. Where does that come from? The whole "I'm gonna get you" thing that every single parent does.
Even the most unaggressive people will pretend to chase their kids like monsters. What's up with that? When you stop and think about it, it makes no sense. And yet it is part of who we are.
Dogs. They explain it all. That's my theory.
Thought. Try comparing what you are saying about dogs and children to children and sports teams.
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