April 16, 2024 • 35 mins
Did you know that we share a whopping 90% of our homogeneous genetic material with…cats? That’s actually more than man’s other best friend! And in the Season 2 finale for 6 Degrees of Cats - the world’s #1 (and only) cat-themed culture, history and science podcast - we make the case to promote our pets - especially our cats - as full-time family, full stop. Join us in conversation with a family sciences professor, a family therapist and a kids’ podcast host as we dive deep into what “family” is, and isn’t - and why. By the end of this episode, you’ll notice and appreciate the strength and length of your own family ties, including those with your cat! Tune in and share with your family, near and far!
Special thanks to Bjorn and Trip at the National Council on Family Relations and Dr. Stephanie Coontz.
The producers also thank Dr. Regina Morantz-Sanchez, professor emeritus at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor.
This episode is dedicated to the memories of William O. and Stephanie M.
Support the podcast, sign up for The Captain’s Log, the companion podcast newsletter and learn about way$ to help keep this ship afloat for our next season here: linktr.ee/6degreesofcats.
Referenced episodes:
- Cats Are the Consummate Domesticate: Origins and Evolution of Our Feline Friends
- 5 Ways to Say ”I Love Mew”: Using the 5 Love Languages…With Your Cat?
- The Purr-fect Life: Cats, Kantian Ethics and Karma!
About the experts:
- Katie Bozek, Ph.D., L.M.F.T. is the executive director of the Korean Adoptee Adoptive Family Network (KAAN) and the owner and operator of Transitions Therapy, PLLC, her independent private marriage and family therapy practice. She serves on the boards of the West Michigan Asian American Association (WMAAA) and the Michigan Board of Counseling. Follow KAAN @wearekaan on Facebook, Instagram and X.
- Carol Johnston, Ph.D. is an assistant professor at Kansas State University (Go Wildcats!) whose work has explored different ways to measure and operationalize family structure patterns over the life course to better capture a holistic picture of family dynamics. She is also the cat parent to Ash and Arlo, and can be followed at @carolanna12 (Instagram) or @carolannacoffee (X).
- Melissa “Melly” Victor is the founder of 2-time Black Podcast Award nominee Stoopkid Stories, a storybook podcast featuring 7 young Black characters which has been featured on the NY Times’ "A Big List of Podcasts for Bigger Kids", in Podcast Magazine, and by Bello Collective. She is also a musical theatre actress, most recently seen as a member of the touring ensemble for Little Shop of Horrors. She can be followed @stoopkidstories on Facebook, Instagram and X or @melly_music on Instagram.
Producer, writer, editor, sound designer, host, basically everything*
- Amanda B. (Instagram @catsuitband)
* with co-executive producers Bink
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
You were super tiny and had just been picked up off the street by a truck driver.
(00:06):
Ok, turn the page now.
He brought you to Broadway Animal Clinic and you were so cute and so ti--.
What do you mean you've heard this before?
Well fine, I guess we're done with the 'Snuggles Memory Book' for now.
Such a typical teenager.
(00:27):
Welcome back, Cool Cats and Cat Allies alike to 6 Degrees of Cats.
The world's best - and only
cat-themed culture, history and science podcast.
Not a day goes by where I don't wonder what is going on in the walnut-sized brains of
my little children or my co-executive producers, Binky and Snuggles.
(00:49):
Partly because we can't speak to each other, true, there's body language and tells.
You know, I've read all the books.
The ears, the tails, the fur raised, the vocalisms like hissing in the alley.
But what goes on behind Binky's big golden eyes when his pupils dilate?
(01:12):
Did he just remember something from his childhood?
Or Snuggles?
I can definitely sense the PTSD and it breaks my heart.
As well as the fixation on cardboard.
What's up with that Snugg?
I didn't have to do with Snuggles last minutes of her mom and siblings before she was extracted
(01:34):
from the side of the road that fatal day and adopted-
Wait a minute, it just occurred to me.
Snuggles, Binky and I don't know who our biological parents are.
We're all adopted.
In this season 2 finale of 6 Degrees of Cats, 'family' is the watchword.
(01:58):
We're gonna take a closer look at family.
And of course, these little adoptees we've brought into our homes, hearts and our families.
So, buckle up listeners.
It's time to get a little more purr-sonal.
(02:21):
In 2012, researchers found that there were more American households with pets than kids,
meaning there are more people in this country whose children have fur, feathers or scales than
human skin.
And yet, try telling that to HR if your time off policy precludes pet care or haven't
(02:42):
forbid pet bereavement.
Or justifying your cat's photo in your wallet to your college besties' flavor of the months
at Happy Hour, who is that guy that decides it's comedy hour and you're the sucker who
happens to be a lady with cats sitting right next to him.
And he has a YouTube channel.
Great.
Don't even try it with the US Census Bureau or the IRS.
(03:05):
Neither count pets as dependents.
I may or may not speak from experience.
What was I saying?
Right.
