Can a university student on campus successfully own a cat when the cat remains at home with their mother (who does not like cats) and sisters?

Rehoming can be the best solution sometimes. 
Image by Daga_Roszkowska from Pixabay 

Can a university student on campus own a cat successfully when the cat remains at home with their mother and sisters? The actual question on Reddit.com is: Mom is threatening to give cat away because she’s scared of cats and afraid, he’s gonna scratch the furniture.

This is part of her post:

My cat is a year old and he’s mostly chill but has his moments of just running around. My mom is the type where she stays locked in her room when the cat is out and when she’s out she makes my cat stay in my room. I live on campus but come back every weekend so my sisters take care of him in the meantime. 

The following is my answer to the enquiry. Please tell me what you think in the comment.

This is another post from Reddit.com which is about people disliking cats. In this instance, a woman who I believe goes to university has to leave her cat at her mother's home when she is on campus. And her mother says that she doesn't like cats and doesn't want the cat to be around her home. The university student has sisters who also live with her mother at her mother's home. They look after the cat when she is away at university but it doesn't work very well because, as mentioned, the mother doesn't like cats. She is threatening to get rid of the cat so what can the university student do?

And my conclusion is that this young woman, the university student, is not in a settled enough world of her making to currently live successfully with a domestic cat. The situation is too fragmented and unmanageable particularly with the mother who dislikes cats and is concerned about scratched furniture.

The answer in my view is to rehome the cat into a nice home with a loving family where the cat feels welcome. That, in my view, is the responsibility of the current cat owner. When a person adopts or buys a cat, they take on the responsibility of caring for their cat for the cat's life and if things don't work out for whatever reason - and there has to be genuine reasons to give up a cat - the final responsibility of the owner is to rehome the cat carefully.

It is a last resort but sometimes it is the best solution. I think people should be open to that solution but it does hinge on careful rehoming. They might rely upon a good rescue center to do it but great care should be taken because some rescue centres euthanize cats if they can't rehome them. That would not be an option in my view.

I don't think that it is a failure or a weakness to give up your cat to a good home if you genuinely believe it is in the interests of the cat. If that objective is kept in mind, it is fair and sensible. If the objective is to make life more convenient for the owner, then this is not a good reason. That said, if a cat owner is that laissez-faire and uncommitted to cat ownership as to consider getting rid of a cat because they are annoyed by their presence then they probably should rehome them in any case.