A few months ago, I adopted a cat named LungLung. He is small, but convinced he is the emotional centre of the universe. And somewhere between scheduling his feeding times and grooming appointments, it recently hit me that I have essentially become a parent – a parent with much of the responsibility and apparently none of the privileges.
Because here is the truth: the world is built for families, and everyone else is expected to slip into the leftover spaces. This shows up in a hundred small ways, but nowhere is it especially clear than at work. A colleague’s child sneezes and they are granted early leave. Imagine if I tried to clock out early because LungLung was having an existential spiral?
I once had a colleague who loved to joke, “I gave birth to three children … what have you done?” My honest answer at the time was, “Kept a houseplant alive for nine months.
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