Family.
That's a word that either sends shivers down your spine, delight in your heart or perhaps
something ambiguous or in between.
(03:26):
What's that thing Trotsky said about families?
Maybe you feel like you have family?
They just aren't related to you.
Or maybe you feel like you just haven't found them yet.
Either way, there's no escaping the impact of family or lack thereof.
According to the UN, family is the fundamental group unit of society.
(03:52):
And claiming a family or being claimed by a family is a huge part of our identities.
I guess that's why there are so many plays, dramas, songs and stories about families.
The more I say the word family, the more I realize
just how amorphous that word is.
(04:13):
Here on the human side of things, it's said casually in conversation.
You know, cat, family, hay, fam, that kind of thing.
So let's dig into the word.
There's the family, capital T, capital F, you know, (whispers (04:27):
The Mafia) or cults.
be they corporate or religious.
"We're like family here."
Run, don't walk when you hear that in a job interview.
(04:47):
Or on the street, seriously, true story.
The Family International, formerly known as 'The Children of God' cult, repeatedly tried
to recruit me as a member when I lived in Tokyo.
I have no idea what about me screams, non-conformist open to weird stuff.
Whatever.
Oh, and of course, the family.
(05:11):
As in parents, kids, aunts, uncles, cousins, the court jester, the family frog.
Since this word has a variety of applications these days, let's get on the same page here.
As in, what's on the page when you look up F for family?
(05:33):
Here it is.
Oh, etymology.
I love bugs.
What's this say?
Brian, take it away.
Family is from late middle English and also from Latin, familiar for household servants
or family from families servant to denote the servants of a household or the retinue
(05:56):
of a nobleman.
Well now, that certainly adds a spin on the origin.
That's for the definition here.
A group of people consisting of one set of parents and their children whether living together
or not.
In wider sense, any group of people connected by blood, marriage, adoption, etc.
(06:23):
That's more or less what I expected.
And you know, it leaves a lot of people out.
What defines those connections?
How come it's just people?
Who came up with this anyway?
I am not the first to notice this.
Heck, there's a whole field of research dedicated to studying the family.
(06:47):
Human development and family studies at the time science now.
And I was fortunate to have consulted one such expert to understand the tiny telenovela
of our lives.
La familia, the family.
So, my name is Carol Johnston.
Human development and family science is what my masters and PhD are in.
(07:08):
I'm on faculty at Kansas State University in the Department of Applied Human Sciences.
I started looking at what happens when families change is.
Not necessarily the family structure itself, but isn't changing a lot.
So there's a lot of turnover in who's in the household and how that affects children
over time.
And that to me became very fascinating is really the core of what I do today.
(07:31):
As Dr. Johnston's work alludes, the concept of the family as two parents and kids, etc.
is a prerurious re-examination to start.
Think about the different family structures.
Like I think even today people would say that the ideal family structure is a two parent,
(07:52):
biological family home, right?
And that's actually not the case.
Before we have what we think of as the nuclear family, it could be that grandparents or
eight grandparents was really the head of the household or it could be that the parents
who were kind of what we would call now the sandwich generation were the head of the
household.
(08:13):
Thanks Dr. Johnston.
This was true in the 17th century when the colonists from Europe arrived on North American
shores then known as Turtle Island.
Those folks quickly stole from those 50 to 100 million people who called this continent
North America home at the time that are now collectively referred to as Native Americans,
(08:38):
who they then drove, trafficked or murdered off the land.
And then got to work harvesting the riches of this new world through real estate development,
trade and of course agriculture.
And at that this point where I think the genesis of the nuclear family story we're told
(09:02):
can be traced down on the farm.
Dr. Johnston takes the floor.
At the time, multiple generations of families were living basically on farms and helping
out in whatever way they could.
And they were working on the farm for example, children would go from children very quickly
to helpers.
(09:24):
They had more children because the more children the more help that there was.
And the industrial revolution really was one of the biggest movements away from that larger,
extended family to the smaller family that is more prevalent today.
A lot of that had to do with people moving to big cities getting jobs that weren't on the
(09:45):
farm and things like that.
And being able to really have the money to support a family without being on the family farm
like had been in the past.
And where adults could make a living in cities doing nine to five work essentially.
(...The good old days where you weren't always on--)
Actually, I don't think it was nine to five at the time.
It was more like 12 hours a day.
(10:06):
(Never mind.)
Interestingly, the average age of marriage also dropped during that same time, the late
19th and early 20th centuries, but has increased in recent decades.
So what we saw was when men and women were going to the city and they weren't with their
families, they were alone.
And so they started marrying earlier instead of later.
(10:27):
Fascinating.
I thought that would lead to people delaying marriage.
What else transformed?
As we saw smaller families, we started to seek this developmental period of adolescence.
It wasn't always there.
Ah, adolescence.
From workers in the house to slackers, some cases, sleeping and eating a lot, mood swings,
(10:54):
making messes, getting away with it.
