Parenting Matters - Column

There's a good reason for calling it 'cupboard love'
Cats and children are kindred spirits.
I'm sure you've heard the expression: Dogs have masters. Cats have servants.
Well, substitute "cats" with "children" and the saying still stands.
Because, while children may bound around with the insatiable energy of a labrador puppy, there is no way they are going to obey anyone. Well, not if they can help it.
A cat gets up early in the morning and demands food. A cat comes to you when it wants affection (if it's the other way round, you can forget it). A cat never comes when it's called. And, when it gets close to dinnertime, a cat starts hanging around your ankles, yowling.
Spot the difference.
Miss Two also shares the same diet, eating her fair share of cat biscuits, while regularly refusing meals intended for human consumption.
And licks him as a mother cat would, happily digesting the fur that sticks to her tongue.
These parallels would explain the unlikely bond between our girls and our, err, "big-boned" ginger cat, Winston.
As soft as a marshmallow and with a larger-than-life presence (last weigh-in 7kg), it's easy to see why the girls love our feline friend.
But I am struggling to understand why he returns their affections.
He has been chased, tugged at, sat on and dressed up as a fairy princess.
Miss Four has also started carrying him around - an astonishing (and uncomfortable from his point of view) feat, given his ample girth.
And shutting him in her room.
While there has been the odd "incident" where the girls have emerged, screaming, with claw marks and blood streaming down their faces, for the most part he takes it.
In fact our normally aloof friend has even started seeking out their affections, schmoozing up to them of his own free will.
Which had me completely stumped, until one morning I saw Miss Four, who has taken to feeding him, tip the entire contents of a tin of cat food into one side of his two-sided bowl, while Miss Two filled the other side to the brim with cat biscuits.
Ah ha.
Cats love the person who feeds them and, normally being on a strict calorie-controlled diet, there is lots to love about a triple helping.
I wonder if I hired a live-in chef would the girls stop clawing at me night and day?