If you read my special Coffee Talk this week on Wednesday, you know I’ve become a foster parent. Three abandoned week-old kittens were discovered at our old building. As a photo journalist, I’ve been stopping by all week documenting the progress. Monday was the first day, rainy, and you know I couldn’t leave those crying kittens when the mother had not been seen since they started the demolition.

Another great week for learning life lessons, and reminding me how far our society has changed, and not for the better. Since childhood, almost continuously, I’ve had a cat, or two, roaming my household. Some I adopted, kept from birth or they adopted me. Never have I had to nurse tiny baby kittens, that was the mother’s job. I may have been close by the amazing event, watched from a distance as they grew, but when faced with tiny, eyes-closed kittens, I didn’t know what to do. The shelter manager graciously gave me instruction. However, today when I needed a little emergency baby sitting for an appointment, and before purchasing more kitten formula, PetSmart had no charity. “Policy, smil-acy,” I said back to the manager. Am I the only one that remembers pet centers once had pins in the store to encourage pet adoption?

Thank God it was cool, but warm enough in the car to leave the babies, unharmed — or I could have been arrested for animal endangerment.

I attended my meeting without them.

The responsibility for kittens this week has nearly been overwhelming, except — what else was I to do? Knowing their fate was death by starvation or cold, I took them in. Rascal seems to be pretty fascinated, and shows concern when they cry. Bandit can do without them. Both love it when its time for bed and they get me all to themselves.

Not only did I learn about positional feeding, but kittens don’t wear diapers and don’t yet know about the litter box. Details are not important except to say I had no idea fostering kittens would require making sure they do their thing — and, because momma always bathed them, substitute moms have to as well.

This is not the end of the lessons. I was reminded this week of the time in my life the prospect of bearing children was still possible. As a new Christian, having grown up with a not-so-perfect family, I wanted to learn all there was to know about being a good parent from the Good Book, the Rule Book. Not always the best choice of words for the Bible, but when we accept that God’s order and disciplines are for our own well being, not restrictions to force rebellion, we realize paying attention to the wisdom of the ages is really a VERY GOOD IDEA.

Parenting is hard. Anyone that’s been one knows the ups and downs. Then I look around and realize how many children are being raised by their grandparents. Why is that? Where are the parents or how did we go wrong in raising up the next generations to take on responsibilities?

As a child, caring for pets was a way of teaching us responsibilities. How many parents these days either don’t want pets (because they don’t want to take care of them, knowing the children will not) or they get a pet and don’t enforce or utilize the teaching opportunity. Looking at our free love, my way anytime-sex society I can easily see a mirror from the animal kingdom. Feral cats don’t belong to anyone. They roam, do what they want, eat what they can, have babies they push away as soon as they’re weaned.

I leaned a lot from Focus On The Family. Dr. James Dobson was my parenting coach by radio for years. I practiced on the neighborhood kids from one-parent homes, their parent glad for someone to share some responsibilities with.

On my own perspective, teenage rebellion was more about trying to find myself than bucking the system. If there is anything I’ve shared with parents as they purchase Donkey Otie’s book, it’s that the most important thing a parent can do is to raise a child to become fully who God created them to be — not parental expectations, or to fulfill a distant dream not achieved by the parent. The Bible tells us God knitted us together in our mother’s womb, He knew us before we were born. Pro-life is a strong proponent of that, but have a child with creative tendencies and parents quickly turn to the “be practical” or “do something, get an education you can fall back on” rhetoric. Did it ever occur to my parents, besides letting me take dance and piano, that God might have had a plan for my creative bent? I can tell you, they never understood it. Most parents don’t pay attention to the signs or they’re just too tired to do anything but yell! I have more to say on this, but will wait until another day. Time for feeding.

VICKY BRANTON is the Teche Life editor at The Daily Iberian.