And of course, there are always a round of need someone to give an unsolicited opinion.
That kind of sounds like my cats.
So about this industrial revolution.
You know, Ford;s Model T-Cars and the introduction of the assembly line manufacturing process,
(11:17):
which kicked off the huge global supply chain?
This transformation relieved US families from the hard work of being basically a one-home
factory, making everything from food to clothes to homes by hand from scratch.
You think this whole mass production system designed for surplus would then allow for everyone
(11:47):
to be comfortable and have food and not suffer through the winter worrying about how to
keep a roof over their head and the heat on.
You know, so people could rest.
To live like a house cat.
Well, you done thought wrong.
The shift really favors the wealthy and really hurts the working class in a lot of ways.
(12:13):
We don't have a lot of social resources for families in the US.
We don't have universal childcare.
It just doesn't give parents and women the option, right?
I have a friend who, his wife, it is cheaper for her to stay home with their children than
for her to work because childcare for her to work was more than her salary.
What happens when you don't buy into that and choose to be, say, a childless woman with
(12:43):
a cat?
When that nuclear family came about in the '50s, '60s, there was a stigma.
People who were single and adults were seen as weird or different.
Keeping the family nuclear has literally been a political platform to divide classes.
Excorating as, of course, morals and national security.
(13:07):
Case in point.
Ex-President Richard Nixon, who quashed the first national child care bill, which passed
in both the Senate and the House because it would have made us all communists or something.
What a win.
Seriously, look it up.
(13:29):
Now folks, nothing seems to be run on logic or actual real data in this tragically flawed
nation full of beautiful families of all shapes, sizes and admixtures.
I'm so glad we're taking the time to redefine the American family.
And we're going to continue talking about this with another expert after the break.
(13:50):
(montage of people at a baby shower)
(14:12):
"But will she ever learn to speak English?"
That was my great aunt, Bertha, R-I-P.
And her grand niece, yours truly, who derived just weeks prior from Seoul, South Korea
by way of Detroit International Airport.
Aunt Bertha, God bless her.
(14:34):
Born in the early 20th century, Aunt Bertha was raised during the Great Depression, the
youngest daughter in a relatively small family of seven.
Aunt Berth was one of those uncredited heroes of the Great Generation who never married or
had kids, and got stuck staying at home, providing free elder care for their parents, which allowed
(14:55):
her siblings to build wealth, nursing homes, cost a fortune, y'all.
As you may have guessed, I don't think she was able to get out much.
Obviously, yes, yours truly, did learn to speak English.
Before you gaffaw at what a silly, uneducated person Aunt Bertha must have been, remember.
(15:20):
Only relatively recently have we begun to appreciate the language acquisition genius brains
that babies possess.
Before Piaget and Pinker, folks thought babies were a tabula rasa, a blank slate onto which
all knowledge of the world was to be manually inscribed by their elders.
(15:41):
By that logic, I can see why it wouldn't seem as obvious that languages were teachable.
Aunt, quite frankly, our systems reinforce this because there is still a strong overbiased
for biology when it comes to family.
I'm reminded of this on a pretty regular basis.
Thanks for coming to see me, Amanda.
(16:02):
You're welcome.
So about this growth you're concerned about, you wrote something about it, looking like
the Virgin Mary and if we can corroborate that on the record.
The answer is no, but it is an odd shape.
Does anyone else in your family have a history?
(16:23):
I don't know my biological family's history.
I'm adopted.
I wrote it on the form...
So you don't have any records of your family medical history?
Yeah, I guess that's how that works.
Well, okay.
I guess we'll never know what it is then.
It'll probably kill you.
Oh, and your insurance doesn't cover the six AM so that'll be $3,000 payable at the
(16:45):
front desk.
Sherry can help you.
It's been like this for the past 26 years.
The medical industrial complex has a lot of room for improvement, but it seems like a
pretty quick win to just, well, adapt the questions already.
Because no, the word family should not intrinsically translate to genetic relatives.
(17:09):
I absolutely do not think families have to be genetically related to be considered family.
Absolutely not.
There's the census, US government definition, which is by blood or marriage or common law
or whatever that may be.
But I think that practically, logistically, day in and day out of our lives that there
are so many examples of people who step in to those familial roles in many different
(17:34):
ways, which may change along the way.
There's a class I teach, so I always ask what qualifies as a family and it's often mother,
father, sister, brother and friends.
When you think about a neighborhood, that's family in many ways, helping each other when
we're in need.
(17:54):
You see a lot of community in oppressed groups.
They have to rely on each other because the systems weren't built for them.
There's this community that's created that really steps in for family for resources.
They have a very strong, fictive kin network.
(18:18):
Fictive kin, in other words, I like the term people are using more currently now, chosen
family.
Who is your chosen family?
Because we have family that we may be tied to based on bloodlines.
We have families of experience that we may have grown up with that may or may not be tied
(18:40):
to us through bloodlines.
