THE CAT YEARS
(condensed from When Children Turn Into Cats, an article from the San Francisco Chronicle)
by Adair Lara
I just realized that while children are dogs, loyal and affectionate, teenagers are cats.
It's so easy to be the owner of a dog. You feed it, train it, boss it around and it puts its head on your knee and gazes at you as if you were a Rembrandt painting. It follows you around, chews the dust covers off the Great Literature series if you stay too long at the party and bounds inside with enthusiasm when you call it in from the yard.
Then, one day around age 13, your adoring little puppy turns into a big old cat. When you tell it to come inside, it looks amazed, as if wondering who died and made you emperor.
Instead of dogging your footsteps, it disappears. You won't see it again until it gets hungry, when it pauses on its sprint through the kitchen long enough to turn its nose up at whatever you're serving. When you reach out to ruffle its head, in that old affectionate gesture, it twists away from you, then gives you a blank stare, as if trying to remember where it has seen you before.
You, not realizing that the dog is now a cat, think something must be desperately wrong with it. It seems so anti-social, so distant, so sort of depressed. It won't go on family outings.
Since you're the one who raised it, taught it to fetch and stay and sit on command, naturally you assume that whatever is wrong with it is something you did, or left undone. Flooded with guilt and fear, you redouble your efforts to make your pet behave.
Only now, you're dealing with a cat, so everything that worked before now produces exactly the opposite of the desired result. Call it, and it runs away. Tell it to sit, and it jumps on the counter. The more you go toward it, wringing your hands, the more it moves away.
Your second choice is to do the necessary reading, and learn to behave like a cat owner. Put a dish of food near the door, and let it come to you. If you must issue commands, find out what it wants to do, and command it to do it.
BUT REMEMBER THAT a cat needs affection, too, and your help. Sit still, and it will come, seeking that warm, comforting lap it has not entirely forgotten. Be there to open the door for it.
One day they will walk into the kitchen and give you a big kiss and say, "You've been on your feet all day, let me get those dishes for you," – and you'll realize they're dogs again.
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How's your cat doing lately? I'm learning something new about mine everyday. Some days she reads like an open book, other days she's locked up like her diary. My cat cries easily, laughs spontaneously, and surprises me constantly. Her world spins on a different axis now. She is shaping up to be a brand new person on the outside, growing up too fast and out growing her toys too soon. I pray that the values she learned throughout the first twelve years of her life will guide her through this shaky journey called adolescence.
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