More Than a Mum: Celebrating Dog Mums, Mentors, and Mother-Figures in 2026

Every second Sunday of May, millions of people pause to honour the women who shaped them. But here is a number that stops you in your tracks: according to a 2026 Rover survey of 1,000 U.S. pet parents, millennial pet parents are 17 times more likely than baby boomers to have delayed having children in favour of getting a pet instead. A generation is quietly, defiantly rewriting what it means to nurture something. This Mother's Day, that deserves acknowledgment. Whether you are a dog mum who schedules vet appointments like school runs, an auntie who has quietly shaped a niece's entire worldview, a teacher whose students still quote her ten years later, or a woman navigating life child-free by choice — your love counts. This piece is your celebration.

How Is a Generation Redefining What Motherhood Looks Like?

The numbers are striking and the trend is accelerating. A 2024 Harris Poll of 2,125 Americans found that 43% of Americans now prefer pets over children, with cost, lifestyle flexibility, and emotional connection all cited as reasons. Among millennials specifically, 82% of pet owners say their pet is "like my own child," and Gen Z and millennials together make up roughly half of all U.S. pet owners as of 2023.

This is not a story about people who cannot have children making the best of a difficult situation. For many, this is a deliberate, joyful choice. Libby Rodney, Chief Strategy Officer at The Harris Poll, put it plainly when discussing the findings:

"Pet owners are no longer just buying kibble — they're building a lifestyle around their pets. These pet parents are rewriting the rules, prioritizing their pets in ways that demand societal adaptation and respect."

There is something bigger at play here than pet culture. Gen Z and millennials are navigating one of the most financially pressured eras in modern history. Rover's 2026 report notes that Gen Z and younger millennials are 52% more likely than those aged 65 and over to feel consumed by financial uncertainty. Against that backdrop, choosing to pour your nurturing instincts into a fur baby, a mentee, or a chosen family is not a consolation prize. It is a considered act of love in the world as it actually exists.

What Does the Science Actually Say About the Dog Mum Bond?

If you have ever felt a rush of warmth so fierce it startled you when your dog looked up at you, there is a neurological explanation for that. A 2015 study published in Science by Nagasawa and colleagues demonstrated that mutual eye gazing between dogs and their owners triggers an oxytocin feedback loop in both parties that mirrors the hormonal bonding process between human mothers and their infants. Oxytocin  the hormone associated with trust, love, and maternal attachment  rises in both the dog and the owner during sustained eye contact, then deepens the bond, which leads to more gazing, which releases more oxytocin.

Separately, fMRI research cited in the same body of literature found that when human mothers viewed images of their dogs alongside images of their own children, the same brain regions lit up areas linked to emotion, reward, social cognition, and affiliation. The brain does not distinguish cleanly between "pet" and "child" when it comes to the neural architecture of love.

I think about this research often when Jasper, my rescue whippet, does his trademark slow blink and tucks his long nose under my arm. There is nothing performative about the way that feels. When he was first brought home  all trembling limbs and catastrophic separation anxiety  I rearranged my work schedule, researched enrichment activities obsessively, and once cancelled a dinner party because he seemed unsettled. Sound familiar? It should. That is parenting behaviour, dressed in different clothes.

Who Are the Other Mothers? Mentors, Aunties, and Chosen Family

The dog mum conversation is really just the most visible tip of a much larger cultural shift: the growing recognition that maternal love is a behaviour, not a biology. And the women performing that behaviour extend far beyond pet owners.

The Auntie Who Showed Up

Across many cultures, the auntie  biological or chosen  has always been a vital figure. She is often the first adult who treats a child like a full person: taking their interests seriously, sharing knowledge a parent might not, and offering a safe place when home is complicated. The word "othermothering" was coined in African American sociological literature to describe exactly this kind of collective, community-based maternal care — and it captures something real that transcends any single cultural tradition.

The Teacher Who Changed Everything

Ask almost anyone to recall an adult who shaped who they became, and you will frequently hear a teacher's name. These are people who spend more waking hours with children than many parents do, who learn every student's pressure points and potential, and who often provide the stability a child cannot find at home. This is maternal-style nurturing in one of its most socially impactful forms  and it is almost never framed that way.

The Friend Who Became Family

Chosen family is one of the defining features of millennial and Gen Z social life. For people whose biological families are absent, harmful, or simply distant, the friend group becomes the village. The woman who checks in after every hard appointment, remembers every small anniversary, and shows up with food without being asked — she is doing the work of motherhood, even if no one hands her a card on the second Sunday of May.

Two Days to Mark Your Calendar This May 2026

In 2026, dog mums and all mother-figures get two consecutive days to claim as their own.

National Dog Mum Day was founded in 2018 by Colleen Paige and formally adopted through the National Day Calendar after a campaign led by Dig, a dating app for dog lovers. It falls deliberately on the Saturday before Mother's Day, positioning itself as an acknowledgment that some forms of maternal love arrive on four legs. The proximity is not accidental it is a statement.

When Mother's Day Is Complicated: Holding Space for Grief

Not everyone experiences the second Sunday of May as a celebration. For those navigating infertility, pregnancy loss, estrangement, or bereavement, the day can arrive with genuine weight. This article is not designed to flatten that complexity. It exists alongside it.

What inclusive motherhood offers, among other things, is an alternative frame during a day that can otherwise feel like it is about what you do not have. For many women, the act of caring for a dog, mentoring a young person, or being the steadfast presence in a friend's life is not a substitute for something else. It is the real thing — arrived at through a different path.

How Can You Celebrate Every Kind of Mother-Figure This May?

Celebration does not require grand gestures. Here are ways to honour the full spectrum of maternal love in your life — and your own.

For Dog Mums

• Book a pet-friendly brunch or afternoon outing — the whole point is to celebrate alongside your fur baby, not despite them.
• Commission a custom portrait or piece of fan-inspired art featuring your dog. (Something we at Aprasi.com know a little about.)
• Share the love on social with #DogMomsDay and #NationalDogMumDay on May 9th — these tags historically see enormous engagement over the Mother's Day weekend.
• Organise a dog-friendly park meetup with fellow dog mums in your city. Community is its own form of celebration.

For Honouring Your Own Mother-Figures

• Write a letter or a voice note to the mentor, teacher, or auntie who shaped you. Specific memories land harder than general gratitude.
• Tell them explicitly: "You were a mother-figure to me." Many of these women carry that role quietly and have never heard it named out loud.
• If you are one of these women yourself — the chosen family anchor, the mentor, the dog mum — take the weekend to actually receive some of the care you give out year-round.

For Those Who Find the Day Hard

• Give yourself permission to opt out of the performative parts. You do not owe anyone a social media post about a day that is painful.
• Plan something that centres your own joy — a walk, a film, time with a friend who gets it — rather than defaulting to avoidance.
• Consider redirecting any energy that might go into grief toward a letter to a mother-figure in your own life. It can reframe the day without pretending it is uncomplicated.

The Bottom Line

The definition of motherhood has always been wider than the greeting card aisle suggests. What is shifting now is who gets to say so out loud. A generation that has grown up redefining family, partnership, and purpose is extending that same energy to how we honour care itself. The dog mum watching her rescue sleep soundly for the first time, the auntie who drove two hours to attend a school play, the teacher who stayed late to help a struggling student find their voice — these are acts of love that deserve their own weekend, their own recognition, and their own seat at the table.

This May, whether you are celebrating, being celebrated, or quietly holding the weight of a complicated day — you belong in this conversation. Happy National Dog Mum Day on May 9th, and happy Mother's Day on May 10th, to every single person who has loved something fiercely and shown up for it anyway.