We have people that we choose to call our family that we may not have grown up with and
we may or may not have blood ties to.
That was a friend of mine who has literally known me since infancy and also happens to
have the bonafides to supplement Dr. Johnston's expertise on family.
(19:03):
I am Dr. Katie Bozek.
I am a licensed marriage and family therapist.
I have been providing mental health services to kids, families, couples, adults, anyone who
needs mental health services for the past 14 years.
I am also the executive director of the Korean American Adoptive Family Network also known
(19:28):
as KAAN.
I am the first Korean adoptee in this position in the history of KAAN and I have been in that
role since 2018.
The history of Korean adoption part of my history ties into a lot of what I covered with
Dr. Johnston.
(19:49):
In a national Korean adoptions began in 1953 with the Holt family.
After the Korean War, they adopted eight Korean children and they got so much press that
is really what started it off.
And a lot of those early adoptions were kids who were mixed race, Koreans, ammar Asian and
(20:15):
black Korean kids.
Gohorts shaped by the same lack of resources that Dr. Johnston and I discussed earlier.
There are so many layers, not just post-war but also the influence of religion and the
church's involvement.
I was always told, "Oh, your mom was probably young and couldn't take care of you."
(20:39):
Or your parents were too poor and couldn't take care of you.
That is not true.
Those are easy answers and it is not looking at all of the other layers that contribute
to how quarter million of the children have been adopted out of Korea since the 1950s.
The layers are economic, social, their international politics, their religion.
(21:08):
So the adoptions were starting post-war and now we have this boom in babies with unwed
moms.
At least for me, the time period where an eye was adopted, there's more factories.
Every work, more people from the rural areas were moving into the bigger cities, which then
meant more cohabitation and unwed pregnancies.
(21:30):
And then put on the patriarchal nature of society then, what do we do?
While it does have its roots in altruism, adoption is an individual imperfect, band-aid solution
for a systemic problem that leads children to be removed from the people, places and
resources that inform on so many fundamental aspects of their identities.
(21:55):
It is a trauma to separate a child from their homes, their ancestors and their cultures,
especially given the critical intergenerational kinship networks that naturally form among
blood relatives.
There's a lot more to say about the many intersecting complexities about trans-racial transnational
adoption, but I'll just say, as with blood and DNA.
(22:19):
Paperwork that gives the baby a new name and new parents does not a family make.
Adopties have a mom, dad, extended family, but that doesn't get at the quality of relationship.
That is based on the work that you put into how you relate to one another and building
(22:43):
that relationship, not just on those titles.
That makes a family is a very individual question that we all have to ask ourselves, who do
we consider family, why do we consider them family and just that personal question of,
to me, what does being a family mean?
Just because you are "family" that's the title does not necessarily mean you enjoy spending
(23:07):
time with them.
I know lots of people in work and outside of work who do not want to go back home for
the holidays.
I want to spend time with family because they are not the ones who are supportive, encouraging
and loving in the ways that they need or want.
Think about the rise in celebrating friends giving, having a holiday with your chosen family,
(23:29):
the people that you would want to be around, in addition to the quote unquote traditional
family holiday.
So I think we are moving towards just that idea of those who we can count on, who support
us, who are encouraged, who love us in the ways that we need and want.
Just based on title.
Too often we talk about family as who's your real family, right?
(23:50):
They don't want to say real because, again, going back to the adoptive narrative of who
are your real parents.
My parents who adopted me are still real.
They're not fake.
They're not figments of my imagination, right?
But who's my genuine family?
Who's my authentic family?
Who is the family that I choose to surround myself with and call family?
(24:14):
Those are the people that validate my experience in a firm, what I'm saying.
They're the ones who are supporting me, who I know I can share who I am, if that makes
sense.
You know, adoptive families themselves are not well studied.
(24:35):
There's a dearth of literature on adoptive family dynamics and comparison to blood families.
We have a lot of anecdotal stories and there's certainly been some research done in the early
90s.
But there's just not a large body of research on adoptions, particularly from a family science
or family sociology perspective.
We do, however, have a lot on adopties themselves or ourselves.
(25:03):
We adopties have long been used in observational and experimental psychology as research subjects,
especially in any research investigating the age-old question of nature versus nurture,
a field now called epigenetics.
Epigenetics is looking at the interaction of the environment or nurture and genetics
(25:25):
or nature.
Where nurture turns on that nature gene, right?
And so something in the environment helps grow or encourage something that might occur
more naturally.
In a dopte, they still have those genetics that are being interacted with this new environment
that they're in.
(25:46):
Those epigenetics may play out differently for adopties versus children here with their
biological parents.
And so I think that when you think about nature versus nurture, so much of it is one of those
natural inclinations, do we see and then do we encourage as they grow?
Whether that's finding community or building up different talents?
(26:13):
So it's so interesting that like this musical baby was adopted by this visually creative
mom.
My mom is more of an introvert.
