&gt; People have begun to say this in the US<p>I encountered it first in the 1970s -- when my age was in the single digits. It might have been new then, but few people seemed to think it was noteworthy, so I doubt it. So, I think &quot;have begun&quot; is somewhat of a misrepresentation.<p>&gt; Don&#x27;t take an animal and twist it into filling your own emotional needs by treating it like a human infant.<p>IME, virtually none of the people who use this language treat their pets &quot;like a human infant&quot;, and many of them have either biological or adopted children as well as pets.