An Argument Against Heaven.
“ Maybe dogs are not god’s favourite because they’re loyal to man.”
Perhaps dogs are not God’s favourite creatures because they have given humanity something that was supposed to belong to God: their unconditional devotion.
It’s an interesting thing to explore how man can’t be as devoted as mutt would.
I am a loyal friend, at least I try to be.
Have I made mistakes? Yes.
But I wonder if loyalty is something we are born with, or something we learn through the people we love. More specifically, the people who raised us.
A daughter learns loyalty long before she understands what it means. She learns to defend her parents before she learns to question them. She learns to recognise their sacrifices, excuse their shortcomings and understand their silences. She learns that love can be complicated, that forgiveness is sometimes expected before an apology is given, and that growing older does not necessarily make the longing for parental affection any smaller.
Perhaps this is what makes the relationship between a parent and a child so peculiar. A parent brings a daughter into the world, but a daughter spends much of her life trying to understand the world that her parents have built around her.
And perhaps, much like a dog waiting by the door, a daughter never quite stops waiting either.
For an acknowledgement. An apology. An expression of pride. For the day she no longer has to wonder whether she is enough.
wonder if daughters are trained just like dogs.
Waiting for when to speak, eat, shake hands, perform a trick and roll over. Are daughters conditioned to obey? We, as a society, have made it abundantly clear that when a woman steps out of line, it is something worth making headlines over.
A daughter who speaks too loudly is disrespectful. One who questions her father is ungrateful. One who chooses differently is rebellious. One who refuses to conform is difficult to love.
And yet, we praise dogs for the very things we reprimand women for questioning: obedience, patience, loyalty and submission.
Perhaps the distinction is that a dog is loved for its loyalty, whereas a daughter is expected to prove hers.
I find it particularly interesting how we romanticise a daughter’s devotion to her family. We call her selfless, understanding, forgiving and mature. Rarely do we ask how much of herself she has had to sacrifice to become all these things.
When does being a good daughter become synonymous with being an obedient one?
And more importantly, when did we begin confusing a child’s love with a parent’s entitlement to it?
Perhaps what makes this even more peculiar is that the women enforcing these expectations were once daughters themselves. Mothers who were once little girls, who were perhaps taught the same lessons in silence, patience and submission. Somewhere along the way, they learnt to mistake endurance for virtue and obedience for love. And now, whether consciously or otherwise, they pass these lessons down to their daughters.
I wonder how many mothers have looked at their daughters and seen a version of themselves they were never allowed to become. How many fathers have mistaken their daughters’ independence for disrespect simply because they have never had to negotiate with the world in the same way their daughters do.
There is an interesting cruelty in parenthood. You bring a person into the world without knowing who they will become, yet spend years attempting to shape them into someone you can understand. You want them to be independent, but not so independent that they stop needing you. You want them to have a voice, provided it does not contradict yours. You want them to find their own happiness, provided it resembles the happiness you had imagined for them.
And perhaps daughters are particularly unfortunate in this regard. They are expected to inherit their mothers’ virtues without inheriting their mothers’ mistakes, and their fathers’ expectations without questioning the authority behind them.
But a daughter is not a continuation of her mother’s unfinished life, nor is she an extension of her father’s pride. She is a person entirely separate from the circumstances that brought her into existence.
Perhaps this is where loyalty ought to end and love ought to begin. Because if a parent’s love is conditional upon a daughter’s obedience, then what exactly is being loved? The daughter herself, or the version of her that has learnt to comply?
I think about the dog again. How it waits by the door, how it recognises the sound of its owner’s footsteps, how it can spend an entire afternoon anticipating someone’s return. There is something beautiful about that kind of devotion, but there is also something terribly sad about being so certain of someone’s love that you never consider whether you deserve it in return.
Perhaps we have spent too long admiring the loyalty of dogs and daughters without considering what it costs them to remain so loyal.
Am I to believe that dogs are just as unfavoured as daughters by God?
Or perhaps I have misunderstood the premise entirely. Perhaps God does not measure affection through the obedience of His creations. Perhaps the ability to love without being instructed to, to remain devoted without being promised anything in return, is precisely what makes these creatures so extraordinary.
And yet, I cannot help but wonder why humanity has become so comfortable receiving a love it rarely knows how to return.
A daughter eventually grows up. She learns to leave the door unopened, to disagree without apologising, to build a life that does not require permission. She learns that loving her parents does not mean surrendering every part of herself to them. And perhaps, to some parents, this is the greatest betrayal of all.
But I wonder whether a daughter’s departure is really an act of disloyalty, or simply the consequence of having loved someone long enough to finally understand that she must love herself, too.
Perhaps the tragedy of the dog is that it cannot explain why it stays. And perhaps the tragedy of the daughter is that she can explain exactly why she does, yet struggles to find a reason to leave.
Maybe dogs are not God’s favourite because they are loyal to man. Maybe daughters are not always their parents’ favourite because they dare to become more than what they were raised to be.