I'm more of an extrovert clearly, but it meshes so well.
So while I don't carry her introvertedness, I can understand people on that level because
of her, which is great.
And I'm very desire to stay involved in her community has really rubbed off on me because
(26:39):
I love to be involved in my community.
That was our friend, fellow podcaster and actor, Melissa Vector.
Also known as Melly, I am the host and creator of a kid podcast called Stude Kid Stories.
I work in kid podcasting by day and I'm a musical theater performer at night.
(27:01):
So much of Melly's podcast addresses, well, family and how to make people feel included and
welcomed.
All vital parts of truly feeling with and among family, which Melly and I discussed.
The first thing that comes to mind when I think of family is belonging.
I don't need blood to be like, that's my family, you know, the idea of chosen family.
(27:25):
We see church family, you see your school family like, who do you belong to?
Who were you connected to?
Who you care about 110% who you love 110% and it doesn't even have to be blood.
What communities do you want to insert yourself in that unconditional love and care and support?
(27:45):
Like Katie and I, Melly is also adopted, but there's one significant difference in her family
story.
Her mother and her biological family were already connected through geography and racial identity.
I'm not the trans-racial adoptee.
I was born in Baltimore and I've been with my mom since I was seven days old.
(28:08):
She was approached in church and she's like, "Okay, I can foster a kid.
I think in the state of Maryland, I can legally get adopted until I was like four or five.
So then around, I want to say six years old, I was like, "Mommy, I want a little sister.
Like, I'd send me a little sister."
And then the social worker called and said, "Hey, Ms. Victor, Melissa's biological mom had
(28:30):
another kid.
Would you be open to adopting her as well?"
And she turns to me and she says, "You want a little sister?"
Of course, I say, "Yes."
So I got to grow up with my biological sister.
I do not share my mother's blood, but I share so many other things.
And there's a list of 100 things and blood is number one.
(28:52):
I share 99 of those things.
And I always say you look like the people that feed you, the unconditional love and care
of support that is between the three of us is unmatched.
I belong to my mom, belong to my sister.
I belong in this family.
I love that.
Whether by nature or nurture.
(29:12):
Like Melly, I do in some ways look like the ones who fed me.
I smile and speak exactly like my mom, per my friend Yuki.
And when friends who see me at my best notice just how grounded and pragmatic I can be, I attribute
that to both of my parents.
(29:33):
On the other side of things though, I was definitely the black sheep.
Still am.
A cat, the music, Weird Al.
Things that are intrinsically part of who I am.
But my folks showed themselves to be genuine family to this scrappy little cabbage patch
kitten by celebrating and supporting my quirks.
(29:56):
Thanks, Ma and Pa, Kitten, my real parents, my genuine kid.
But enough about me.
At this point, we've come far in this kitty family investigation.
In my research, I came upon a really great article in LitHub examining the word family across
(30:18):
the diversity of cultures and languages.
The common thread wasn't blood or the structure.
It was the sharing of a domicile, a safe and warm place to call home.
I was actually talking to a vet friend of mine this week and one thing she mentioned to
me that I thought was just fascinating and it's so true is that really it's only been
(30:40):
the last 25, 30 years they've created these great medications to make sure that our animals
don't have fleas and ticks.
Cats can be in the house all the time.
So I think because they are more indoor now and can be indoor more often, they are seen
more as a part of the family.
(31:00):
Well friends, or should I say fam?
Since we well established that this "nuclear family" is total fiction.
I hereby declare that anyone who you mutually hold in your heart and welcome into your home
definitely are cats, counts as a full-fledged member of the fam.
(31:22):
And if you need me to write a strongly word and note to your manager justifying your
PTO request to take Mr. Whiskers to the vet, call on me or send them this episode.
Hence, my airtight, totally uncontroversial case for including cats as full-fledged family,
not as visitors, not as pets, but truly genuine chosen family.
(31:46):
Family.
When I call you family and I become yours, your can becomes mine.
We're all just six or less degrees apart in that way.
We are all now each other's family.
And that's our cats too.
(32:09):
Y'all, when I gaze upon the faces of my son and my daughter, it makes me feel so lucky.
What a blessing to have adopted these two.
Hey Snugs.
Okay fine, next time you write the episode closing.
Alright, we tried that in season one.
Soms.
(32:32):
I can't believe we've arrived at our final destination this season.
Thank you so much for joining us on SS 6 Degrees of Cats.
Talk about a trip.
The team and I had such a blast and we really appreciate the kind of notes, emails, reviews,
and of course, the interactions on social media and on our Substack.
(32:55):
Please keep them coming.
We'll be taking a break for a few months, preparing for the launch of season three with a fresh
roster of passengers from the worlds of academia, the arts and the sciences with our usual
unique take on the world through, of course, cat-eyed classes.
Please keep on following us on all the social media channels.
(33:15):
We're @6degreesofcats.
(Number six, please.)
And of course, keep the podcast app fresh because we're going to be popping in here and there
with announcements and extras.
