Pet Peeves

By Francine Russo

When our girls were 14 and 8, we finally allowed them to get kittens. But before the trip to the Animal League, their father, a lawyer, drafted a three-page agreement detailing their responsibilities for said kitties. The girls signed, and the system worked, more or less. They adored those cats, which were their babies. Now Sara is about to be married, and Joanna is a sophomore in college--and the adorable Milky, Sammy and Seis, along with their worsening digestive difficulties, are mine, all mine, to comfort and clean up after for years to come.

Empty-nesters everywhere are giving voice to the plaint about their children's pets, in tones ranging from good-humored to peevish. When we got our kids that winsome puppy, that funny parrot, most of us never peered into the future. Nor could we foresee advances in veterinary medicine that have lengthened animals' lives, leaving parents not just with still loved pets but with geriatric cases as well.

If parents imagine freedom arrives when their children leave home, they should think again--as long as the kids' pets remain. Parents may even face a complete change of lifestyle. A large, arthritic dog, for example, may no longer be able to climb steps to sleep near its owner. "I've known people to actually move their bedroom downstairs to accommodate the dog," notes John C. Wright, an animal behaviorist at Mercer University in Macon, Ga.

Nancy Rubens, a painter in New York City, never imagined when her son Alex got a "really cool" turtle, Mikey, for his 12th birthday that a dozen years later she would be boiling meat and eggs three times a week to minister to Mikey's osteoporosis. "Her bones were damaged," Rubens, 55, reports. "She had X rays and shots, and now I have to cook her food." Rubens isn't sure whether, even if Alex took Mikey, her son's lifestyle would permit the care this exotic pet requires. "It's hard to have much rapport with a turtle," Rubens admits, "but I feel responsible for this fragile, vulnerable creature."

Whether parents accept their child's leftover pet with grace and affection or with grudging acquiescence, few of them, according to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (A.S.P.C.A.), try to unload the critters. Some do make an effort to hand them over to their adult kids, only to meet a stubborn resistance that has little to do with the practicalities of caring for the pet.

Just try to suggest that you find an entirely new home for Milky or Mikey or Button. Your kids will recoil in horror--as if you had proposed abandoning their infant selves on some stranger's doorstep.

It's not all bad, of course. The family pet can help parents continue the bond with their adult children, and it "reminds kids that parenting is a hard job and that, old as they are, you're still there as their safety net," says Stephanie LaForge, senior director of counseling at the A.S.P.C.A.

For parents who really need their child to take the animal, is there any hope? Maybe. Morgan Whittaker feels her responsibility to her cats--and her besieged dad--keenly. She inherited three cats at the age of 16, and now they live at home with Pop. "For next year," she says, "my top priorities are an apartment and a roommate who likes cats."

Sometimes the tug of war between parents and children even reverses direction. Kendel Ratley, 23, a public relations account executive in New York City, misses her miniature dachshund, Loki, dreadfully and begs her mom to bring him for a visit. But Betty Ratley, a nonprofit fund raiser in Tyson's Corner, Va., has resisted, afraid Kendel won't let her take him home again. As for me, I can grumble all I want about my girls not taking their cats--because I know they never will. Recently when little Seis fell ill, I felt stricken. Caring for her was hard work, but losing her would have hurt a lot more than I would ever let on.