Pregnant mother tells father that he can take the baby and leave if it is allergic to her cats

This is about a post on the Reddit.com website which has been picked up by The Mirror newspaper. It's an interesting little story which probably tells us more about the difficult time that a pregnant mother goes through emotionally than about the problems of cat allergies.

Pregnant mother tells father that he can take the baby and leave if it is allergic to her cats. Photo: Pixabay.

It appears that the woman is heavily pregnant and that the father of the child, to be, is predisposed to being allergic to cats which I presume he manages because they have two cats. He asked his partner (I don't know if they are married) what they should do if their child were to be allergic to cats. In response she told him that he can take "this baby you want so f****** bad and get out". He believed that she meant it but that she was worked up at the time.

The comments on the post reassured him by saying that she was probably just in a difficult emotional state because it was a time when hormones are coursing through a mother's body.

One wrote: "Dude I’m pregnant. Hormones are terrible. Our bodies are always hurting. The sound of someone breathing can tick me off.

"Some days I'm on the verge of murder (obviously in my mind) and other days I’m happy go lucky. You might’ve caught her on a bad day."

Comment: I feel compelled to comment about this. There is almost no doubt in my mind that this was just a tense moment between a couple. He chose the wrong moment to ask the question. Firstly, there's no point in talking about kicking out the father and taking the child based on the possibility that the child might be allergic to cats. It would be far better to wait to see what happens. It is very negative and destructive to talk about ejecting the father with the child that you will love because of a possibility that something might happen.

Secondly, it is possible to deal with allergies to cats. The father has a problem with allergies to cats and he has managed it. And if the allergy is fairly mild, being around cats gradually chips away at the problem. The body becomes tolerant and the problem fades to the point where it really isn't a big issue. That's my assessment. And if that doesn't work there are other ways of dealing with allergies to cats. Here are two possibles:

• Curing Your Allergy to Cats (new injection)
• Review: Purina LiveClear Allergen Reducing Sterilised Adult Turkey cat food

Thirdly, the argument does highlight the fact that sometimes domestic cats can be the centre of friction between a couple living together. It isn't over a potential allergy to cats, it might be over toxoplasmosis and pregnancy. It might simply be over the fact that one of them loves cats and the other dislikes cats. The man insists that the woman gets rid of her cats and she complies and then resents it. That's a possible outcome which is going down the wrong path.

I guess a couple with different views about domestic cats need to discuss as many aspects of domestic cat caretaking that they can before they live together! That sounds a little bit technical and formal but it may help to prevent arguments late in the day when it is much harder to find a successful solution.