The best way to stay on top of things is to subscribe to the companion newsletter, which
is our mailing list.
So until then.
(33:36):
I want to thank my wonderful experts, Carol Johnson, Katie Bozek, and Melissa Victor.
While the opinions are my own, the research and work is theirs.
If you'd like to learn more about them, please check out our show notes, which also include
the references and research that went into this episode.
If you loved it, please shout it from the rooftops.
(33:58):
Write your local officials.
Recommend it to your favorite mailing lists or famous people or folks who are looking
to give away money to intrepid podcasters with cats, like me.
And we're always grateful for the kind of comments and five star ratings you're leaving
in those podcast apps that's super helpful.
And we appreciate that.
(34:19):
But most of all, we appreciate you.
Thank you so much, dear listeners.
To paraphrase one of our favorite songs, we are family.
Because as you all know by now, everything is connected.
One, two, one, two, three, four!
Six degrees of cats is produced, written, edited, and hosted by yours truly, Captain
(34:41):
Katie, aka Amanda B. Please subscribe to our mailing list by going to linktr.ee/6degreesofcats
or look us up on all those social media platforms.
You'll be first in line for the extra audio and more treats that can connect with us there.
All episodes are dedicated to the misunderstood, the marginalized, the resilient, and the
(35:06):
weird.
And of course, all the cats we've loved and lost.
We don't have a cat or a dog.
We have a hedgehog.
They are nocturnal, so she's more active in the evening time.
She eats a mixture of cat food.
(35:27):
You're going to have to do like a combined hedgehog cat podcast.
You were super tiny and had just been picked up off the street by a truck driver.
(00:06):
Ok, turn the page now.
He brought you to Broadway Animal Clinic and you were so cute and so ti--.
What do you mean you've heard this before?
Well fine, I guess we're done with the 'Snuggles Memory Book' for now.
Such a typical teenager.
(00:27):
Welcome back, Cool Cats and Cat Allies alike to 6 Degrees of Cats.
The world's best - and only
cat-themed culture, history and science podcast.
Not a day goes by where I don't wonder what is going on in the walnut-sized brains of
my little children or my co-executive producers, Binky and Snuggles.
(00:49):
Partly because we can't speak to each other, true, there's body language and tells.
You know, I've read all the books.
The ears, the tails, the fur raised, the vocalisms like hissing in the alley.
But what goes on behind Binky's big golden eyes when his pupils dilate?
(01:12):
Did he just remember something from his childhood?
Or Snuggles?
I can definitely sense the PTSD and it breaks my heart.
As well as the fixation on cardboard.
What's up with that Snugg?
I didn't have to do with Snuggles last minutes of her mom and siblings before she was extracted
(01:34):
from the side of the road that fatal day and adopted-
Wait a minute, it just occurred to me.
Snuggles, Binky and I don't know who our biological parents are.
We're all adopted.
In this season 2 finale of 6 Degrees of Cats, 'family' is the watchword.
(01:58):
We're gonna take a closer look at family.
And of course, these little adoptees we've brought into our homes, hearts and our families.
So, buckle up listeners.
It's time to get a little more purr-sonal.
(02:21):
In 2012, researchers found that there were more American households with pets than kids,
meaning there are more people in this country whose children have fur, feathers or scales than
human skin.
And yet, try telling that to HR if your time off policy precludes pet care or haven't
(02:42):
forbid pet bereavement.
Or justifying your cat's photo in your wallet to your college besties' flavor of the months
at Happy Hour, who is that guy that decides it's comedy hour and you're the sucker who
happens to be a lady with cats sitting right next to him.
And he has a YouTube channel.
Great.
Don't even try it with the US Census Bureau or the IRS.
(03:05):
Neither count pets as dependents.
I may or may not speak from experience.
What was I saying?
Right.
Family.
That's a word that either sends shivers down your spine, delight in your heart or perhaps
something ambiguous or in between.
(03:26):
What's that thing Trotsky said about families?
Maybe you feel like you have family?
They just aren't related to you.
Or maybe you feel like you just haven't found them yet.
Either way, there's no escaping the impact of family or lack thereof.
According to the UN, family is the fundamental group unit of society.
(03:52):
And claiming a family or being claimed by a family is a huge part of our identities.
I guess that's why there are so many plays, dramas, songs and stories about families.
The more I say the word family, the more I realize
just how amorphous that word is.
(04:13):
Here on the human side of things, it's said casually in conversation.
You know, cat, family, hay, fam, that kind of thing.
So let's dig into the word.
There's the family, capital T, capital F, you know, (whispers (04:27):
The Mafia) or cults.
be they corporate or religious.
"We're like family here."
Run, don't walk when you hear that in a job interview.
(04:47):
Or on the street, seriously, true story.
The Family International, formerly known as 'The Children of God' cult, repeatedly tried
to recruit me as a member when I lived in Tokyo.
