agonyaunt | (no subject)

My mother lost her eyesight a year ago. She still needs a lot of help at home. She likes to go outside and sit on the porch with our dog, which she can do on her own. Recently, we found a stray kitten and decided to keep it. My father and I are very fond of it! The problem: My mother is upset that she can no longer open the front door to the porch without possibly letting the kitten out. We’ve told her we’re happy to open the door for her if she wants to go outside. But she is angry that we are further limiting her already limited activities. What should we do?

SON

Your mother is going through a major transition. (I hope she’s working with an occupational therapist to help her.) I freely admit there are few creatures more adorable than kittens. Still, this seems to be the wrong time to introduce one to your household.

Reducing your mother’s limited independence — forcing her to ask for help every time she wants to go to the patio — seems like the wrong call now. Find the kitten a new home and revisit the issue when your mother is more comfortable with her new circumstances.

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Mom was there first, not the cat. You can't adopt a new pet without clearing it with all the adults in the household first - and putting aside the fact that a grown woman shouldn't have to ask for permission to open the door to her own home, a kitten is potentially a serious tripping hazard for an elderly, blind woman. A trip and fall could hurt both of them.

This is not a home that should have a new, free-roaming pet. Kittens are easy to rehome. Lots of people are perfectly happy to have a kitten if they don't need to go to the shelter to pick it up.

Why are people.

Also is it possible to keep the kitten in a subset of the house?

It may be possible, but the other reason they should rehome this kitten is because kittens do better in a home with one or two other kittens or cats. One kitten is not a healthy amount of kittens for kitten development.

I agree with folks that this doesn't seem like the right time to adopt a kitten. Re-homing could take a while. This is not a solution to the door problem. This is a solution to the "trip hazard for mom" problem.

Get a collar with a bell on it for the cat. They make breakaways collars in tiny kitten sizes. I'm disabled and a fall risk. Adopted two cats in December (long term plan through a family friend that fosters). My six month old kittens wear bells all day and night. Took me two nights to get used to the sound while I sleep.

Recently, we found a stray kitten and decided to keep it. My father and I are very fond of it!

I wonder what "we" means in that sentence? Did the mom want to keep the kitten, not realizing how much badly it would limit her independence? (And the limitation is BAD. I am often reduced to tears by the fact that I have to ask someone to grind pepper or cumin when I'm cooking. Yes, people are always willing to help. Yes, I was the one who had said the pre-ground stuff turned into wet sand as soon as you opened the jar. I still hate the dependence, and it's so much less significant than being able to leave my own home.)
Or did LW and his dad make the decision without even consulting mom, because "we" just doesn't include her anymore. Like she's no longer a significant member of the family without her eyesight.

This seems like a great idea to find some kind of compromise so that the mother still gets to keep part of her dwindling freedom. I'm also wondering if there's any possibility of screening in the porch, which would still allow the benefits of fresh air while also adding another layer of barricade for kitten (and, in my opinion, would also make outdoor time more pleasant by blocking out bugs)

Some cats - not all cats, clearly not yours! - rapidly become adept at either losing their collars or muffling their bells. This is not a guaranteed solution.

I'm 95% sure you've thought of this, but in case I'm wrong - is the grinding spices something that can be solved by having a dedicated electric grinder for spices?

I've had to replace the bell on each collar once. I was lucky that their foster parent worked with them when they were very small to habituate them to wearing collars and bells. I'm also lucky that the kittens quickly realized the bells were as much for their safety as mine.

Oh, that's perfectly doable. It's just takes a lot longer than calling someone in the next room who is perfectly willing to step over and twist the pepper grinder over the pot. Even sitting down with the grinder between my knees and a big bowl on the floor (so I can work the handle with my left hand) is a lot more of a nuisance than either calling somebody from the next room or cooking without pepper or convincing myself whole peppercorns should go in like whole cloves. I sometimes did the knee thing when I lived alone.

But I don't live alone, and I set out with the intention of making dinner 3 times/week. It's just frustrating when I think it's "my turn" and I have to call for help so often.

No, I get it. I was hoping I'd stumbled on a solution you'd somehow overlooked, but that did seem unlikely.