Congratulations, it’s a… pet! Those are the words an estimated 68% of people hope to hear, according to a new survey, which highlights some of the reasons why people are opting to forgo traditional parenting in order to become pet moms and dads.
In fact, a massive amount of people have said that there’s one main reason why they’re going this route, and we’re not at all surprised to hear what people have to say about it.
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A 2025 Insurify study claims that one in five people surveyed have reported that they don’t have children because of the costs associated with raising them. The numbers were pulled from a survey of 750 DINKs — that would be couples with Double Income No Kids — where almost a quarter of those asked say their finances would need to dramatically improve before they would consider having children.
But, that’s not to say that the DINKs who took part in this study are exactly clamoring to become moms and dads. That’s because a lot of them already consider themselves parents. According to the study, 81% of the study say they already call themselves mom and dad when referring to their pets.
And, it doesn’t seem like they have any plans to change that. Around 30% of those DINKs say they prefer having this lifestyle thanks to the increased freedoms they have. Of course, that doesn’t mean that a DINK lifestyle is without responsibility. Every pet parent knows that we love these little furballs intensely, and would do just about anything we could for them. That’s something that’s also reflected in the numbers, where 15% of those surveyed admitted to denying or delaying their own medical care in order to take financial care of their pets, proving that more unites us than divides us when it comes to parenting… whether our children have two legs or four!
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