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Maine Coon Cat Mom Enlists Auntie to Help Raise Newborn Kittens and Everyone's Hearts Are Melting

Maine Coon Cat Mom Enlists Auntie to Help Raise Newborn Kittens and Everyone's Hearts Are Melting

Yahoo06-04-2025

Sometimes, it really does take a village to raise children, er, kittens, and no one knows this better than this mama Maine Coon cat who has a sister willing to help with her newborn litter. If mama needs a break, auntie is here for the backup!
Just look at this beautiful blended family of Maine Coon Cats and how both mama cats tend to these little ones.
In the darling video shared to the TikTok account for @wildmane_mainecoons, we see mama-to-be Stormy, the auntie, who is also going to have her own kittens helping out with baby kitten duty. Stormy is so affectionate towards mama Honey, too!
People love this sweet co-parenting scenario, and one person commented, "Her helping with the babies and momma allowing her to do so - melts me!" Another person added, "The way the other cat hugged her after seen how she was bathing her babies." It's just too sweet for words!Someone else added, "My bff's two mama cats (sisters) had their babies within days of each other. They both co-parented their kittens." It's pretty common with cats that are raised together to help each other out when one of them has kittens!
If your own cat is expecting kittens, make sure they have a quiet place to give birth away from other pets in the house. Mama cats need extra nutrition for nursing, so consult your veterinarian about the best type and amount of food for her. Make sure she always has access to clean and fresh water, and an easy-to-climb-into litter box within reach.
If your cat isn't pregnant and you aren't an ethical cat breeder, please consider getting them fixed to help control the pet population.
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It's Time We Acknowledge That Older Sisters Are The Backbone Of Society
It's Time We Acknowledge That Older Sisters Are The Backbone Of Society

