On the topic of spaying, what do you say to someone who thinks that their cat/dog should have babies because “they should have the joy of motherhood”. A friend once told me that regarding her cat and I was left speechless.

drferox:

I think such people have a view of motherhood that is all roses and cupcakes, and fail to understand that animals are not humans. 

Their animal, in experiencing the ‘joy of motherhood’ may also experience the joy of copulation with aggressive or oversized males, all the fun feelings of pregnancy, the extremely comfortable experience which is childbirth, or alternatively the not at all stressful emergency caesarian, then the joys of mastitis, milk fever etc. 

Or, sometimes the joyous mother wants nothing to do with the joy of motherhood, and will neither feed nor care for her neonates. This means the human will have to feed and toilet them every two hours, day and night. Such joy. 

Motherhood in any species is not exclusively a joy. There’s a lot of pain, hard work, stress and it risks illnesses for the mother. People who are in denial about this should be made acutely aware of these things, and their costs. 

Also, the massive oversupply of unwanted cats in shelters and rescues because a human wanted to experience the ‘joys’ of their cat’s motherhood.