Midnight Confessions: A Reflection on Cat Mom Guilt
Junipurr looking oh-so-bored. Oy!
Last week I shared a guide for new cat parents on the essentials of cat care.
To be clear, though: I am not a perfect cat parent.
I'm not even sure such a person exists. There are incredibly wonderful cat parents to be sure, but purrfect?
Either way, I, for one, am far from that ideal.
Afterall, it's no secret that Junipurr has a Favorite Parent, and that is not me. Gah!
Which brings me to my point: Cat mom guilt is a thing, y’all.
For years, I used to think I was alone in suffering from this neurosis, but after innumerable conversations with fellow cat mamas, I've come to realize that this is a not uncommon phenomenon.
Cat parent guilt manifests differently for everyone. For me, sometimes it takes the form of literal nightmares. Here's one I had last week that led me to screaming myself awake -- I was outside with Juni on a supervised outdoor play sess, but for some reason, she wasn't wearing a harness. Then two raccoons popped out of the ground and, before I could blink, snatched Juni and disappeared with her underground. I began ferociously digging at the ground with my bare hands, screaming for help …
DEEP BREATHS.
I am not proud of the ways I fall short as Junipurr's mama. In fact, reflecting on them gives me visceral pain. But I think it might be helpful to share them publicly on this blog about cat parenting so we don't perpetuate the idea that there is “perfect” cat parenting. Perhaps in the realm of pet parenting, progress is perfection? (My personal mantra is: At least one moment of glorious cat parenting a day. Often, that is literally a few minutes on the floor at Juni's level and giving her a delicious brush pampering, or setting up a jungle gym of carboard boxes, tissue paper, and crinkle tunnels before I head out to work.)
With that said, here is a list of my 'areas of improvement' as a cat parent, broken down into "Guilty Past" and "Guilty Present."
Guilty Past
In the first month of adopting Junipurr, I secretly thought about returning her to the shelter. She was an undersocialized singleton with a big battlecry and sharp claws, and I was a first time pet parent with a propensity for nervous breakdowns. Though she was 1/50th my size, Juni was a palm-sized little monster who would literally chase me around the house. Community in the form of two experienced pet parent friends (shoutout to Sharon and Nita!) coaching me on becoming a loving authority figure, and a bunny kicker toy from the shelter's cat behavior consultant, were my saving grace. It breaks my heart when people relinquish their pets for behavior reasons, but having paced back and forth on the edge of that cliff a number of times in those early days, I have to have some empathy.
Pre-covid, I traveled about 35% of the year for work. I didn't fathom how much my coming-and-going disturbed Juni's sense of well-being until the covid shutdown. In retrospect, this is “duh” territory - of course babies benefit psychologically from consistency. Even though I tried to be present and loving when I was home, I was a source of so much uncertainty in Juni’s early years.
This spring, we had a home vet visit that was a bit of a nightmare. An appointment about Juni's diarrhea resulted in her being restrained by two vet techs while a third shaved her belly, gave her a MRI scan, took a blood sample, then stuck a catheter up her bladder for a urine sample. The vet and techs were as gentle as they could be, but the confusion and discomfort in Juni's eyes as her gaze met -- and held -- mine was an arrow that pierced my heart.
Guilty Present
Then there is the daily, chronic guilt of working too much or otherwise being too preoccupied and not attending enough to Juni's holistic wellness. Specifically:
Playing - I’ve never shared this publicly before, but … I'm not good at playing. I invent games. I'm great at catification. But getting Juni to run and do cardio chases? That's not my strength. Fav Parent has shown me innumerable times ("watch my wrists … look at the dilation of her irises..") and I just can’t seem to get it. I have gotten better at reading her body language to know when she is mentally engaged and when she might pounce. I have adjusted my definition of what constitutes play, per Jackson Galaxy. But when I try to play with her, Juni is more likely to yawn and ask me to hand her a beer (kidding) than leap into a game of chase.
Flea med - Some time ago, I fell down the rabbit hole of researching flea preventatives for pets. You know what horrible, dark secret I've been harboring? I got so overwhelmed by the fact that every pesticide had potential negative side effects that I did the worst thing: I froze. I stopped giving Juni her monthly flea med (I KNOW I KNOW! Agh, I am ashamed), and babygirl went four months without any parasite preventative. Obviously, no bueno. I still haven’t found a flea, tick and heartworm preventative that I feel great about, but at least Juni now has something.
Teeth cleaning - Though one of the first pieces of advice my dear friend + cat mama mentor L told me when I adopted Juni was to build a dental hygiene habit, I quickly gave up after a few blood-drawing swipes of Juni's paws. Throughout the years, I've half-heartedly tried a few options (dental additive to water, cat toothpaste on micro pet toothbrushes with ultra long handles etc.) but honestly, I've flunked. Our vet told us twice now that Juni is developing early signs of gingivitis, which could lead to a host of other issues.
Clicker training - I know that this is possibly the gold standard mental enrichment for cats. I've read an entire book on the subject, and I have a clicker. Have I actually committed to consistent clicker training? No.
Catification - Remember how I just said I'm great at catification? I'm not. I'm perhaps better than the average. Our petsitter, who has worked with countless families in three decades of catsitting, jokingly told me that if our living room looks like a cat tree factory. But our aerial highway is so disjointed, it's more like bridge posts with no actual connections.
Sunlight - Speaking of environmental conditions, my furbaby is living in darkness. Our home has very little natural light, and even though I know that Vitamin D deficiency in cats stems from nutrients and not sunlight, I still fear that insufficient sunlight must have some impact on her well-being, mental if not physical.
Overall, enrichment feels like a moving target, and cat boredom feels like a looming tsunami.
You know?
So ... what to do. There is a tactical solution piece to addressing each of the above; and, I surmise, there is perhaps also an inner practice piece of self-forgiveness and compassion.
If you have any words of wisdom on this topic, or cat parent confessions of your own you'd like to share, please do in the comments below. It would mean so much to me to have an open, kind dialogue.
In the meantime, a few resources for overwhelm and beautiful re-anchoring:
This piece on living with a sense of abundance, despite feeling at times overwhelmed, by one of my favorite bloggers, Erin Loechner
The treasure trove of the Feminist Wellness podcast, in which host nurse practitioner and functional wellness expert Victoria Albina gently and humorously paints a pathway out of overwhelm and perfectionism
Deepak Chopra on the Smiling Meditation: Smile from head to toe. Like, literally. Envision your scalp… your ears … your toenails … all smiling.
Brilliant life coach Martha Beck on rest as radical action
