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The following essay is an excerpt from a new book called My Daughters and Other Animals: A Father's Notes on Being
Raised by Girls, which is still in its early stages of writing. Other excerpts to follow.
Iguana 101
I often debate with myself the merits of children keeping pets (mostly I lose the debate). My daughters’ grandmother, who is
supremely wise (after having raised five kids of her own, my wife Karen among them), has a simple rule about pets. It goes
something like this: No Pets.
Since grandma is the landlord of our domestic domain, my own three daughters have learned to respect her rules. They
don’t keep pets. The animals that inhabit their room, swim in fish tanks, burrow in terrariums, crawl across the floor, are not
pets. They are family. In our household, the animals have as much standing as the humans, maybe more; certainly they
have more standing than the only male.
Maybe “No Pets” is a good rule. Or “No New Family Members.” I have a feeling, however, that my girls would argue for my
dismissal before they would give up their slimy, warty, scaly, and furry “family.”
Caring for animals will teach us responsibility, I can hear them say. So why am I assigned the litter box and the lizard cage?
Why do I get to clean up the vomit and gut piles on the living room carpet? Why is it that if something smells the girls always
look in my direction?
Our animals can teach us empathy, they continue. Now they’re reaching. What I’ve learned from keeping animals is just the
opposite. Animals point out just how irresponsible we can be, and just how greatly we can come to despise them.
***
I offer this story as a warning. If ever you take your children to a pet store—a foolish misjudgment to begin with—keep them
away from the cute baby green lizards with the golden eyes imploring you to take them home with you. Yes, these lizards,
green iguanas, cold-blooded reptiles, have that much personality, even more than the puppies, the kittens, and the
screaming canaries. What these baby green monsters won’t tell you until it’s too late is how demanding in their care they
are, and how demanding in their size they will become.
We carried “Pern” home in a small, hole-punched cardboard box pet stores use for packaging their mice and birds. The
girls decided on the name because they had recently become enamored with a series of books by Ann McCaffrey that
depicted a planet inhabited by dragons, and people who had become marooned there from a lost Earth ship. The author
called the world “Pern,” which as I remember was an acronym for something. So, my daughters named our tiny green
iguana for a mythical dragon-world populated by a few people who had learned to build a society around the beasts. The
girls should have christened our household with the name instead.
I bought the iguana and its cute little leash. Karen, always more brilliant than I, returned to the pet store and bought the book
on iguanas. Then she read it. When she finished, she said, “Just another small thing you’ve given me that grows up!”
Karen never minced words. “And this one is worse than a baby. At least babies wear diapers.”
Green iguanas, we learned very quickly, have special needs. Because they come from rain forest climates in Central and
South America, the lizards pale to our rock-tough desert lizards. Iguanas require a cooler, more humid environment than our
hot, desiccating desert offers. They want to be indoors. They like to be misted.
And this is just the beginning. Because they now live indoors and out of the heat, you must provide a heat rock for them.
This enables your new iguana to properly digest all the fresh bananas and mangoes, spinach leaves and squash
blossoms you feed her on a daily basis, when you’re not misting her majesty as she basks under her sun lamp. Did I
mention the full-spectrum light? Also because your iguana is living indoors and away from harsh sunlight, you must supply
a source of ultraviolet light in the form of a special (and expensive) lamp. UV keeps iguanas healthy and tanned. Your
iguana needs to look good for all the socialization she requires. Yes, socialization—like getting out of her cage so she can
meet people and scamper unexpectedly up their bodies. Iguanas enjoy high places because they normally live in trees
rather than on the ground like any self-respecting desert lizard. When a tree isn’t handy, a person’s head will do.
You don’t want to know what happens if your iguana isn’t properly socialized. She can get a bit testy. Like a desperate
housewife (or househusband, as the case may be) she gets an attitude. “You never take me anywhere,” her eyes accuse,
every time you walk past her cage. Eventually, those penetrating eyes and the mounting guilt break you down and you let her
out. But by now she’s antisocial, and she takes out her frustrations on you, the closest family member within reach of her
toothy mouth, her needle-sharp claws, and her ultimate payback weapon, a long, bony-stiff tail that raises welts where she
whips it across your legs. And dragons only breathe fire!
***
Pern adjusted well to our home. The girls created a place for her in a ten-gallon aquarium tank with a basking rock and tree
branches and a large bowl of water she could bathe in. They took her for walks on her leash or rode around on their bikes
with her gripping tightly to a shoulder. I still have photographs from this time when she was small: Pern with her oversized
leash on the porch fence. Pern perched on my smiling daughter Kasondra’s head. Pern with RainCloud and Mittens.
