People without kids adopt pets not only as a dry run for eventual children but for lots of other reasons, too, including, as an outlet for caring impulses that have nothing to do with parenthood. They also lavish their dogs with privileges that, in America, have historically been reserved for other people: Dogs now sleep in the same bed as their humans at night; they have birthday parties; they go see their friends at day care.

But for the particular rung of the American socioeconomic ladder that has pursued dog ownership most fervently in recent years—young, urban professionals, especially white ones—dogs serve yet another purpose: They’re a class marker and a way of coping with deep status anxiety. Dogs broadcast stability—Midge is not nearly as expensive as a child or a single-family home, but she is an indicator that I have mastered enough elements of my own life to introduce some joyful chaos into it.

Yet while dogs can be an effective therapy for the stresses of modern life, especially as it grows lonelier and more precarious, their friendship isn’t always available to those who could use it most. For people clawing to maintain basic stability (instead of signaling that they’ve attained a middle-class version of it), the barriers to dog ownership are larger than simply having the disposable income to feed another mouth. A lot of subsidized and low-income housing refuses pets or limits the type and number that residents can have, and homeless shelters generally require people to abandon their pets to get a place to sleep. Companionship, whether with a pet or other people, is elemental to human dignity; in America, it’s easier to come by if you have money.