There’s a special kind of judgment reserved for people who keep their cats indoors. It’s not like the classic parent-judging, or the subtle “oh, you let your toddler eat that?” kind of judgment. No. This is righteous, Shakespearean judgment. Biblical judgment. Judgment delivered with the solemn gravity of someone who has personally consulted the ancestral spirit of the domestic feline.
“You keep them inside?”
“But…but they’re meant to roam wild.”
“They need freedom. They need nature. They need adventure.”
Ah yes, adventure. The noble feline quest to cross the street and possibly become one with the asphalt.
Forgive me if I’m not handing them tiny satchels and a bus pass.
People talk about cats as if they’re woodland creatures auditioning for National Geographic. Meanwhile, my actual indoor cats are lounging on blankets like Roman emperors demanding peeled grapes. One of them hasn’t walked more than seven steps in a row since 2022. These are not rugged, wilderness-ready beings. These are house plants with opinions.
And before anyone gasps dramatically, yes – we castrated them. Oh, the horror. The tragedy. The injustice of preventing my male cat from fathering forty-seven unwanted kittens who will later be raised in the dumpster behind the supermarket. Society may never recover.
But here’s the best part: while people are judging my indoor cats for their “lack of fulfilment,” we’re also feeding a small colony of outdoor cats. You know, the ones who are supposedly “free.” The ones living their best lives. The ones who, according to the same critics, are spiritually superior to my indoor loafs because they get to “touch grass.”
In the past year, “touching grass” has led to:
One cat being poisoned.
One cat getting hit by a car but miraculously surviving.
And as of this morning, the last one being killed by someone driving 100 km/h in a zone where 30 km/h would already feel reckless.
But please – tell me more about how I’m a monster.
If I had a euro for every time someone said, “But they’ll be happier outside,” I could finance a billboard that says, Outdoor life kills cats.
In neon.
With flashing lights.
Possibly with a cat holding a speed limit sign.
The irony is that these same critics often live with dogs who have never known the intoxicating spiritual experience of being struck by a vehicle. Their dogs go on controlled walks, with leashes, harnesses, GPS trackers, reflective vests, and, if you live in a gentrified neighbourhood, probably dog shoes.
But cats?
Apparently, they’re supposed to navigate traffic like tiny furry stunt performers.
What I’ve learned is that the moment you choose a boundary that protects something you love, someone will treat that boundary like a personal insult.
I have once been told, in a tone usually reserved for war crimes, “Keeping cats inside shortens their lifespan emotionally.”
Emotionally.
Emotionally!
Meanwhile, my indoor cats are so zen they could guide a meditation app.
People romanticise the “wild cat life” like cats are out there journaling under oak trees, doing tai chi at dawn, or forming meaningful relationships with the birds they don’t eat. In reality, most of their “wildlife interaction” is running for their lives from a speeding BMW.
But logic never stands a chance against unsolicited opinions. People don’t just judge your choices – they narrate them. They perform them. They build entire psychological profiles of your cats based on three seconds of eye contact through the window.
“See how he looks out? He longs for the outside world.”
Ma’am, he’s watching a pigeon. He also “longed” for the inside of the laundry basket five minutes ago.
Here’s what these judges don’t see: the grief that comes with feeding outdoor cats you can’t protect. The guilt. The Heartbreak. The helplessness of watching them fight against dangers that shouldn’t exist – cars speeding like they’re late for the apocalypse, poison someone casually throws out, the casual brutality of being born in the wrong environment.
Outdoor life didn’t give them freedom.
It gave them a countdown.
So no – I will not open the door.
Not all freedom is freedom.
Sometimes it’s just exposure to risk dressed up as independence.
And if my indoor cats resent me for it (they absolutely don’t), well, then they can take it up with their warm beds, their 13 varieties of food, their clean water bowl, and the blanket they have claimed as their birthright.
Let the outside world judge.
People judge everything.
Only children.
Mothers with iPhones.
How many toys you buy.
How many feelings you have.
And apparently, whether your cats have enough access to existential danger.
Let them talk.
My cats are alive.
They are loved.
They are safe.
They are unbothered.
And they will continue to live their “emotionally inferior” lives napping in sunbeams instead of dodging sedans.
And when someone sighs dramatically and says, “But don’t you want them to experience the real world?”
I’ll simply point to the window where a car is, once again, speeding past like it’s in qualifiers for Formula 1 and say:
“No. This is the real world. And I’m keeping them out of it.”
Erika Matic writes about motherhood, grief, common sense, and the deeply controversial act of keeping your beloved pets alive. She believes safety isn’t cruelty – recklessness is.
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