And perhaps neither was ever meant to be loved for how well they obeyed.
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Perhaps growing up is, in some ways, an act of disobedience.
You begin to realise that your parents are not the authorities you once believed them to be. They are people. People with histories, disappointments, insecurities and shortcomings of their own. You begin to understand that they, too, were once children who had to learn how to navigate a world that was not particularly kind to them.
And suddenly, the people you once thought knew everything are just as lost as you are.
There is something rather uncomfortable about acknowledging your parents’ humanity. Because once you do, you begin to understand them in ways that make it harder to resent them, but not necessarily easier to forgive them.
Perhaps this is another expectation placed upon daughters: to understand without being understood. To sympathise without receiving sympathy. To make room for their parents’ experiences while being expected to minimise their own.
I wonder if sons are afforded the same responsibility. Or whether daughters are simply expected to become the emotional custodians of their families, forever responsible for maintaining relationships that were never theirs to hold together in the first place.
And yet, I don’t think the answer is to stop loving our parents. I think it is to reconsider what we have allowed love to mean.
A daughter should be able to disagree with her mother without becoming an ungrateful child. She should be able to disappoint her father without becoming a disappointment herself. She should be allowed to leave, return, change her mind, make mistakes and become someone her parents never anticipated.
Perhaps that is what unconditional love should look like. Not a love that demands someone remain the same, but one that allows them to become someone else entirely.
After all, we would never expect a puppy to remain a puppy forever. Why, then, do we struggle so much with the idea that our children must eventually outgrow the versions of themselves we found easiest to love?
And perhaps this is the cruelest irony of all. The daughter who once depended on her parents for everything will eventually become someone they depend on, too.
The hands that once held hers will grow older. The voices that once commanded her will soften. The people who once seemed so impossibly large will become increasingly human in her eyes. And somewhere between childhood and adulthood, the daughter finds herself learning how to care for the very people who taught her what care was supposed to look like.
Does this mean she owes them the same devotion they once expected of her? Is parenthood a debt that children spend their entire lives repaying? Are we born into an obligation simply because someone decided to bring us into existence?
I find the idea of filial piety particularly interesting in this regard. We are taught that our parents deserve respect because they raised us, sacrificed for us and gave us life. And while there is certainly something beautiful about gratitude, I wonder when gratitude became indistinguishable from indebtedness.
A child did not negotiate the terms of their birth. They did not sign a contract promising obedience, companionship or lifelong repayment. They were simply born, and somewhere along the way, love became an obligation they were expected to fulfil.
Perhaps parents deserve appreciation for the things they have given their children, but children deserve to exist beyond the things their parents have given them.
I think about how a dog will grow old waiting for the same familiar footsteps, even when its legs can no longer carry it to the door. And I wonder how many daughters spend their final years of childhood doing the same, waiting for a kind of affection that might never arrive in the form they need.
Maybe the saddest part is that some of them will grow up and become perfectly capable women, yet still feel like little girls whenever they hear their father’s footsteps or their mother’s voice calling their name.
We grow older, but certain longings seem to have no age.
They will bark when commanded.
They will shake hands when asked.
And they will whimper when it’s not enough.
Perhaps that is the most unfortunate thing about being conditioned to seek approval. Eventually, you stop asking whether you are happy with yourself and begin measuring your worth through the satisfaction of others.
You learn to recognise disappointment before it is even expressed. You become familiar with the sound of a sigh, the weight of a silence, the difference between being spoken to and being spoken at.
And so you try harder.
You become quieter, kinder, more accommodating. You learn which questions are better left unasked and which opinions are better kept to yourself. You become so preoccupied with being an easy person to love that you forget you were never supposed to be easy all the time.
I wonder how many daughters have mistaken being needed for being loved, and how many have mistaken being praised for being understood.
Perhaps the greatest misfortune is not that they are unable to recognise their own worth, but that they have been taught to wait for someone else to recognise it first.
And perhaps, after all this, I have misunderstood what it means to be God’s favourite.
Perhaps being loved unconditionally was never supposed to mean being obedient. Perhaps love was never meant to be measured by how quietly we endure, how willingly we forgive or how often we return to those who have hurt us.
A dog should not have to earn its owner’s affection by performing tricks. A daughter should not have to earn her parents’ affection by becoming everything they imagined her to be.
And yet, both will continue waiting. One by the door, the other by the telephone. Both recognising familiar footsteps, familiar voices, familiar silences. Both hoping that this time, being good will be enough.
I wonder if God ever looks at His creations and feels sorry for them. For the dog that cannot understand why its owner never returned, and for the daughter who understands perfectly well why her parents might never give her what she has spent her entire life asking for.
Perhaps dogs are not God’s favourite creatures because they are loyal to man.
And perhaps daughters are not always their parents’ favourite because they were never meant to belong to them in the first place.
After all, to create something is not to own it. And to be loved by something is not to be entitled to its devotion.
Perhaps the greatest act of love is allowing something you brought into this world to belong to itself.