I have no idea what about me screams, non-conformist open to weird stuff.
Whatever.
Oh, and of course, the family.
(05:11):
As in parents, kids, aunts, uncles, cousins, the court jester, the family frog.
Since this word has a variety of applications these days, let's get on the same page here.
As in, what's on the page when you look up F for family?
(05:33):
Here it is.
Oh, etymology.
I love bugs.
What's this say?
Brian, take it away.
Family is from late middle English and also from Latin, familiar for household servants
or family from families servant to denote the servants of a household or the retinue
(05:56):
of a nobleman.
Well now, that certainly adds a spin on the origin.
That's for the definition here.
A group of people consisting of one set of parents and their children whether living together
or not.
In wider sense, any group of people connected by blood, marriage, adoption, etc.
(06:23):
That's more or less what I expected.
And you know, it leaves a lot of people out.
What defines those connections?
How come it's just people?
Who came up with this anyway?
I am not the first to notice this.
Heck, there's a whole field of research dedicated to studying the family.
(06:47):
Human development and family studies at the time science now.
And I was fortunate to have consulted one such expert to understand the tiny telenovela
of our lives.
La familia, the family.
So, my name is Carol Johnston.
Human development and family science is what my masters and PhD are in.
(07:08):
I'm on faculty at Kansas State University in the Department of Applied Human Sciences.
I started looking at what happens when families change is.
Not necessarily the family structure itself, but isn't changing a lot.
So there's a lot of turnover in who's in the household and how that affects children
over time.
And that to me became very fascinating is really the core of what I do today.
(07:31):
As Dr. Johnston's work alludes, the concept of the family as two parents and kids, etc.
is a prerurious re-examination to start.
Think about the different family structures.
Like I think even today people would say that the ideal family structure is a two parent,
(07:52):
biological family home, right?
And that's actually not the case.
Before we have what we think of as the nuclear family, it could be that grandparents or
eight grandparents was really the head of the household or it could be that the parents
who were kind of what we would call now the sandwich generation were the head of the
household.
(08:13):
Thanks Dr. Johnston.
This was true in the 17th century when the colonists from Europe arrived on North American
shores then known as Turtle Island.
Those folks quickly stole from those 50 to 100 million people who called this continent
North America home at the time that are now collectively referred to as Native Americans,
(08:38):
who they then drove, trafficked or murdered off the land.
And then got to work harvesting the riches of this new world through real estate development,
trade and of course agriculture.
And at that this point where I think the genesis of the nuclear family story we're told
(09:02):
can be traced down on the farm.
Dr. Johnston takes the floor.
At the time, multiple generations of families were living basically on farms and helping
out in whatever way they could.
And they were working on the farm for example, children would go from children very quickly
to helpers.
(09:24):
They had more children because the more children the more help that there was.
And the industrial revolution really was one of the biggest movements away from that larger,
extended family to the smaller family that is more prevalent today.
A lot of that had to do with people moving to big cities getting jobs that weren't on the
(09:45):
farm and things like that.
And being able to really have the money to support a family without being on the family farm
like had been in the past.
And where adults could make a living in cities doing nine to five work essentially.
(...The good old days where you weren't always on--)
Actually, I don't think it was nine to five at the time.
It was more like 12 hours a day.
(10:06):
(Never mind.)
Interestingly, the average age of marriage also dropped during that same time, the late
19th and early 20th centuries, but has increased in recent decades.
So what we saw was when men and women were going to the city and they weren't with their
families, they were alone.
And so they started marrying earlier instead of later.
(10:27):
Fascinating.
I thought that would lead to people delaying marriage.
What else transformed?
As we saw smaller families, we started to seek this developmental period of adolescence.
It wasn't always there.
Ah, adolescence.
From workers in the house to slackers, some cases, sleeping and eating a lot, mood swings,
(10:54):
making messes, getting away with it.
And of course, there are always a round of need someone to give an unsolicited opinion.
That kind of sounds like my cats.
So about this industrial revolution.
You know, Ford;s Model T-Cars and the introduction of the assembly line manufacturing process,
(11:17):
which kicked off the huge global supply chain?
This transformation relieved US families from the hard work of being basically a one-home
factory, making everything from food to clothes to homes by hand from scratch.
You think this whole mass production system designed for surplus would then allow for everyone
(11:47):
to be comfortable and have food and not suffer through the winter worrying about how to
keep a roof over their head and the heat on.
You know, so people could rest.
To live like a house cat.
Well, you done thought wrong.
The shift really favors the wealthy and really hurts the working class in a lot of ways.
(12:13):
We don't have a lot of social resources for families in the US.
We don't have universal childcare.
It just doesn't give parents and women the option, right?
I have a friend who, his wife, it is cheaper for her to stay home with their children than
for her to work because childcare for her to work was more than her salary.
What happens when you don't buy into that and choose to be, say, a childless woman with
(12:43):
a cat?
When that nuclear family came about in the '50s, '60s, there was a stigma.
