As my four-year-old daughter lovingly plays with my cat, Socks, I feel tense and alarmed.
She’s sitting with her dolls on the living room rug, and because she wants cuddles, Socks gives her a gentle headbutt before sitting on her dolls’ blanket. She tickles him under his chin.
I quickly pick up Socks, tell my daughter that his paws are dirty from the garden, and shoo him away. I really don’t want him anywhere near me or my little girl.
I haven’t always felt this way. For most of my life, my friends openly referred to me as the “crazy cat lady.”
I started to see my cats as a nuisance and a chore.
My two black and white boys, Socks and Sooty, were my world from the moment I brought them home from Cats Protection as kittens in 2013. I even used to dress them in cute onesies with the word “fur baby” on the front.
A mouse or bird brought home as a “gift”? I applauded their feline prowess. Sneaking around the kitchen counters looking for scraps of food? Clever boys.
But when I gave birth to my beautiful son just over six years ago, all feelings toward my cats disappeared and were replaced by resentment and irritation. Suddenly, all the things I once loved about them became repulsive.
I began to see them as a nuisance and a chore. Sure, I made sure they were fed, vaccinated and dewormed, but I no longer played with them or petted them. Whereas before their fur on our clothes and furniture was a reminder that they were part of our family, I now found it disgusting and panicked that the midwife, health visitor or my pet-free friends would think my baby and I were dirty.
Coming downstairs in the morning, exhausted from the nightly feedings, I was dismayed to find a dead bird on the kitchen floor or a live mouse scurrying about – presents that had been brought through the cat flap during the night. I couldn’t believe I had once thought this habit adorable.
During those early days, they would still try to get my attention for cuddles, often by dramatically jumping on my lap, which only infuriated me, especially if I was breastfeeding my son. I would stiffen and push them away, immediately closing the door behind them if they left the room.
I began locking the cats in the kitchen, causing them to react to my distancing by whining incessantly at the door, which pushed my resentment to the limit.
Before, I would happily let them sleep in my bed every night, but now, the thought of having their hair on our bedding disgusted me.
Before I had children, I loved having their company while I prepared for work.
Soon, they were banished to the kitchen at night, too. They would scratch at the kitchen door and meow for food at 5:30 a.m., when I barely had the energy to feed myself after having calmed my son down after his last meal of the night.
Before I had kids, I loved having them with me as I prepared for my job as a paralegal. But now I just wanted to be left alone. The worst part was the times they would start arguing loudly while my son was falling asleep after nursing. I would jump up to angrily shoo them away, undoing the half hour I had spent trying to calm my son down.
I developed a huge anxiety about hygiene, especially when my baby started crawling. Would my floors be clean and safe for my child or friends who came over with their babies?
My husband never liked cats. I met him when Socks and Sooty were two years old, and because he grew up in a pet-free, very clean home, he couldn’t understand my fascination. He tolerated them because he loved me.
We got married in April 2016 after two years together and decided to try to start a family for two years.
After that, when the blue lines appeared on a pregnancy test in January 2018, we were so happy. It never occurred to me that this could change the way I felt about my pets.
Still, over the next nine months, I saw posts on social media from other pregnant women or new mothers looking for new homes for their cats. My reaction was that they didn’t deserve to have pets in the first place. How could they be so heartless?
But then my mother, who together with my father had bought me my first cat, Snowy, for my sixth birthday, began to express her concerns.
She warned me never to leave the nursery door or bassinet unattended, for fear that the cats might scratch or even suffocate my newborn.
I became very concerned about toxoplasmosis, a disease that pregnant women and babies can contract from felines.
I was worried that the cats would want to snuggle in the Moses basket – in fact, the first time I took it out just before my baby was born, they both jumped in.
But it was when the baby was born that my love for cats really died, almost overnight.
Against all my previous instincts, I set out to rehome them. My husband, who is a marketing director, would have gotten rid of them in a heartbeat. The only thing stopping me was guilt and the long waiting lists at local rescue centres, inundated with unwanted pets purchased on a whim during the pandemic.
Desperate, I spoke to the charity Cats Protection where they came from. Unfortunately, like everyone else, they had a long waiting list for a new home.
In the end, I resigned myself to keeping them. As my son grew older, my fears did not subside, but rather worsened. When he started playing with toys, I was afraid Socks and Sooty would take over them. Any toys he managed to play with were thrown away in case they carried germs or diseases.
Occasionally, we were gifted used toys and clothes from friends who had a dog or cat. The smell of the donated items made my cats sniff (pee) at them so I had to throw them away too. And once, socks soiled the corner of the baby’s room which meant we had to spend over £400 on a new carpet because we couldn’t get rid of the smell, the stains or the thought of having them.
When my daughter was born four years ago, I felt anger and frustration towards cats again.
By this time, they had already noticed my toddler dropping food from his high chair. Worried that they would jump on my son’s tray to steal his food, which could scratch him or scare him, I started yelling at them.
I would have simply loved to kick them out of the house forever.
My little girl, who is now four years old, loves cats and enjoys petting them, although I strongly advise against it. My son, on the other hand, does not like their presence and gets particularly upset when they lie on the beds and “rest their butts on our pillows.”
Unfortunately I can’t get them to stop this behavior, a legacy from the time when they were my babies and I wanted them with me wherever I was in the house.
Instead, every morning I rush to place blankets over my pillows to protect them.
The good news is that the cats have never hissed, scratched or attacked my children or any of us. In fact, they rarely approach me in the hope of having a heart attack, no doubt because they have realized that I will treat them with indifference.
They have known for a long time that they will not receive any kind of encouragement from my husband.
When I adopted two kittens 11 years ago, I made a commitment to do so. I accepted that I have to live with that decision, even if I regret it. But I stopped loving them the day I became a mother, and it’s a feeling that won’t go away.
I will take care of Socks and Sooty until they die, but when that day comes it will be a relief. I won’t miss them.
As told to Sadie Nicholas.
(tags to translate)dailymail