As my four-year-old daughter plays lovingly with my cat, Socks, I feel tense and anxious.
She sits with her dolls on the living room rug and, wanting to be cuddled, Socks gently headbutts her before sitting on her dolls blanket. She tickles him under his chin.
I quickly pick Socks up, tell my daughter that his paws are dirty from the garden and chase him outside. The truth is that I don’t want him anywhere near me or my daughter.
I didn’t always feel this way. For most of my life, I was openly referred to by friends as the ‘crazy cat lady’.
I started seeing my cats as a burden and a liability
My two black and white boys, Socks and Sooty, were my world from the moment I brought them home as kittens from Cats Protection in 2013. I even dressed them up in adorable rompers with ‘fur baby’ on the front.
A mouse or bird brought into my home as a “gift”? I cheered their feline prowess. Sneaking across the kitchen counters in search of food scraps? Smart guys.
But when I gave birth to my beautiful son over six years ago, all feelings for my cats disappeared and were replaced by resentment and irritation. Suddenly, everything I had once admired about them became repulsive.
I began to see them as a nuisance and a chore. Of course I made sure they were fed, vaccinated and wormed, but I stopped playing with them and petting them. Where their fur on our clothes and furniture had once been a reminder that they were part of our family, I now found it repulsive and panicked that the midwife, community nurse or friends without pets would think my baby and I were dirty.
When I came downstairs in the morning, exhausted from the nightly feedings, I was disgusted to find a dead bird on the kitchen floor or a live mouse running around – gifts they had brought in through the cat flap during the night. I couldn’t believe I had ever found this habit so endearing.
In those early days they would still try to get my attention for a cuddle, often jumping dramatically on my lap, which only made me more angry, especially when I was feeding my son. I would stiffen up and push them away, immediately closing the door behind them when they left the room.
I started locking the cats in the kitchen, which led to them reacting to my aloofness by whining incessantly at the door, causing my resentment to get the better of me.
I used to happily let them sleep on my bed every night, but now the thought of their hair on our bedding disgusted me.
Before I had children, I loved having their company while I prepared for my job
Soon they were banished to the kitchen at night too, scrabbling at the kitchen door calling for food at 5:30 in the morning, when I barely had the energy to feed myself after soothing my son from the last feeding of the night.
Before I had kids, I loved having them around while I got ready for my job as a paralegal. But now I just wanted them to leave me alone. The worst part was that they would start playing and fighting loudly just as my son was falling asleep at the end of a feeding. I would jump up angrily to chase them away, ruining the half hour I had spent trying to calm my son down.
I developed a huge fear of hygiene, especially when my baby started crawling. Would my floors be clean and safe for my son, or for friends who came over with their babies?
My husband was never a fan of cats. I met him when Socks and Sooty were two, and because I grew up in a pet-free, ultra-clean home, he couldn’t understand my infatuation. He tolerated them because he loved me.
We got married in April 2016 after being together for two years and decided to try to start a family two years later.
after that. When the little blue lines appeared on a pregnancy test in January 2018, we were excited. It never occurred to me that this could change the way I felt about my pets.
Yet, over the next nine months, I did see posts on social media from other pregnant women or new mothers looking for 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 my first cat, Snowy, for my sixth birthday – began to express her concerns.
She warned me never to leave the nursery door or crib unattended, for fear the cats would scratch or even suffocate my newborn.
I became very concerned about toxoplasmosis, a disease that pregnant women and babies can contract from cats.
I was worried that the cats might want to nest in the Moses basket. Sure enough, the first time I put it up just before my baby arrived, they both jumped in.
But once the baby was born, my love for cats disappeared almost overnight.
Against all my instincts, I looked into rehoming them. My husband, a marketing executive, would have gotten rid of them in a heartbeat. The only thing holding me back was guilt—and the long waiting lists at local shelters, filled with unwanted pets bought on impulse during the pandemic.
In desperation I spoke to the charity Cats Protection where they came from and unfortunately, like everyone else, they had a long waiting list for rehoming.
Eventually I resigned myself to being stuck with them. As my son got older, the situation got worse, far from my fears. When he started playing with toys, I feared Socks and Sooty would get them. Everything they played with, I threw in the trash, in case they passed on germs or diseases.
Sometimes we would get second hand toys and clothes from friends who happened to have a dog or cat. The smell of the donated items would make my cats smell (urinate) on them so I had to throw those out too. And once Socks was in the corner of the children’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 it.
When I had a daughter four years ago, I was again overcome with anger and frustration towards the cats.
They had noticed by now that my toddler son was dropping food from his high chair. I was afraid that they would jump on my son’s tray and steal food, possibly scratching him or scaring him, so I started yelling at them.
I would have preferred to throw them out of the house for good.
Now that she is four, my little girl loves the cats and loves to pet them, even though I strongly discourage it. My son, on the other hand, does not like their presence at all and gets particularly upset when they lie on the beds and ‘put their bottoms on our pillows’.
Unfortunately I can’t force them to stop this behavior. It’s a holdover from the time when they were my babies and I wanted them everywhere in the house.
Instead, I run around every morning and put blankets over the pillows to protect them.
The saving grace is that the cats have never hissed, scratched or lashed out at my children or any of us. In fact, it is rare that they even approach me in the hope of a stroke, no doubt because they have realized that I will treat them briefly.
They have known for a long time that they get no encouragement from my husband.
I made a commitment when I adopted two kittens 11 years ago. I have accepted that I have to live with that decision, although I regret it. But I fell out of love with them the day I became a mother – and that feeling will not go away.
Socks and Sooty will be cared for until they die, but when that day comes it will be a relief. I won’t miss them.
As told to Sadie Nicholas.
