'That damned cat!'
AS I am neither a teacher nor a doctor (although my late father was one and one of my half–siblings was the other), I am often asked what it was that piqued my lifelong interest in health and education.
The answer lies in the occupation that incorporates them both, one that I signed up for in my mid-twenties and continues to this day – parenting,
Like most people of my generation, my late wife and I took on this role with no training, no handbook and no support. We have managed to raise two reasonably well-adjusted children, both of whom are now longtime adults, but the more research I undertake on parenting the less impressed I am with our (and particularly my) performance.
Watching some of the reels posted regularly on LinkedIn by Dan Wuori, I am amazed at how little I remember of my children from their time as infants. However, they clearly made more of an impression on me once they were able to communicate (even a little) verbally, for I have many memories of them as toddlers.
There was one occasion that reminds me every time just how easy it is for toddlers to pick up a completely divergent meaning from that intended by some piece of parental advice.
At the time, Nicholas must have been about four years old: his sister, being two years older, had just started at “Big School” (the same school where their mother was working as a Grade 3 teacher). What spark lit the fire I do not recall, but the rumblings about wanting a pet had reached a crescendo when we finally caved and acquired a tabby kitten.
It was made clear to both children that this pet was theirs in its entirety: neither their mother nor I wished to become de facto parents to a third creature, so they would be entirely responsible for its well-being.
"It will be good for them"
“It’ll be good for them,” we reasoned, “they need to learn to take responsibility for something other than themselves.”-
When we got the kitten – and the bed and the cat food and the water dish and the cat toys – we sat the children down while they took turns holding the new arrival.
First, their mother encouraged them to be careful when handling the cat, and then it was left to me to underline the essentiality of providing it with food and water.
I remember saying to them that they would have to act as the cat’s owners and protectors.
“For example,” I said, “if you forget to feed it often enough, it will die.”
We won’t, they said, we’ll remember.
And they did. Religiously.
Which is why what happened the following week was all so tragic.
It was about 06h30 on the Sunday morning that the front doorbell jolted me from a deep and badly-needed weekend sleep.
I opened the front door to the sight of my least-favorite neighbor holding by the tip of its tail a bedraggled-looking and very dead kitten.
“Is this,” he enquired sarcastically, “yours?”
“No,” I said, “it’s not, but I know whose it is: if you just drop it there I’ll take care of it later, once I’m awake.”
“It appears to have been run over,” he added, helpfully.
“Certainly looks like it,” I agreed.
“And thank you so much for bringing it to my notice so nice and early on a Sunday.”
With that I closed the door and went back to bed.
My daughter being in her first year at a church school, the morning was taken up with grave-digging, a full-on funeral and the consigning of the cat’s immortal soul to the safe-keeping of the angels.
By lunchtime, I was ready for a beer. Not that I was allowed one, since the house was in mourning.
“May I have a whisky this evening?” I asked my wife facetiously.
By bath-time (the children’s, not the adults’) I was pleased to see that both children appeared to be behaving normally and that the tragedy of the morning had not damaged them emotionally.
I repaired to the lounge for my long-awaited whisky and had just settled down comfortably with the unread sections of the Sunday paper (remember those?) when my wife shepherded the freshly-bathed children through for a few minutes of playtime before their supper.
The smaller one stopped on the top step, put his hands on his dressing gown covered hips and narrowed his eyes.
“That damned cat,” he grumbled, “we fed it and fed it and it just died.”