A dog is refreshingly low-maintenance emotionally. It won’t analyze your tone, forget your birthday, or act strange for three days because you said “fine” instead of “okay.”  You walk through the door and get greeted like a war hero returning from overseas, even if you were gone for twelve minutes.

No wonder people have started promoting themselves from owner to parent. A new MetLife survey of more than 1,000 American pet owners found that 65% identify as their pet’s mom or dad rather than its owner. The dog sleeps in the bed, has medical appointments, gets a birthday cake, and somehow owns half the couch. “Owner” is starting to sound a little outdated.

The parenting behaviors are already fully in place. Two-thirds of owners use baby talk, nearly as many share the bed, and one in three has thrown a birthday or gotcha-day party. Gen Z does this more than Boomers, and Chihuahua owners are the reigning party hosts at 53%. Tiny body, full social calendar.

Most Pet Owners Now Consider Themselves Parents, Not Owners

Ask parents who is easier to raise, the kid or the pet, and 79% pick the animal. Gen X, millennials, boomers, Gen Z, same answer. On hard days, 72% said the pet is also the easiest one to love on, ahead of both their children and their partner. That’s a very strong showing for someone who contributes nothing to the household income.

Not that the lack of a paycheck hurts their standing. Nearly 1 in 5 owners said they’d spend on their pet first in a money crunch, ahead of both their partner and themselves. Among Gen Z, 21% said the pet gets priority.

For younger owners, the pet question and the parenthood question have started to overlap. About 38% of Gen Z pet owners say pets are replacing children for their generation. Nearly 1 in 5 said their pet made them less likely to want kids at all, compared to just 5% of baby boomers who said the same. A quarter of Gen Z and nearly as many millennials described their pet as a trial run for parenthood.

What the data is describing, underneath all the birthday cakes and baby talk, is a generation doing a fairly rational cost-benefit analysis and landing on the dog. Kids are expensive, exhausting, and non-refundable. A pet loves you back, asks for considerably less, and will never, under any circumstances, text you “k.”