How we changed our African parents from cat haters to furry lovers



Growing up, I had typical Nigerian parents...you know, the ones who claimed that if you missed one day of school, you'd end up jobless or, worse, a hobo in the future; yeah, that's the sort.

You can imagine how they felt when it came to owning any kind of pet... No way! It was a taboo subject to explore. My father used to tell my siblings and me stories about how he had been attacked by vicious dogs many times as a kid, and how we had to stay away from any dog we came across. In our house, the word "dog" was used as an example or as a warning whenever it was mentioned. That's exactly how bad it was.

If you thought the ‘dog' case was grim, wait until you hear this: the word ‘Cat' was a complete no-no in my entire nuclear and extended family, and it was completely banned from use.

For a cat, the case was non-negotiable because the cat has been labeled as demonic with mysterious powers by my parents and the majority of Nigerians, or should I say Africans, and therefore the fuzzy creatures are strictly avoided.

When I was younger, if a cat made the mistake of meowing in the middle of the night, the entire family was forced to participate in a two-hour prayer session to cast the cat/demon back to the pit of hell from which it supposedly crawled out. So, by now, you're probably thinking how it went from being the most despised to the most adored member of my family. So, I'll tell you in a moment.

It all began one day when my younger sister returned home from school with the cutest thing I'd ever seen. She said she discovered the kitten alone in a bush not far from our house, but she couldn't walk away because the kitten seemed to take a liking to her and started following her home. I, too, had the mindset that a cat was demonic, much like my parents... You can't fault me; that was what we were taught to believe!

Anyway, back to the story: at first, I thought my sister had brought the devil himself into our house, so I screamed at the top of my lungs at her and demanded that she return the "ghost" to where she got it...

That was not one of my mother's best moments.

Thank God for thick-headed younger siblings who would rather die than follow orders, the kitten was able to stay with us for another two hours, and something about me changed during that time.

My sister concealed the kitten in the one spot she knew I couldn't resist...our mini home library, as if it had been arranged.

Even if the demon was just using it temporarily, I couldn't stay away due to my insatiable need to record anything I thought about, as well as the fact that I preferred reading books to any other task. I wasn't going to abandon this library, which had become my haven.

Everything was fine at first because we were all in the library together,... of course, I made sure my sister kept the cat as far away from me as possible, and as time passed, I completely forgot about the kitten and became completely absorbed in a book I was reading. After a long period of reading, I felt something soft and warm rub against my legs, and the sight of the kitten purring at my feet nearly gave me a heart attack. I froze in terror, thinking the kitten would literally burst and drag my soul to hell with it... I'm not joking at all!

I called for my sister several times but soon discovered that while I was lost in my book, the little minx had gotten up and left me alone with the terrifying creature. I thought my life was over, but after ten painfully long minutes of being terrified with a cat rubbing up and down my legs, I decided it was past time to stop being a coward and face my fears head-on. So, with every fiber of my being screaming ‘BAD IDEA,' I picked up the little thing with trembling hands and brought it up to my face for closer inspection, but Is I did that, it started to purr again, so I instantly dropped her and she landed on my lap, where she quickly made herself at home and dozed off... can you believe it?! I almost died of cuteness overload! She had me wrapped around her little paws from then on.

My sister returned to the library an hour later, saying she had nothing to do with what had happened, ha-ha. However, the difficult part was yet to come: telling my parents, especially my father, and we both knew it would be as difficult as pushing an elephant down a rabbit hole, but we were both determined to try.

So I devised a strategy:

(1) Choose the most compassionate parent (our mother) and make a conscience appeal to her.

(2) Get her to persuade my father, who was a complete sucker for her, to let us keep the cat.

(3) Finally, without resorting to coercion, find a way to make them fall in love with the adorable kitten as we did.

My scheme was risky and borderline impractical, but for the sake of the adorable kitten, we put our fears aside (though not completely) and awaited our mother's return from work.

Thankfully, she still left the office earlier than Dad, so our plan was off to a good start.

We had bathed and fed the cat awaiting our mother's returned, and we had even given her a name: TINY. Tiny was soundly sleeping in my sister's arms when mum returned.

At the first sight of Tiny, mum was completely terrified and instantly made a run for her room in other to get her bottle of anointing oil, but my sister and I were able to stop her from going fully insane and, after much pleading and weeping, we were able to persuade her to listen to our appeals on Tiny's behave.

It didn't take long for mum to notice Tiny's beauty, and the fact that she was white with barely noticeable brown fur didn't hurt her acceptance chances one bit.

In no time, Mum and Tiny were playing like old friends, and mum even suggested taking her to the vet once dad agreed to us keeping her, and we couldn't be happier. One down, two more to go.

Dad finally arrived home around 5 p.m. He seemed exhausted and stressed, so we decided to hide the cat for the time being so that he could eat and relax before we let the bomb explode all over his face.

Step two of my strategy was set in motion after Dad had finished eating and had had a good sleep.

You can imagine how we felt; we were about to commit a sin worse than murder in our own house, we were absolutely terrified!

My sister and I were right behind as mum took Tiny out of hiding, looking almost as terrified as we were. She gathered her courage after taking some much-needed breaths and eventually showed the cat to dad, who was sitting comfortably on the sofa. You know, for a man as macho as my father, his reaction to seeing Tiny is still a mystery to me.

My father's expression was one of utter terror! And his overall look was as if he was looking down at a beast that was about to swallow him whole, which made me almost feel sorry for him, but I kept on because Tiny needed us and we had to make dad see that.

I can still remember his first words on seeing her since I use them to tease him now; they were, "Get it out! “Get it out!” ha-ha.

After that, it took over two hours of heated arguments, threats eventually peaceful talks before my father allowed Tiny to spend the night in our home, and ultimately, it took dad two weeks of rage aimed at everyone in the house before he finally got used to Tiny living in our home.

Then, one day, when we were all sitting in our living room watching a family program and Tiny was playing with a toy, dad asked, "Why is this cat so adorable?" And it's been cat-loving ever since.

What can I say, miracles really do happen

By Mildred I.U