Cats are Most Motherly Mothers

Posted by Jeanne on February 24, 2009

Cats are most motherly mothers, and no one can look more proud or happy than a cat reclining luxuriously among a clutch of little new kittens. She is also extremely competent in all aspects of child care — in fact, something to marvel at. She is affectionate, bountiful, responsible.

She keeps her babies spotlessly clean, washing them with her abrasive tongue from their small blind faces to their small tails. She stimulates bowel and bladder action by licking their external organs, and cleans up after them so that the family nest is never messy. And once the kittens are old and active enough to move around, she teaches them all the duties of living with people, such as using the pan for eliminations (or going outdoors) instead of the living-room rug. She nurses them frequently throughout the day and night, and slips off to attend to herself only after they have fallen asleep from the lulling warmth and comfort of a full stomach.

Her comings and goings are always noted, even when the kittens are too young to see. At her arrival, all heads lift and the sightless eyes peer in her direction. She settles herself, talking softly, and being careful to see that the group is clustered and no one is being rolled upon.

Later, as the kittens reach the playful stage, the mother cat becomes an object of fun. She endures furious leaps upon her switching tail; she lazily pats with her paw at small antagonists sitting on their haunches and attempting to wrestle with her. Occasionally, exasperated, she will wrap a struggling kitten in her forelegs and give him a gentle but instructive taste of the traditional hind-legs-rip-at-the-belly. At the end of this exercise, kittens often sit quiet and look thoughtful.

Her most vivid pantomime accompanies her lessons to the young on the subject of mousing. Usually she appears among them carrying a freshly killed mouse. She summons the kittens around her, talking in a dozen different tones of voice. And, stiff-legged, with hair on end, the kittens come and circle the mouse. Eventually, mother will let them paw the mouse and eat the mouse, but woe to the venturesome kitten who snoops too close, unbidden. A dry, unfriendly hiss of warning from mother makes it very clear just whose mouse this is.

In time and in her way, the kittens learn to be cats. Within a few weeks the mother begins to wean her group. She attends them less frequently and less devotedly. She cuffs away the greedy ones who nurse too much and too long.

Gradually they leave her — usually through human intervention — and she does not care. In fact, by now she is ready for another ring of courting toms and more kittens — and more, and more. In her lifetime she may bear as many as 20 litters.