Yahoo

time3 hours ago

  • Yahoo

It's Time We Acknowledge That Older Sisters Are The Backbone Of Society

Younger children everywhere, you've been put on notice: Your oldest sister is tired of doing it all. On Reductress, a jokey headline declared, ''Eldest Daughter' Finally Added as Official Diagnosis in DSM-V' because of all the mental duress oldest sisters are under. (Though not an actual psychological diagnosis, the pop psychology phrase 'oldest daughter syndrome' has hit a nerve with many oldest daughters.) On TikTok, youngest brothers ― those diametrically opposed to oldest daughters in responsibilities ― jokingly apologize for doing the bare minimum in life and skirting the emotional labor that's second nature to women. Elsewhere on social media, big sisters joke about how it's time we acknowledge that older sisters are the backbone of society. (It's true: Big sisters tend to be overrepresented in powerful women lists. What do Eleanor Roosevelt,Taylor Swift, Hillary Clinton and Beyoncé all have in common? They're all high-performing older sisters.) Eldest daughters see what needs to be done and do it ― but it comes at a cost, said Lisette Schuitemaker, the author of 'The Eldest Daughter Effect: How Firstborn Women Harness Their Strengths.' 'Our particular life path makes us into responsible, dutiful, hands-on, thoughtful and caring women,' she said. 'You will often find us in positions of leadership because we have been trained to take the lead from a young age.' The flip side of that 'is we can get bogged down by the many tasks on our to-do lists because we feel responsible for all and need to save the planet,' she said. Oldest brothers deal with a lot, no doubt, but it's different for girls; a 2016 UNICEF study found that girls between ages 5 and 14 spend 40% more time on domestic work than boys. 'There are usually different gender expectations placed on boys vs. girls,' said Leeor Gal, a marriage and family therapist in Pennsylvania. 'Girls are oftentimes raised to be 'caring,' and boys are raised to be 'tough.'' 'Caring' entails a lot: 'What you sometimes see is oldest daughters developing people-pleasing tendencies or feeling responsible for other's well-being,' Gal said. 'A younger girl might learn to put her needs last for the sake of someone else.' Y.L. Wolfe is the oldest of everything: oldest daughter, oldest child out of four siblings, oldest grandchild and oldest niece. 'I always saw myself as my mother's assistant throughout my life ― even when I was very young,' she told HuffPost. 'I have memories going back to the age of 3 in which I was worrying about my younger sister's welfare when she was 1.' Parentification, where a child feels compelled to take on responsibility for their family's emotional, physical and/or mental well-being, was a huge part of Wolfe's childhood. Psychologists say emotional parentification can lead to difficulty in self-regulating, setting boundaries and building relationships. 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When her sisters had kids, she often felt like an executive assistant to them. 'I've been there through so much, helped with doctor's appointments, moving into new houses, helping take care of the kids when they were sick,' she said. Wolfe admits she sometimes wonders if her family would continue to ask for favors if she'd had a family of her own. 'If you're single and don't have children, the expectation is that we don't have any obligations or stressors in life and so we owe our families extra labor,' she said. Wolfe said it took her until her 40s to recognize how much of her identity was tied up in big sister-ness and how much it took out of her. Now, she's heartened to see younger generations put their feet down. 'To suddenly see women collectively stepping into an 'eldest daughter revolution,' as I call it, has brought me to my knees in gratitude,' she said. 'I felt like I was always trying to extract myself from this dynamic in a vacuum. It's about time we are talking about this!' As the oldest of four in an immigrant family, Parween Mander, a financial coach from Vancouver, Canada, also felt like a makeshift third parent growing up. 'I was always keenly aware of specific financial challenges my parents were going through ― translating bank statements and tax papers for them and talking with bank representatives,' she said. The biggest hurdle happened when she was 16 years old, and the family almost lost their home. Mander recalls sitting in on meetings with mortgage representatives and trying her best to help her parents secure a new mortgage. 'That taught me that not having money means a lack of power, safety and control,' she said. 'It defined my relationship with money.' New financial challenges crop up with aging parents: retirement planning and medical bills. As an older daughter, Mander said she still picks up the slack. She notices the same tendencies among her clients who are older siblings: They'll overextend themselves with younger siblings, too ― lending money they may not have, grabbing the bill when out for dinners and overspending on gifts. 'As the oldest, typically we don't want our siblings to witness or go through financial hardship and money scarcity like we did, so I find that a lot of those clients spend money each month to buy their siblings things,' she said. Mander has started to use the phrase 'good daughter trauma' to describe the innate desire to use money as a tool to people please and ensure others around you are taken care of financially. After a while, your family comes to expect that. When older siblings act differently, saying no or prioritizing their own needs, it shocks the family system. 'If we spend money on ourselves or prioritize ourselves first, we are labeled selfish or 'cheap,'' she said. Vidhusha Thirugnanam is another exhausted big sister from a first-generation immigrant family. Growing up in Toronto, Canada, she helped her parents understand documents and Canadian life while setting an example for her two younger sisters. The burden of being perfect was heavy. 'I sought validation from my parents and did whatever it took to maintain peace in the household,' Thirugnanam told HuffPost. 'That was always too much pressure for a child.' As she got older, she realized it wasn't her responsibility to fix her family. There are jokes online about how cataclysmic it would be if the oldest daughters went on strike, and to some extent, that's exactly what Thirugnanam did. Her family is faring fine, and her life has been a lot calmer since. 'I decided to take a step back in family duties and focus more on myself. I established boundaries and no longer seek validation,' she said. 'I found peace of mind doing this. I recommend it to all oldest daughters who feel they are being emotionally and physically drained by their family's expectations of them.' Learning to establish healthy boundaries and recognizing when your mental health is at stake are huge milestones, said Thirugnanam, who's made a number of TikToks about the oldest daughter experience. Today, she leans into the saying, 'You cannot pour into the cups of others if you yourself are empty. Learn to fill your own cup first.' 'A lot of oldest daughters will run themselves dry, putting their family's needs ahead of their own,' she said. 'I am here to normalize oldest daughters taking a step back for the sake of their own well-being.' Want to take on less as the oldest? Below are some tips on taking a step back while still being an integral, important part of your family. The goal is to feel responsible but not take responsibility all the time, Schuitemaker said. Practice letting others take the lead, even if it would be easier to address yourself rather than wait for them to do it. At 69, Schuitemaker said she still has to remind herself that her siblings and younger family members can care for themselves. 'Let others organize the family outing, or don't automatically take all the care of your elderly parents on your shoulders,' she said. 'It's not easy, but you will also be pleasantly surprised by what others are able to handle.' Setting boundaries is a great place to start, but it's not just boundaries with others that we need to work on, Gal said; it's boundaries with ourselves, too. 'It's not easy to change years of habits and actions, so we must first start with getting comfortable with saying no to ourselves before we do so with others,' she said. Try to identify your needs within the family: Do you care whether or not you're hosting the holidays or cooking a three-course dinner for someone's birthday? If you don't want to, practice identifying that within yourself first. 'Once that has been set, you are ready to suggest someone else's house for this year's gathering,' Gal said. 'You don't have to make huge leaps; simply start with something small and make your way towards the bigger boundaries.' If you've shouldered financial responsibilities in the past, recognize that it's OK to ask for help and be vulnerable yourself, Mander said. 'You don't have to do this alone,' she said. 'Depending on your situation and how old your siblings are, find a way to split and even out the financial responsibilities you carry with them.' Always make sure to put money aside into your own savings account(s) first or debt repayment before lending or spending money on others, she added. 'What I find is with my clients because they don't have financial clarity, they spend and give money away because they 'go with the flow' and don't know if they can truly afford to support others,' she said. 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Your Phone Should Always Be Face Down When It's on the Table: Here's Why
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time4 hours ago