She didn’t tolerate the kittens when she was small. She’d puff up and her dewlap would flare and her skin grew darker
when they came around, so the girls kept them separated. But Pern soon learned how to escape her cage. One day my
wife and daughters came home and found her under the couch, unmoving and nearly black from playing with the kittens.
Apparently, Pern didn’t want to play but the kittens insisted. She had a few chew marks on her but nothing serious.
Over the next year, the kittens grew into cats and Pern grew into a cat hater. Encounters between them changed from kittens-
chasing-lizard to lizard-attacking-cats. Her tail was lethal. I swear she could nail a fly on the wall with that thing. The cats
avoided her, but if by mistake they came within lashing distance, she’d remove a patch of fur from their butts as they raced to
recover the error. There was no messing with her now. Pern would no longer fit inside a cardboard pet carrier. She no
longer fit her leash. In fact, she had outgrown the ten-gallon tank, its thirty-gallon replacement, and had begun to look
uncomfortable in the fifty. I know she had designs on the living room, the largest room in our house, and I also know she
insisted on some changes first.
Karen found the birdcage, a six-foot high, four-foot wide and deep, wrought-iron monstrosity that she felt Pern must have to
be comfortable living with us. I believe a giant parrot or condor had been the cage’s former occupant. Three hundred
dollars later, with some added shelves, hot rocks, and lights, and Pern became furniture in our living room. The only
furniture. Since the room wasn’t large enough for a couch and Pern, the couch had to go. We had no place to sit in our living
room, but we did have something interesting just above eye level to look at while you were standing there. Something that
always looked back and down on you, usually with smug disdain.
Now, Pern became the center of attention. From her high perch, she examined the comings and goings of Karen and the
girls, the relatives and the neighbors when they visited. She watched television with us. She played games with us. And,
when we pulled out our dining table and set chairs around it, she ate meals with us.
Jessica, who usually arrived last to the table, would complain, “Why do I always get the sneeze seat!” Her sisters normally
left her the chair closest to the cage. Iguanas have a particular way of removing excess salt from their bodies; special
structures in their nasal cavities collect the salt, which the animal then combines with liquid and forcefully
Raised by Girls, which is still in its early stages of writing. Other excerpts to follow.
Iguana 101
I often debate with myself the merits of children keeping pets (mostly I lose the debate). My daughters’ grandmother, who is
supremely wise (after having raised five kids of her own, my wife Karen among them), has a simple rule about pets. It goes
something like this: No Pets.
Since grandma is the landlord of our domestic domain, my own three daughters have learned to respect her rules. They
don’t keep pets. The animals that inhabit their room, swim in fish tanks, burrow in terrariums, crawl across the floor, are not
pets. They are family. In our household, the animals have as much standing as the humans, maybe more; certainly they
have more standing than the only male.
Maybe “No Pets” is a good rule. Or “No New Family Members.” I have a feeling, however, that my girls would argue for my
dismissal before they would give up their slimy, warty, scaly, and furry “family.”
Caring for animals will teach us responsibility, I can hear them say. So why am I assigned the litter box and the lizard cage?
Why do I get to clean up the vomit and gut piles on the living room carpet? Why is it that if something smells the girls always
look in my direction?
Our animals can teach us empathy, they continue. Now they’re reaching. What I’ve learned from keeping animals is just the
opposite. Animals point out just how irresponsible we can be, and just how greatly we can come to despise them.
***
I offer this story as a warning. If ever you take your children to a pet store—a foolish misjudgment to begin with—keep them
away from the cute baby green lizards with the golden eyes imploring you to take them home with you. Yes, these lizards,
green iguanas, cold-blooded reptiles, have that much personality, even more than the puppies, the kittens, and the
screaming canaries. What these baby green monsters won’t tell you until it’s too late is how demanding in their care they
are, and how demanding in their size they will become.
We carried “Pern” home in a small, hole-punched cardboard box pet stores use for packaging their mice and birds. The
girls decided on the name because they had recently become enamored with a series of books by Ann McCaffrey that
depicted a planet inhabited by dragons, and people who had become marooned there from a lost Earth ship. The author
called the world “Pern,” which as I remember was an acronym for something. So, my daughters named our tiny green
iguana for a mythical dragon-world populated by a few people who had learned to build a society around the beasts. The
girls should have christened our household with the name instead.
