I'll assume that's supposed to be a question how pets are different from kids when it comes to government-set incentives about having more or fewer of them (if

I'll assume that's supposed to be a question how pets are different from kids when it comes to government-set incentives about having more or fewer of them (if it is it would have been more direct to just ask that). First of all, arguments that we ought to have fewer kids are being made when it comes to environmental footprint. But even ignoring that the the birth rate is already below replacement rate. So unlike pets the government does not exactly have to go out of its way to incentivize people to have fewer of them. Then there's the issue that for society to continue to work we have to keep up the inter-generational contract, so at a larger scale having children is a basic need for society while pets are not. And last but not least this conversation is not about forbidding pets or children but factoring in externalties so people can make better resource tradeoffs, perhaps they could still have a kid or a pet but decide it's too costly to have both or abstain from some other luxuries to afford either. In that regard children and pets are similar.