Feral Mamas

first person, Globe and Mail

As a single mom, I think feral cat mamas deserve more respect

Alexandra Newman

Contributed to The Globe and Mail

Jan 4, 2026

Illustration by Drew Shannon

My thumb is pressed hard on the button of the penlight as I move it down one wall and across the hardwood floor then up the opposite wall.

Emily, a skinny tortoiseshell cat, shakes her head side to side trying to follow the light, before pouncing. Emily is seven. And it’s probably the first time she has ever played.

Until recently, she lived in a horse barn surviving on mice and garbage and having countless litters. Her teeth are rotted, many fallen out, and the rest cause her to drool. She winces when eating.

I am a volunteer foster home for a friend’s feral kitten rescue. By the time she came to me a month later, she and the kittens had parasites. Two of the kittens were so thin I wasn’t sure they’d survive the first night. They did, but as the litter boxes filled up with the results of their parasitic illness, I wondered what I’d gotten myself into.

Emily was my first foray into fostering cats, but I’m only one of countless people, mostly women, who care for these feline gals. Some of us are childfree, some of us have kids at home, some of us are empty nesters. And all of us have cats.

The cats show up at the shelter out of nowhere – on the side of the road, roaming in colonies, dropped off by Good Samaritans who find them in window wells or under decks, outside liquor stores. They almost always have newborn kittens. Adorable and playful. But it’s the moms who have my heart.

I am not a patient person. And Emily was hissy and skittish. A little like me on a bad day. So I approached her how I’d like to be treated as a single mom – with empathy and support, but at a respectful distance.

She and I ultimately created a playbook that I would use with all the feral mamas that came into my home office: let them hide under the desk or inside the filing cabinet, or under a stack of pillows on the daybed; let them watch – or glare – from the safety of the top perch of the cat tree. Let them approach when ready – sniffing my hand, my feet, the printer, moving on to a paw extended from the far reaches of the cat tree to pat my head.

Sometimes this took weeks, sometimes months as they grew accustomed to the sound of my voice while I made work calls.

In order to relax there has to be trust. Trust takes time. I get it. Trust is not easy to come by when dealing with food scarcity and homelessness, not knowing where the next meal is coming from and always on the lookout for predators – hawks, blue jays, raccoons, coyotes, foxes.

That, too, was a lot like my life as a single mom. I never went homeless or hungry, but I worried constantly about money. Friends urged me to date but I was too tired and too busy keeping my head above water financially and emotionally to even notice men. If a man ever made observable overtures, I’d probably have done what lady frogs do when they don’t like the look of a suitor – lie on my back in the water and pretend to be dead.

My feline moms could also turn on a dime, going from snarly to saccharine in a New York minute. One day hiding under the filing cabinet, the next glomming onto your lap, computer, desk, the back of your chair, desperate for the affection that they’ve missed all those years. I pivoted in much the same way when a handsome guy came along who thought I was terrific and really wanted to be with me. The fact that he fed me great food and nice wine didn’t hurt.

I live for happy endings. Emily found a loving home with a couple who tolerate her continued hissing at the woman, while she openly flirts with the guy. Another rescue, a gorgeous silvery long hair, was adopted by friends a month before the husband’s terminal cancer diagnosis. Through his last weeks, she never left his bed and now that he is gone, she is glued to his wife’s side.

Yet another cat I dubbed Miss Kitty spent months perched on the cat tree, dangling her arms over the side as she amused my colleagues on Zoom. But she avoided touch until, six months in, my hand brushed the tip of her tail. She didn’t bolt. A month later, she let me pat her head. Then I couldn’t get rid of her, meowing at my feet, rolling around in my work space. She’s now happily ensconced with a friend of mine and two other cats.

As heartwarming as these happy endings are, in any given city, thousands of cats are living homeless and hungry and probably pregnant. Not all can be saved, obviously. But we can help the one that’s right in front of us. And we can give her the same as what single human moms need: food, safety and a supportive community.

Alexandra Newman lives in Toronto.