My son wanted a snake for his 8th birthday. I couldn't do the mouse thing, frozen or otherwise. We settled on a crested gecko. It's been easy for him to take care of it. We have a water sprayer that's set on a timer. I just need to remember to buy distilled water every so often. We ordered a fruit/bug powder that gets mixed with water from Amazon and just feed twice a week. He turns 10 in May so he has managed to keep it alive with minimal help from us for nearly two years.

Anonymous wrote:🕷 spiders if your kids like those. My kids liked tarantulas when they were young but now they moved on. Turtles are another blow maintenance pet.

Turtles are low-interaction, but definitely not low maintenance. They make a huge mess, requiring frequent cleaning and relatively large filters. I am 100% sure that if the fish tank is too much for the OP, she isn't going to be excited about turtle maintenance either.

Parakeet? They live a long time, though, and you have to think about whether you'll still think it's cute when your kid is off to college. Maybe you could find an old one.

Honestly, I'd just wait and get a dog or a cat. Your return on investment with either of those two animals is so much higher; the vet care and pet sitting options are plentiful; and they don't live as long as some of these exotic animals. If you get the right kind, it's not as much work as some of these other pets. Like people get bunnies because they think they are easier, but they are really not, and have weird health issues. Dogs and cats have both developed over thousands of years to live with humans as pets, so they really do work well as pets.