Apparently we now own a rescue dog, a term I was entirely unfamiliar with a mere 5-10 years ago. The Regnerus family was not, so far as I knew, in the market for a dog, although cute canines calculatingly kenneled in front of PetSmart, Petco, or some other such big box brand never failed to attract my children\u2019s attention on the way to the grocery store. And that is how we eventually wound up with a dog, my first since a nine-year stint with a beloved dachshund that ended in 1989, when he was put down. He needed expensive back surgery (to walk), and well, people just didn\u2019t do that for dogs back then like they seem to today.<\/p>\n
Be that as it may, I find myself mulling over this rescue dog phenomenon. It seems to be a cultural badge of honor for the owner (or master, or whatever we\u2019re called today\u2014but please, not \u201cmommy\u201d or \u201cdaddy\u201d). Dogs acquired the old-fashioned way, by a breeder, have become pass\u00e9, somehow inferior. In 1980, my parents acquired Cinnamon, the family dachshund, for 50 bucks from a breeder in rural Sumner, Iowa. It seemed like a good deal at the time, and certainly in hindsight. Perhaps AKC-registered dogs are much more expensive today\u2014I don\u2019t know. But our rescue dog, a mostly lab, part hound mix, cost more than that just to acquire her from a rescue organization planted in front of PetSmart. I realize Austin is weird, and that we\u2019re supposed to keep it that way, but the legitimacy issue here is striking. I\u2019m not talking about the legitimacy of being or not being recognized by the American Kennel Club, but rather about culture both here in Austin and probably in lots of other American cities. Culture is a form of power, the power of \u201clegitimate naming,\u201d the ability to name something as normal and right and good, and its competition as deviant, stupid, inferior, ridiculous, or just plain wrong. (I borrowed that description from James Hunter\u2019s excellent book To Change the World<\/em>).<\/p>\n The emergence of the rescue movement as the most legitimate and socially acceptable way to acquire a dog is an example of successful cultural change. How so, since people have long gone to the \u201cpound\u201d to look for a pet? Just look at the terminology: we neither call the place a \u201cpound,\u201d or the pooch a \u201cmutt\u201d anymore, and the term \u201crescue\u201d has taken on an element of nobility, of \u201ccultural capital,\u201d as if there has emerged a morally-superior way to acquire a pet. You might find it ironic, of course, that the Whole Foods crowd would find breeders a bad idea, since expensive food and expensive pets would seem to go together. The emphasis, however, is on organic: food grown without human intervention, and pets born without human intervention. Of course rescue dogs are almost universally neutered or spayed before being placed in homes, to which I don\u2019t much object. But the irony of it all is not lost on me.<\/p>\n What does this movement toward doggy-acquisition legitimacy spell for other domains of life? Probably nothing. Perhaps something. In interviews with 24-32-year-old unmarried Americans, I\u2019ve noticed a penchant for talking about adopting children in the future. Adopting a child, of course, is far more complicated than adopting a dog, which took our family about four hours to accomplish. By contrast, adoption of a baby by strangers\u2014which is what we tend to think of when we think of adopting a child\u2014remains quite rare, under two percent of all children. It takes a long time, is quite expensive, and in America is subject to shifting law about biological parents\u2019 rights. We notice adoption because it\u2019s comparatively uncommon. And yet as infertility becomes a more urgent issue for many Americans\u2014especially white, upper-middle-class ones\u2014adoption is increasingly on our lips, and in a socially esteeming way. Not because we\u2019ve found ourselves infertile at 25 (which is unusual) but because we\u2019ve found ourselves infertile (or unmarried, or both) at 35 and 40, having missed out on the most fertile years (which are 20-29, by the way). Infertility is a growth industry, aided and abetted by the contraceptive industry, obviously. I\u2019m not declaring anything here, just observing. As the average age at marriage rises to 27 for women and 29 for men, and the share of married Americans continues to drop, it signals that many women who might previously have readily received marriage offers increasingly aren\u2019t. Demand for adoption will likely increase, if it hasn\u2019t already (I don\u2019t know, offhand).<\/p>\n I hope, however, that we don\u2019t witness an emerging preference<\/em> for adopted humans\u00a0anytime soon, as we have for pets. (If that statement strikes you as harsh, make note of it as an indicator of legitimation.) Adoption, while often a noble thing, will always contain risk, no matter who does the adopting. It need not be great risk\u2014and is commonly far less risky than a child navigating the foster care system\u2014but let\u2019s not suggest that risk isn\u2019t present. A developmental psychologist friend of mine who studies adoption put it this way: studies of adoption have repeatedly shown that there are important and wide ranging differences, on average, between adopted children and their non-adopted peers. It is better to be raised by your biological parents\u2014who created you the old-fashioned way\u2014than by someone else (on average, of course). In sum, to rescue a human is a noble thing. To prefer <\/em>rescued humans, on the other hand, would indicate a profound culture change around family and childbearing that I, for one, would recognize as deleterious.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Apparently we now own a rescue dog, a term I was entirely unfamiliar with a mere 5-10 years ago. The Regnerus family was not, so far as I knew, in the market for a dog, although cute canines calculatingly kenneled in front of PetSmart, Petco, or some other such big box brand never failed to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":124,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n