Another Family’s Experience with Raising Kids with Cats
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Call me thoughtless. Call me a terrible wife and mother…I don’t mind. I have two cats which I won’t part with, despite the fact that my husband is allergic to them. We always thought our kids were at least slightly allergic. My husband’s allergist told him that since he’s allergic to cats, it’s highly likely that his children are. We just accepted it-our kids are sometimes a little snifflly, especially during peak allergy season (spring), as are many people.
When our younger son spent the night at his cousin’s, at about age 4, he came home with a very stuffed-up nose and hives on his torso. We did attribute this to my sister’s small home which contains, in our opinion, too many pets without many (or any) rules regarding them. I love my sister to death (and hope she never reads this) but it always disturbs me to walk into her kitchen and see a cat standing on the countertop, eating leftovers out of a pot on the stove. I do not judge people by the cleanliness of their homes, although I try to keep mine looking fairly decent and particularly clean if we’re expecting visitors. But there are tufts of fur everywhere in my sister’s house. I don’t care if you’ve got pet allergies or not-this is not healthy for anyone.
Since my son has never broken out in hives at our house, or anyplace else, I always figured if he has any pet allergies at all, they must be mild and he simply reacted to the extreme conditions in my sister’s house.
Then, finally, about a year ago, we had him tested for allergies. His blood work turned up negative- for everything. I was right in my instinct to not get rid of our kitty-cats! I wasn’t a neglectful parent, after all. (A neglectful wife, maybe, but not parent).
Some studies have shown that raising kids with pets builds up their immunity to them and prevents allergies from getting the best of them later in life.
I like to focus on this and all of the other benefits of raising children with pets:
- Having a pet teaches them responsibility. When kids are old enough, they can let the dog or cat out, take the dog out in the yard on his leash (assuming this is safe/they can control the dog), and feed/help care for their pet.
- Having a pet teaches a child about unconditional love; a dog or even a cat can be a child’s best friend for many years and provide him with comfort. Time spent with a dog, cat or other pet can be time away from a child’s everyday stresses such as peer pressure, changes such as moving or family problems, and (God forbid) bullying.
- Having animals in the house teaches kids to respect other creatures, an important lesson in life about nature, diversity and the environment outside their manmade homes and other “things”.
- Having a pet does eventually end in loss, but this can be an important lesson for children about learning to deal with death, as this difficult part of the life cycle is something they will have to deal with again, at least at some point in their lives.
- Playing with a pet-a dog, in particular-encourages activity and exercise, which, as we all know, are important aspects to leading a healthy life. With childhood obesity ever on the rise, some kids can truly benefit from such activity.
Sure, if we lived without pets, there would be no scratches on the side of our sofa and no fur to wipe off of our clothes. But I feel that there is much more to life than the presentation of one’s home. A house is meant to be lived in and kids can learn to take care of their property as well as to love and respect a pet as an important member of the family. To many families, including ours, this is a very valuable lesson for children to learn.
laura says...
I too believe that exposing young children to pets helps them to not develop allergies (or at least build up a tolerance to them) and that pets provide all of the important things you mention. When I get to know people, I often ask about the pets they had as kids and can often predict who did not grow up with a pet!