Raising Dogs and Children
There are a lot of similarities and differences between raising children and dogs. Some of them are not as obvious as you might expect.
For example, they both like dog food. That's just one.
Dogs have crates and babies have cribs. And let's be honest, cribs are basically dog crates without a top.
There are people who think that dogs should not be crated. These people have generally never seen the advantage of a crate trained dog who has a "safe haven" they can go to when they want to, and a specific place they associate with sleeping, as opposed to, say, jumping on the bed or scratching on the bedroom door.
There are people who think that babies should not have cribs. For really young children, I think that may be true, but by the time they are old enough to sleep through the night, they ought to be doing so. This from my expert experience of having one child. Folks who have their children sleep with them risk a fairly good chance of having that child grow up thinking that sleep = my parents' bed. Do I have to point out why this isn't a great idea? Sure, if the child is scared, the child ought to know the parents are there. But "there" can be "just down the hall" rather than "sleeping on the edge of the bed because I like to sleep sideways and flail my feet around." After all, an important part of growing up is realizing that your parents are there for you even when they aren't physically present. This includes remembering that your parents will probably find out what you are up to even if they aren't in the room.
Anyway, there are any number of other similarities I could mention. And some differences, too, of course.
For example, right now Ethan and I are playing "fetch" with the plastic squeaky "newspaper" that we bought for the dogs.
This is something that the dogs have never who have never shown anything but a passing interest in it.
Ethan, on the other hand, has brought it to me about 15 times in a row, and waits for me to throw it.
So there are differences too.