The realization that I wanted to be a mother—and that motherhood, in this world, might be one of the worst things I could ever subject myself to—hit me within seconds of each other.
There are so many aspects of raising a child that seem beautiful and hellish, all rolled into one: them calling out “Mommy” when they need something, calling for you when your nerves are already fried and you just want to be left alone. They’re always there.
And also, they are always there.
The more I grow and mature, the more I sit with a harder truth: sometimes what I really want and what I actually have the capacity to do are worlds apart.
If I’m honest, there are so many elements that break my heart when I think about being a Black mother to a Black child in this world.
I don’t want to be tasked with teaching another human being, let alone an innocent child, how to make peace with being mistreated and abused. I don’t want to be tasked with teaching a child how to protect their sanity when I quite literally am still figuring out how to hold onto my own.
The more I thought about it, the more it felt like the kindest thing I could do for my hypothetical children, who somehow I already loved so deeply, was to spare them from this experience altogether. And as someone diagnosed with ADHD later in life, I’m still learning how to care for myself and live in alignment with my brain. Many days, I feel like I’m my own child.
So where does that leave motherhood?
For many Black women, myself included, that desire is finding another outlet in the form of being a pet parent. It’s a role that has proven to be deeply meaningful, but with far lower stakes.
This isn’t entirely new. Cultural figures like Eartha Kitt and Octavia E. Butler were known for their deep affection for animals, often finding grounding and companionship in them. More recently, Black women have been building visible communities around pet parenthood.
For Donnetta Monk, 29, her seven-year-old shih-poo, Theodore—better known as “Teddy”—is her “spiritual guardian angel.” The two are also Sagittariuses who share the same birthday.
Teddy entered Monk’s life while she was navigating a disorienting post-grad transition: uncertainty, heartbreak, and a loss of identity after years as a top-performing student and deeply embedded leader on campus.
“I think as a Black woman, it’s sometimes hard to feel that kind of stability and he gave me that,” says Monk, describing the positive energy and joy she’s met with each time she comes home to Teddy. “He’s not looking at me as ‘This Black woman’ or an ‘Angry Black Woman.’ He’s looking like, this is my mother, and I just see the person who shows love to me, and I show love back to her.”
That sense of grounding isn’t random. Research has shown that interacting with dogs can lower cortisol levels and increase oxytocin, the hormone associated with bonding and emotional regulation.
But for many Black women, the impact goes far beyond biology.
When Traci E. Williams, 61, got her dog, Friday, a mini golden doodle who is now two and a half, it was during a period of emotional turbulence and visceral grief.
In 2021, her son was killed while crossing the street on his way home from work just two days before her birthday. The loss compounded earlier grief from the death of her husband just a few years earlier, and the pain of watching her daughter mourn her brother and “best friend.”
“That took a major toll on me. It beat me down pretty badly,” Williams recalls.
After initially searching for teacup Yorkies but being put off by the cost, she found Friday instead. A union that now feels like divine alignment.
“You’re getting the one with the biggest personality in the litter,” Williams recounts being told, “but he protects me like none other.” Over time, Friday became an important part of her mental health support system.
“Without Friday, as well as my therapy, I wouldn’t be here because I was very suicidal, and very sad, and very withdrawn,” she says. “He keeps me up—and the way that he loves me, he knows when I’m hurting and just plops on the floor next to my legs. They’re amazing creatures.”
Being a dog mom, Williams adds, requires a deep level of commitment.
“It takes you to a whole different level of what dedication is because if you’re a real dog mom, they are our children. You have to be present and intentional when you’re taking care of your babies, and it’s the same with the doggies. You have to be committed financially, mentally, and emotionally, and you have to be sincere with it,” she says.
“He’s my best friend,” Williams adds, sharing that some of her favorite moments are the simplest, like laughing with Friday and watching compilation videos of other Black women with their pets.
And in public, Friday’s presence often shifts the energy around her, especially when he’s doing tricks Williams taught him, like walking on his hind legs.
“People in this world that we’re living in just want a reason to smile, and Friday gives them that,” she says. “He brings sunshine not just to me, but to others too.”
For Monk, that sense of safety became even more tangible after relocating to Wisconsin for work, where she was the only Black woman at her job. In the apartment her employment set her up in, unbeknownst to her, it was in the white part of a notoriously segregated city.
“I didn’t know about the [city’s history of] racism and that it had one of the largest KKK populations,” says Monk of the traumatizing experience. “I started getting racially targeted in my apartment, and Teddy was the only thing there for me. I had the KKK following me; they used to protest on my corner with the white cloaks and everything.”
“It was the most insane experience. I went through such a crazy depression, and I had to go to therapy.”
During that time, Teddy became more than a companion. He was a buffer and a form of emotional protection in a place that felt deeply unsafe.
“I would cry some nights like, dang, what decision did I make? And Teddy would come up to me and lick my tears,” recalls Monk. “He felt me, his spirit felt me, and he was my angel because if I was there by myself, I don’t know what I would’ve done because I had no one. He’s really been my guardian angel through my transitional phases of life.”
Queen Chela Demuir, 55, founder and executive director of the Unique Woman Coalition, is no stranger to the multitude of ways motherhood and mothering can take shape.
Her two miniature schnauzers, King Pharaoh, 12, and Prince, 2, are fully integrated into her family life, complete with meal-prepped feasts and their own room in the home.
“I’m much more in tune with the responsibility that comes with providing, loving, and nourishing,” says Demuir. “It means something different to me at this stage of life.”
As Black women, we’re constantly having to save any and everything, says Demuir. “The community, the culture, the world. We’re constantly stepping in where systems fall short.” So extending that nurturing and protection to animals is “not far from who we’ve always been to the world,” she says. “Parenting animals is just as valid as anything else. It’s a special place you have to be in to care and be responsible for an animal.”
Still, to frame these relationships as simply “practice” for real motherhood misses the point entirely. For many women, this is the point.
Dog motherhood offers a version of care that is reciprocal without being all-consuming. It offers nurturing without total self-sacrifice, and without the same financial, emotional, and societal strain that disproportionately impacts Black mothers.
It’s not about opting out of care. It’s about choosing a form of it that feels sustainable.
For me, being a dog mom doesn’t resolve the tension between desire and personal bandwidth. But it offers something I haven’t always found elsewhere: a way to step into motherhood without feeling like I’m signing away my life before I understand it.
It’s special, expanding your family with these living beings who just…love you. You don’t have to be pretty, perfect, or exceptional in any way. It’s a kind of steady, nourishing love that can bring joy, companionship, a refreshing playfulness, and unexpected adventures. And in this world, as many Black dog moms will tell you, that is no small thing.
