Why We Talk Baby Talk to our Kitties

For 27 years I've been a cat owner and lover, and despite having ACTUAL humans that I've given birth to that know my real voice isn't that high, I still persist in talking "baby talk" to my cats.  It's not that they can't understand me if I don't.  I know this by their immediate response when my husband bellows at them because they are shredding the furniture with their claws or they've just been caught drinking from the cereal bowl at the table while he stepped away or they just speed away from a room looking guilty based on his tone.  But with me it's different.  Their response to most of my inane questions ("Whatsa little floofy doing?  Hmm? You cleaning your paws?? Aww WOOK at dose tiny paws") is usually a flat stare and sometimes I get a vague "meow" if I repeatedly ask questions.  My reward for my persistence can sometime rise to the level of an affectionate slow blink or even a significant meow.

When my kids were small, I read somewhere that babies respond vocally more frequently to a female voice, perhaps due to the higher pitch and because they've been in that snuggly uterus listening to a mommy babble.  Maybe aurally-speaking (is that possible?)  this is their preferred parent from the start.   I figure that if my kids love to hear me babble, so will my cats.  Duh. And now my kids are all grown, I still have the need to nurture my kitties like babies, often carrying them down stairs, holding them like babies, and allowing one presumptuous feline to knead at me for hours because he thinks I may have a milk source somewhere in that soft blanket I have on.

And guess what?  My cats DO listen to me when I address them in my falsetto mommy voice.  Often when I speak to them it's to clarify whether they do indeed see that bird, did they just make stinky in the box, do they know they don't belong on that counter, and did they find their ball?  I can tell they're listening because they look directly at me and squeak.  I don't get full throated meows unless I have accidentally closed the door on a kitty who wants out (or in...and then out...or in), or if it's the middle of the night and they are vocalizing the sounds of their tribe.  I have one kitty who tries to talk, and, God love him, he really has something to say.  But it's more as if he just has a noisy exhale...mouth fully open and he leans in, and nothing.  Just a ghost meow squeak.


I noticed I'm not the only animal lover who talks baby talk to her fur babies.  Most of my friends and relatives have dogs, cats, even fish that they denigrate with their matronizing tones.  As if the pets can't understand us or identify us with our true voices.  But there's just something so natural about being a "high talker" when you have a dependent living creature that makes eye contact with you when you address them in this way.  And satisfying.  Using my everyday conversational tone which I might use to call my friends with, just isn't the same when I'm addressing my cats.  Admit it.  You do it too.

Now if only they could actually "speak"  then perhaps I might shut up.  But until my cats form words, I will continue to babble away, nonsensical, because I think they like it.  And because they are my babies.  Yes they are.  Who are my babies?  Gitchy gitchy goo...