So....how accepting are your spouses/family about your hobby?

[Jenste]

Be honest!

How does your Significant other / parents / siblings / friends (who ever you live with) REALLY feel about your hobby?

 

[michael]

My wife is a saint. She helps out when needed with the animals but doesn't care to much for them. Many of our vacations wind up being amphibian related and she is very accepting.

 

[Azhael]

My parents actually like my animals but they object to the number, they wish i just had a couple of species. If they could understand the monumental and superhuman effort that i have to make to control myself and not get more, they might think differently.

 

[Molch]

My dogs are basically indifferent, as long as it doesn't take too much time away from doggie time, they let me have as many tanks as I want.

Smoke complained a bit when I moved his bed to make room for a new tank stand.
The Pudden thinks whenever I chop up earthworms it better be food for her. Why else would Mama be chopping anything?

 

[Jenste]

My husband is ok - - he knows I absolutely love my tanks but every now and then he puts his foot down about me wanting another (whether tank/frog/species). . . lucky for me his mother (my mother in law) has fallen in love with frogs ever since adopting a few of my babies - So I have her on my side and she sometimes helps me win!

Little negotiations help . . . like, OK - - I wanted to continue breeding but he didn't want me to spend more money on breeding/rearing tanks that we may not have room for down the road - - solution? Ok, I will use 30 gallon storage bins that can be drained, dried off, and stacked when needed!


He has helped me out a few times, but mostly stays uninvolved, which is what he prefers. The times he helped were right after my fall - - he helped me do a waterchange once because I couldn't lift the bucket. Not even halfway done he is cursing and two days later he gave me a 50 foot python (water change hose!!) Another time was helping me with a frog who went on an adventure when I wasn't home - - he caught the frog, put it in shallow water like he knew to do and added "some" dechlorinator. Then he called freaking out because the frog had been on the floor and he had to touch it and didn't know what else to do.

 

[bichogrilo]

Love the little deals, My better half wanted a little minature fox terrier, I couldn't think of anything worse, buut we compromised she got her dog but it ended up being worth a 250 ltr aquarium for me :rofl:

 

[lea]

My hubby is ok about my axies. He is the first to show them off but does every now and then about the time I spend pottering around with the tanks, comments like "you spent more time with them..... what about me? ".

 

[suztor]

Oh my boyfriend is fantastic about it! If i'm with my newts he gets to play video games in peace. Except for the occasional 'can you help me when you get to a good stopping point?' (last part is key) When I need his technical help/opinion on a build or help moving something heavy.

He does get some enjoyment out of watching them hunt worms.

Mind you he has never objected to me having the bottom drawer in the fridge for worms. And the top of the freezer for ice bottles. Nor has he complaind that i took over his man cave (garage) for 2 months. Only request had been not to work near his motorcycle or go Jackson Pollock on anything.

Only complaint I get is when I leave 'fish stuff' on the kitchen counter, which I find a very reasonable complaint.

He likes I have my own hobbies independent of him.

 

[Minniechild]

My mum just wants her kitchen table back . But she's been a SAINT about my axie obsession, and (at this point she earns the title Mum of the Year!) when Freddie's leg got taken off and was going fungotoid, she was the one who held the scissors to remove the limb (I've put up the pics in another post- it was stripped to the bone, and the closest exotic vet is an hour away at least- not worth the stress to poor freddie <3 ) Although I'm having trouble to convince her that upgrading to a 5 ft tank would be a wise move

 

[Red Eft14]

Well I'am 14 year's old and I keep all my animals in one room.And when I first started keeping animals they did'nt like it much but they got a little use to it lol.

 

[Molch]

well, I'm an old person now but when I was a kid I was very lucky in that my Mom was highly tolerant of my newt habit. She'd even come and watch with me when something interesting went on. When my female Salamandra gave birth, I got my Mom out of bed in the middle of the night and we watched by flashlight how 12 little larvae plopped out and into the water basin. I also had a pregnant slow worm (Angius fragilis) that gave live birth. The babies were the size of matches with beautiful shiny metallic colors from siver to brass to copper. My Mom thought they were the most beautiful things and even took some to class to show to her students (she taught biology at a village school).

My Momdid put her foot down (wisely) once or twice when the number of tanks got out of control. Good thing she's not here now, hehe.

 

[The Banana]

My parents are wonderful.
They don't particularly see the attraction, but they "support my interest... just no taking over the house".

Mum doesn't like to go into my room these days, says it looks like a scientific lab. As if.. just a few nice tanks.
Mum lets me keep brine-shrimp eggs in the fridge, and a lunchbox in the freezer with frozen bloodworms/brine-shrimp. I think I have about 10ish large water-bottles in the chest freezer for hot days.
I've half taken over the laundry these days with 'spare' tanks, things that need to be sanitized, etc. Also the tubs, buckets, little pond, various 'stuff' out in the backyard. She takes it gracefully.. usually.

Dad is great, always there to drive me around to the LFS for things, to breeders, hobbyist selling stuff, etc.

