When Puppies Replace People

Living in a reasonably large city like Indianapolis I can see the signs are everywhere. In fact, once you notice it, it becomes hard to unsee—dogs are the new kids. We take our kids to play on a playground and with a small handful of other families and watch countless individuals and couples walking their dogs. We see Starbucks offering treats for dogs, but not having anything special for children. Then there’s the dog parks. I had never really heard of a “dog park” before moving to Indy. In my first few years here, I drove by my first dog park and thought it was a little odd. That was about six years ago. Now they are popping up everywhere. 

People today go so far as to call themselves “dog parents,” and some of them get real offended if you tell them being a dog parent is not the same thing as being a real parent. Recently elected DNC vice-chair David Hogg once said the quiet part out loud, or at least louder than most people are willing to say it. In a series of tweets from September 2022, Hogg stated, 

 

Kids are the new boats 

Pets are the new kids

Plants are the new pets

Let me explain…

Like yes kids are nice but most people can’t afford them so it’s nice to have friends with one but not have one yourself. Pets are the affordable version of kids today for Millennials and Gen Z and plants are now the more affordable plants. 

Like the number of people I know who literally throw big actual birthday parties for their dogs that they have friends invited and everything is awesome but also very telling of our changing view of having children and our economic condition.

Like me? I’m never planning on having kids. I would much rather own a Porsche and have a Portuguese water dog and golden doodle. Long term it’s cheaper, better for The environment and will never tell you that it hates you or ask you to pay for college.

 

I disagree with almost everything that Hogg wrote, with one exception. Dog birthday parties are indeed very telling of our changing view of having children.

 

Why does this matter? 

God loves people, and even after the fall He sees new human life as a beautiful thing. God’s first command to humanity was to fill the earth (Genesis 1:28). God made people, and He liked them so much that His first command was for them to make more people. After the disaster of the fall, things got so bad that God wiped humans off the face of the earth, but He didn’t give up on people. In fact, He reiterated this first command to Noah and his children – “Make more people and fill up the earth” (Genesis 9:1-2). As we continue through Scripture, we see God blessing Israel by multiplying them (Exodus 1:7, 20) and promising to do so even more if they continued to obey Him (Deuteronomy 6:3; 7:13, 8:1). The Pentateuch sets up the foundation for the rest of the Bible, and when we get to the end of the Pentateuch we find that God really loves people.

Satan, on the other hand, hates people. He hates God, and therefore He hates people made in the image of God. Throughout the book of Genesis, and throughout the Bible, Satan is the one who seeks to destroy the seed, the offspring. This is in part because he is trying to stop Christ from coming, the ultimate Seed of the woman who will crush his head (Genesis 3:15). But I think it is also because he hates God, and so he hates those made to look like God. Call me a tin foil hat if you must, but I believe that beneath the desire to not have children and to instead replace them with dogs is a Satanic impulse that wants to see fewer and fewer. I’m not saying that every dog parent is a Satanist, but rather that the spirit of our age, which sees puppies as preferable to people, is being driven by the prince of the power of the air, who we know is at work in the sons of disobedience (Ephesians 2:2).

C.S. Lewis captures this dynamic well in The Screwtape Letters. Giving the perspective of a demon, he writes, “One must face the fact that all the talk about His love for men, and His service being perfect freedom, is not (as one would gladly believe) mere propaganda, but an appalling truth. He really does want to fill the universe with a lot of loathsome little replicas of Himself—creatures, whose life, on its miniature scale, will be qualitatively like His own…” Satan hates it when the world is filled with replicas of the One he hates most of all.

This matters because life is beautiful. Life is valuable. Being pro-life certainly means we oppose abortion, but it should mean much, much more! Not killing life is the first step in celebrating life, but we should also delight in new life! We should be excited by children and families. Church nurseries should be bursting at the seams. Couples should eagerly look forward to when they can start their own family. Little girls should dream about growing up to be a mommy, and little boys should look forward to one day leading a family. Christians should be pro-children, pro-family, and pro-people!

 

So what should we do? 

If this really is where our culture is going, then we as believers need to take a stand. Puppies are cool, but not nearly as cool as kids. We need to let people know God’s perspective on the family – it was His idea and He delights in it. So how do we make a difference? We do so by first conforming our thinking to God’s Word, and then as we have opportunity we seek to shape the thinking of those around us. I want to suggest 3 ideas that we as Christians need to firmly believe and then push forward in our culture as we have the opportunity.

 

• We must maintain a distinction between pets and people.

I grew up in a family that had pets – dogs, cats, and for some reason even a fish. I loved having pets. They were fun. They taught responsibility. I’m still working (somewhat unsuccessfully) to convince my wife we need a dog once our kids are old enough. But pets aren’t people. People are better than pets. People are made in the image of God and have a soul that will live somewhere forever. Pets are not made in the image of God and when they die, well, no one wants to say for sure because of all the pet lovers out there but let’s just say they’re not the same as people. People matter more than animals. This is the clear teaching of Scripture and we shouldn’t blush or hesitate when we say it.

 

• We must celebrate marriage and family.

We sometimes hesitate to fully celebrate families. As a pastor who used to oversee the single young adults in our church, I understand this. Valentine’s day is one of the most miserable days of the year for some people. When mother’s day rolls around, many people immediately think about those who wish they could be mothers but can’t be. Now, I want to be careful here. We should certainly be mindful of those who might be hurting in our church, and I’m not suggesting we be cavalier in such situations. But at the same time, we simply must celebrate families. Fathers, mothers, and their children are a wonderful thing, and we need to shout it from the rooftops. Whether it be preaching, special events, or the conversations we have in the foyer or in the community, we need to let it be known far and wide that as Christians we serve a God who loves marriage and families. 

 

• We must expose the lies of Satan. 

Families are not miserable. That’s what Satan wants us to think. Families are awesome. That’s what the Bible teaches us is true. We need to push back on the Satanic lie that having a family is the path to misery. Let me give you an illustration of what I mean.

My wife and I were able to go to a resort in the Dominican for our honeymoon. It was beautiful, we were young and in love (don’t worry, now we are a little older and still in love), and the week was a blast. Beautiful weather. Delicious food. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. And we were just about the only ones. It was almost eerie looking around and seeing the glum faces, the noses stuck in a phone, and the overall lack of smiles from most of the guests. On several occasions we pointed this out to each other. “Should we tell everyone they are at an island resort? Maybe they don’t know.” 

I say we were just about the only ones having a good time because there was one exception I still clearly remember. The one family. Almost everyone at this resort were couples, adults. But we did come across one family and they were having a great time. It stood out to me because the lie of the culture is that kids will be brats, parents will have to spend money on their kids rather than on themselves, and true joy is found in living for what makes you happy. I know this is anecdotal, but that’s not what I saw in the Dominican. I saw miserable people living for themselves, and happy people enjoying their family.

 

We began with David Hogg describing how he’d rather have a Porsche than kids. He thinks the way to have a happy life is to avoid having children. I don’t know how else to say this. David Hogg is a sucker. He’s bought into the lie of Satan that living for self and avoiding a family will bring joy. He’s dead wrong. We need to celebrate families: moms, dads, kids, family vacations, 10 hour road trips to see the in-laws, kindergarten graduations, birthdays, elementary field days, first day of school jitters, sports games, fine arts competitions, youth group events. Those things aren’t miserable; those things bring life joy, purpose, and meaning. They don’t keep us from the good life — they are the good life! A civilization that ceases to see the unique value of family and human life is a civilization in decline. Let’s get back to celebrating the good gift of families, reminding people that while puppies are cool, kids are way better.