God this is bad behavior from parents. There are two examples on Reddit of parents reneging on their promises to look after their kids’ cats during their first year at college. Instead of looking after the cats they gave them away (or worse) and the kids’ hearts are broken and they can’t trace their beloved cats.
Case 1
This is the Reddit title:
I had my parents watch my cat my first year in college because I couldn’t have her in my dorm. Two months from me bringing her up to live with me and they give her away without telling me. They’ve been bad before, but my heart is broken now. Here is a text exchange.
Apparently ‘internet lawyers’ (non-lawyers wanting to give advice) have annoyed people. It is a point though. Technically it is theft. The kid could report it to the police but what chance of success? None realistically.
Case 2
I’ve always had problems with my parents. My dad was emotionally abusive and my mom, although not abusive, always covered for him. I went to the highschool that my mom taught at, and I told her that I was going to speak to the school counselor about what I was going through. My mother wouldn’t let me because “I work there and it would make me look bad”. In one of my fathers rare nice moments he agreed to let me adopt a cat, under the terms that I would take care of her. I was 16. I took care of the cat, and the cat was my only friend when shit hit the fan at home, I often cried with the cat. As soon as I graduated highschool I decided to get the hell out. I moved away to a state university around 3 hours away. My parents agreed to take care of the cat while I lived on campus and I agreed to take her when I moved off campus in my second year. I spent my first year of college basically starving while I tried to support myself in a new city where I didn’t know anyone. I finally got a job and was doing better. My mom called me today and after a bunch of bullshit told me that they gave away my kitten and that they refuse to tell me where. I was supposed to take the cat in August. I would’ve figured out how take her now if they had told me they were planning this. I have tried to track her chip, but can’t. I’ve called shelters back near their house, nothing. I don’t know what to do and my heart is broken.
I think that once again I had to republish the person’s entire Reddit post for its authenticity and heartfelt emotions. It is painful. The parents are cruel. Cruel to their child and the cat whose lost their human companion and placed in a strange home. We don’t know how the cat was given away. Was it done carefully and did they select the new owner with care and attention to detail? Perhaps they simply threw the cat away. Perhaps they abandoned the cat. You can’t trust them to tell the truth if their behavior is this callous. Or the cat was harmed through their negligence and they disposed of the cat? The mind runs rampant as to what might have happened.
Both cases demonstrate heartless behavior by parents. I don’t think I’d forgive my parents if they did it. Some parents are terrible and kids should face up to that grim thought. As one wise, young Reddit user said:
She doesn’t have a mother and she never had a mother, she has a progenitor. Some of us are lucky enough to have progenitors that are also our parents, so we’ve had parents all our lives. Some people have only progenitors and sometimes evil ones. It’s terribly sad, but accepting that helps with the healing.