  • Yahoo

Your Phone Should Always Be Face Down When It's on the Table: Here's Why

Picture this: You're having lunch with a friend at the neighborhood cafe. They're sitting in front of you, but it feels like they're not even there. Why? Because they're staring at their phone. Everyone has probably had a similar experience, whether they're the one getting phone snubbed or doing the snubbing themselves. I've been guilty of paying more attention to my screen than my companion, and I feel bad about it afterward. There's nothing wrong with replying to an urgent Slack message or pulling up a funny TikTok to share. But I know I probably spend too much time staring at screens, and a lot of that time is unhealthy doomscrolling. These days, when I'm not using my phone, I try to be more deliberate about keeping it out of sight and out of mind. If I do need to keep my phone at hand, I always have it face down. I have a few reasons for making sure my phone screen is turned away. The first one is practical: Because my screen is face down and won't turn on for each notification, I can save a little bit of battery charge. A single notification won't mean the difference between my phone lasting the whole day or dying in the afternoon, but notifications can add up, especially if I've enabled them across all of my apps. If I'm in a lot of group chats, my screen might end up turning on dozens of times throughout the day (and that's on the low side since many teenagers have hundreds of notifications a day). Keeping my phone face down is also a good rule of social etiquette: If I'm hanging out with someone, I keep my screen hidden from view as a subtle way of showing that I won't be distracted by it. I don't want incoming notifications to light up my screen every few seconds, especially if I'm in a bar or other dimly lit setting. I want to keep my eyes on the person I'm talking to. "Eye contact is one of the most powerful forms of human connection. Neuroscience research indicates that when two people make direct eye contact, their brain activity begins to synchronize, supporting more effective communication and increasing empathy. This synchrony can be disrupted when attention shifts to a phone, even briefly," says Michelle Davis, clinical psychologist at Headspace. When I'm with the people I've chosen to spend time with, I want to be fully present with them. A sudden notification will tempt me to glance at, or worse, pick up my phone in the middle of a conversation. I also have a more personal reason for keeping my phone face down, and I suspect that other people have had this same thought: My phone takes up too much space in my life. I mean that quite literally. My phone is bigger than it needs to be. That's been especially true since I upgraded from my iPhone Mini to a "normal-sized" iPhone. Yes, I got a much needed boost in battery life, but I also got a screen with more pixels to lure me into the next news headline or autoplaying Instagram reel. A small smartphone isn't something that really exists anymore. My phone is bigger and better at grabbing my attention. It competes against my friends and family, books and movies, the entire world outside of its 6-inch screen. It often wins. But there's still one small thing I can do to minimize its presence: I can keep the screen turned away from me whenever possible. It can sometimes feel like there's no escaping from my phone. Whether that ever changes, or phones evolve into a new form factor, I can't say. I can't control everything about my phone, but I can control whether the screen stares at me when I'm not staring at it.

Cat Wakes Owner up at 6:37 Each Morning—She Finally Realizes Why
Cat Wakes Owner up at 6:37 Each Morning—She Finally Realizes Why

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Cat Wakes Owner up at 6:37 Each Morning—She Finally Realizes Why

Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. Cats thrive on routine, and once a mealtime is established, they stick to it and ensure that everyone else stays on track, as one owner learned the hard way. Magic, the black cat, has always been demanding, the owner told Newsweek via TikTok. He'll want to go outside, then right back in. He cries for attention and food. And the thing that all the demands have in common? It always starts early in the morning. Trying to avoid the cat's early-morning wake-up call, the owner said they'll close the door to keep him out of the bedroom. But then they are just met with crying meows and scratches at the door. In the owner's TikTok video posted to the account @magicandweasley earlier this week, Magic was fed up that breakfast had been delayed. He couldn't believe the owner slept through mealtime, and when a few of his demands weren't enough, he took it to the next level by waking her up with bright lights. Magic sat in front of her mirror, which is framed by bulbs. With a quick flick of his paw, he switched on the harsh lights, bright and early at 6:37 a.m. Magic turned around, staring her directly in the eyes. His hanger—anger and hunger—did the talking; he had had enough of his owner sleeping in on the weekends. She learned very quickly that there would be no sleeping in. There was no time to adjust to the morning sun gradually with a needy and hungry cat living there. Screenshots from a June 16 TikTok video of a black cat attempting to wake up owner by flicking on the lights. Screenshots from a June 16 TikTok video of a black cat attempting to wake up owner by flicking on the lights. @magicandweasley/TikTok The owner said that, ever since Magic learned to turn on the mirror, it is all he does to get her out of bed every morning. "He goes to the room and starts to scratch the window and mirror," the owner said. "And one day, he hit the spot that turns the lights on, and now that's what he does; he scratches the mirror until he finds it." What Do the Comments Say? The TikTok clip reached over 2.4 million views and nearly 500,000 likes as of Friday. "I like your sunrise alarm clock butler dressed in black. Very prompt, very reliable," commented a viewer, while a second added: "I feel like even if you unplugged it, he would just do something worse." A third posted: "The look at you after they've done it is diabolical." From Magic's point of view, someone wrote: "Oh look at the light shining ON MY EMPTY BOWL." Do you have funny and adorable videos or pictures of your pet you want to share? Send them to life@ with some details about your best friend, and they could appear in our Pet of the Week lineup.

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