I bought the iguana and its cute little leash. Karen, always more brilliant than I, returned to the pet store and bought the book
on iguanas. Then she read it. When she finished, she said, “Just another small thing you’ve given me that grows up!”
Karen never minced words. “And this one is worse than a baby. At least babies wear diapers.”
Green iguanas, we learned very quickly, have special needs. Because they come from rain forest climates in Central and
South America, the lizards pale to our rock-tough desert lizards. Iguanas require a cooler, more humid environment than our
hot, desiccating desert offers. They want to be indoors. They like to be misted.
And this is just the beginning. Because they now live indoors and out of the heat, you must provide a heat rock for them.
This enables your new iguana to properly digest all the fresh bananas and mangoes, spinach leaves and squash
blossoms you feed her on a daily basis, when you’re not misting her majesty as she basks under her sun lamp. Did I
mention the full-spectrum light? Also because your iguana is living indoors and away from harsh sunlight, you must supply
a source of ultraviolet light in the form of a special (and expensive) lamp. UV keeps iguanas healthy and tanned. Your
iguana needs to look good for all the socialization she requires. Yes, socialization—like getting out of her cage so she can
meet people and scamper unexpectedly up their bodies. Iguanas enjoy high places because they normally live in trees
rather than on the ground like any self-respecting desert lizard. When a tree isn’t handy, a person’s head will do.
You don’t want to know what happens if your iguana isn’t properly socialized. She can get a bit testy. Like a desperate
housewife (or househusband, as the case may be) she gets an attitude. “You never take me anywhere,” her eyes accuse,
every time you walk past her cage. Eventually, those penetrating eyes and the mounting guilt break you down and you let her
out. But by now she’s antisocial, and she takes out her frustrations on you, the closest family member within reach of her
toothy mouth, her needle-sharp claws, and her ultimate payback weapon, a long, bony-stiff tail that raises welts where she
whips it across your legs. And dragons only breathe fire!
***
Pern adjusted well to our home. The girls created a place for her in a ten-gallon aquarium tank with a basking rock and tree
branches and a large bowl of water she could bathe in. They took her for walks on her leash or rode around on their bikes
with her gripping tightly to a shoulder. I still have photographs from this time when she was small: Pern with her oversized
leash on the porch fence. Pern perched on my smiling daughter Kasondra’s head. Pern with RainCloud and Mittens.
She didn’t tolerate the kittens when she was small. She’d puff up and her dewlap would flare and her skin grew darker
when they came around, so the girls kept them separated. But Pern soon learned how to escape her cage. One day my
wife and daughters came home and found her under the couch, unmoving and nearly black from playing with the kittens.
Apparently, Pern didn’t want to play but the kittens insisted. She had a few chew marks on her but nothing serious.
Over the next year, the kittens grew into cats and Pern grew into a cat hater. Encounters between them changed from kittens-
chasing-lizard to lizard-attacking-cats. Her tail was lethal. I swear she could nail a fly on the wall with that thing. The cats
avoided her, but if by mistake they came within lashing distance, she’d remove a patch of fur from their butts as they raced to
recover the error. There was no messing with her now. Pern would no longer fit inside a cardboard pet carrier. She no
longer fit her leash. In fact, she had outgrown the ten-gallon tank, its thirty-gallon replacement, and had begun to look
uncomfortable in the fifty. I know she had designs on the living room, the largest room in our house, and I also know she
insisted on some changes first.
Karen found the birdcage, a six-foot high, four-foot wide and deep, wrought-iron monstrosity that she felt Pern must have to
be comfortable living with us. I believe a giant parrot or condor had been the cage’s former occupant. Three hundred
dollars later, with some added shelves, hot rocks, and lights, and Pern became furniture in our living room. The only
furniture. Since the room wasn’t large enough for a couch and Pern, the couch had to go. We had no place to sit in our living
room, but we did have something interesting just above eye level to look at while you were standing there. Something that
always looked back and down on you, usually with smug disdain.
Now, Pern became the center of attention. From her high perch, she examined the comings and goings of Karen and the
girls, the relatives and the neighbors when they visited. She watched television with us. She played games with us. And,
when we pulled out our dining table and set chairs around it, she ate meals with us.
Jessica, who usually arrived last to the table, would complain, “Why do I always get the sneeze seat!” Her sisters normally
left her the chair closest to the cage. Iguanas have a particular way of removing excess salt from their bodies; special
structures in their nasal cavities collect the salt, which the animal then combines with liquid and forcefully