Both mum & dad endure with some enthusiasm as I ramble on about the awesomeness of my critters, funny stories that happened with my axies.. and ideas. There are always ideas.

One thing though, which kinda annoys me at times... is whenever we have guests over, family dinners at our place.. mum bustles everyone into my room to look at my 'enthusiastic hobby'. Yeah, I don't mind once or twice - but we don't need family gatherings in my room EVERYTIME WE HAVE SOMEBODY OVER. Gah. Ah well, they put up with me.
Oh, and if I have an axie in the fridge and somebody pops by.. it's show-and-tell time!

 

[Jossie]

My family is pretty tolerant and accepting of my animal related hobbies. They accept the fact that they might not be able to communicate with me until I run out of battery or memory while I'm absorbed by taking photos of some bees, or a flower, or a lizard, because they know that animals are what I'm interested in.

My mother isn't terribly enthusiastic about it because she thinks I should be doing more 'practical' things with my time and money. But thats the only reason why.
She just refuses to have anything to do with the cleaning, feeding or general care.
Which is fine by me.
But she does suggest things and worry about him all the same ('Are you feeding him enough?' is the main one)
She's fairly tolerant of fishy/amphibianny stuff but I have to keep things neat (eg: buckets are not to be left outside near the tap for weeks, puddles are not to be left in the laundry).

My brother and dad are always curious around 'nom time'.
I feel like I can leave them to feed him when I have to go away for five days in September for a field trip.

Past that my family doesn't have anything to do with him, and never will. If I go away for extended periods of time I will have to find someone else to look after him, or rehome him (I don't WANT to ever have to do this). When I move out he's coming with me.
I'm limited to one tank, but it's probably for the best because of my schedule.

However I'm already tempted to get a friend for him XD
I'm just worried about tank size and nomming happening.

 

[Greatwtehunter]

I am extremely lucky that my wife loves the hobby as much, if not more, than I do!

 

[dipsydoodle]

My parents are pretty none interested in my “aquatic life”. My dad is quite uninterested but shows some interest and occasionally helps with water changes.

My mam is also uninterested, but if I get something new she likes to come to help me pick it and hold the bag on the way home. She will feed the newts for me when I’m on holiday which is good since one is hand feed only. She hasn’t needed to do the axolotls yet. When I was on holiday she did to water changes on all of my tanks as well , she learnt how to use the dechlorinator as well hehe. She’ll feed my betta fish and talk to him all the time (not that she likes him of course).

I have taken over the shelf in the chest freezer with frozen foods, it was in a tupperware box but I now buy it in bulk so the “open” stuff is in the box and the rest lives on the shelf.

As for when I move in with my boyfriend this year he doesn’t mind, he has his own fish tank (my old one) with his fish and he has some ADF in there which get blood worms, so I don’t think we’ll have the eww issue. He likes my fish and helps clean them out (and talk to them). Personally I think he is indifferent to them, i.e. if we got rid of them he wouldn’t mind. But I think he’s happy to have them around. He’s also volunteered to chop worms up for the axolotls J. He’s also (once) fed the ‘hand feed only’ newt and he didn’t mind. Doing it all the time he might mind as the newt is a pain in the butt.

 

[Yahilles]

My mother allows me to keep stuff unless she doesn't have to care for them like it was like 10 years ago, when me and my sister had our first animals. If i ask her to, my mother can turn off the lights in some tanks when i am out on some party or something like that. I stopped telling her if i bought anything new because when she doesn't know, she doesn't care, and when i tell her, she acts like i just bought another tank, not willing to understand that the number of tanks is still the same.

 

[aeviette]

My flatmates quite like them- the girl who I usually ask to feed the zoo when I'm away has a lot of fish killing related anxiety dreams though! 'No more tanks' is becoming her catchphrase, and she has an irrational dislike of leucistic axies. Her favourites are the axolotl and the little hillstream loach- she likes to play 'spot the loach'. My partner (who doesn't live with me) loves them all to bits. She's going to come herping with me!

 

[Tim Robin]

We (Tim and Robin) are in this together. It seems that I (Tim) do most of the care, but that is my choice. I certainly have been the one rearing the little ones.

 

[Bellabelloo]

My husband is not at all keen on my caudate interest, and will just about tolerate it. He is not a pet person at all. I am currently researching getting a greenhouse, and he suspects I have ulterior motives and that I am aiming to get another species of animal to live in there....hadn't crossed my mind until he mentioned it....

 

[Molch]

My husband is not at all keen on my caudate interest, and will just about tolerate it. He is not a pet person at all. I am currently researching getting a greenhouse, and he suspects I have ulterior motives and that I am aiming to get another species of animal to live in there....hadn't crossed my mind until he mentioned it....

that's too bad...maybe you can get him to move into the greenhouse, that way you'll have more room for newts in the house. Just tell him to stand in a nice flower pot in the corner and water him once a day or so with a beverage of his choice....