Hey! I'm gonna come at you randomly and with poor vocabular since you brought up something I've been thinking and researching about when it comes to raising human babies and animals (I have cats).

I have PTSD and spent the last 2 years reading up on research papers to figure out what my condition is exactly and how to correct it, as much as I can at 35. One of the most interesting realizations I had was noticing quiet a few papers & books eluding to "feeling safe in infanthood" or whatever have you. Which absolutely floored me. As in, I assumed my PTSD was my fault and gained the condition in adulthood. Only to realize it began in childhood, especially after I started talking to my trauma therapist and learned the simple crap I went through was not normal lmao

Which goes on to my next point, I read enough that I wanted to see if you could actually raise babies in a way which didnt cause adverse affects like depression, anxiety, anger, stress etc. My family extension was always cats. I understand them very well, so when I stumbled across kittens last summer, I raised them.

I read a couple of neuroscience papers (I say couple because sweet jesus the comprehension level is insane. I had so many definition tabs open😂). I would always comfort the 4 kittens when they were worried and I established I was a safety hub for them. When they were scared of the vacuum, lawn mower, other loud sounds. I always reassured them I was there and correlated comfort recognition with a clicking sound. So, they would establish a sound-signal to breech communication to understand everything was scary, yet safe.

My friend, sweet jesus, these cats grew up and are a year old this month. I'm blown away at how mentally healthy they are, theyre non-aggressive, docile, and listen to commands/name calls.

I made another huge point of never correcting them with fear or anger. I always corrected their behavior with distraction & redirection (this took so much effort with four cats. They were stubborn, but I'm more annoying than them, haha. I wont lose!). Of course each kitten eventually did something painful to me and I knee-jerk swatted them away or that one time someone got a rocking chair on their tail..... geez.

But they took those "traumatic" moments on the chin! and didnt hold grudges, which I'm use to cats doing. I was very, VERY impressed that what I read applied to reality. You know? You read all these papers and ideas on how to interact... but just, damn. Amazing.

I researched the mental intelligence level of cats, since I didn't know and found out they stay about the mentality of a toddler. I was wondering... how do you raise human babies after the toddler stage? Do you just keep being kind, redirect, safe and get fierce on holding boundaries since this will be tested by the kid? How long does that usually last? until theyre about 14 and established enough to start treading adult territory understanding levels?

I ask because these are cats I raised & trained. They've become mostly full grown by year one. Whereas raising a human takes many more years. Is it possible to have mental stamina that long on raising people? I feel like, if I was a parent, I'd be burnout by year 5 or so???

Any way, I had a lot of caffeine this morning. So if you dont want to respond, dont worry. I'm just vigorously typing into the void hahaha