People who were single and adults were seen as weird or different.
Keeping the family nuclear has literally been a political platform to divide classes.
Excorating as, of course, morals and national security.
(13:07):
Case in point.
Ex-President Richard Nixon, who quashed the first national child care bill, which passed
in both the Senate and the House because it would have made us all communists or something.
What a win.
Seriously, look it up.
(13:29):
Now folks, nothing seems to be run on logic or actual real data in this tragically flawed
nation full of beautiful families of all shapes, sizes and admixtures.
I'm so glad we're taking the time to redefine the American family.
And we're going to continue talking about this with another expert after the break.
(13:50):
(montage of people at a baby shower)
(14:12):
"But will she ever learn to speak English?"
That was my great aunt, Bertha, R-I-P.
And her grand niece, yours truly, who derived just weeks prior from Seoul, South Korea
by way of Detroit International Airport.
Aunt Bertha, God bless her.
(14:34):
Born in the early 20th century, Aunt Bertha was raised during the Great Depression, the
youngest daughter in a relatively small family of seven.
Aunt Berth was one of those uncredited heroes of the Great Generation who never married or
had kids, and got stuck staying at home, providing free elder care for their parents, which allowed
(14:55):
her siblings to build wealth, nursing homes, cost a fortune, y'all.
As you may have guessed, I don't think she was able to get out much.
Obviously, yes, yours truly, did learn to speak English.
Before you gaffaw at what a silly, uneducated person Aunt Bertha must have been, remember.
(15:20):
Only relatively recently have we begun to appreciate the language acquisition genius brains
that babies possess.
Before Piaget and Pinker, folks thought babies were a tabula rasa, a blank slate onto which
all knowledge of the world was to be manually inscribed by their elders.
(15:41):
By that logic, I can see why it wouldn't seem as obvious that languages were teachable.
Aunt, quite frankly, our systems reinforce this because there is still a strong overbiased
for biology when it comes to family.
I'm reminded of this on a pretty regular basis.
Thanks for coming to see me, Amanda.
(16:02):
You're welcome.
So about this growth you're concerned about, you wrote something about it, looking like
the Virgin Mary and if we can corroborate that on the record.
The answer is no, but it is an odd shape.
Does anyone else in your family have a history?
(16:23):
I don't know my biological family's history.
I'm adopted.
I wrote it on the form...
So you don't have any records of your family medical history?
Yeah, I guess that's how that works.
Well, okay.
I guess we'll never know what it is then.
It'll probably kill you.
Oh, and your insurance doesn't cover the six AM so that'll be $3,000 payable at the
(16:45):
front desk.
Sherry can help you.
It's been like this for the past 26 years.
The medical industrial complex has a lot of room for improvement, but it seems like a
pretty quick win to just, well, adapt the questions already.
Because no, the word family should not intrinsically translate to genetic relatives.
(17:09):
I absolutely do not think families have to be genetically related to be considered family.
Absolutely not.
There's the census, US government definition, which is by blood or marriage or common law
or whatever that may be.
But I think that practically, logistically, day in and day out of our lives that there
are so many examples of people who step in to those familial roles in many different
(17:34):
ways, which may change along the way.
There's a class I teach, so I always ask what qualifies as a family and it's often mother,
father, sister, brother and friends.
When you think about a neighborhood, that's family in many ways, helping each other when
we're in need.
(17:54):
You see a lot of community in oppressed groups.
They have to rely on each other because the systems weren't built for them.
There's this community that's created that really steps in for family for resources.
They have a very strong, fictive kin network.
(18:18):
Fictive kin, in other words, I like the term people are using more currently now, chosen
family.
Who is your chosen family?
Because we have family that we may be tied to based on bloodlines.
We have families of experience that we may have grown up with that may or may not be tied
(18:40):
to us through bloodlines.
We have people that we choose to call our family that we may not have grown up with and
we may or may not have blood ties to.
That was a friend of mine who has literally known me since infancy and also happens to
have the bonafides to supplement Dr. Johnston's expertise on family.
(19:03):
I am Dr. Katie Bozek.
I am a licensed marriage and family therapist.
I have been providing mental health services to kids, families, couples, adults, anyone who
needs mental health services for the past 14 years.
I am also the executive director of the Korean American Adoptive Family Network also known
(19:28):
as KAAN.
I am the first Korean adoptee in this position in the history of KAAN and I have been in that
role since 2018.
The history of Korean adoption part of my history ties into a lot of what I covered with
Dr. Johnston.
(19:49):
In a national Korean adoptions began in 1953 with the Holt family.
After the Korean War, they adopted eight Korean children and they got so much press that
is really what started it off.
And a lot of those early adoptions were kids who were mixed race, Koreans, ammar Asian and
(20:15):
black Korean kids.
Gohorts shaped by the same lack of resources that Dr. Johnston and I discussed earlier.
There are so many layers, not just post-war but also the influence of religion and the
church's involvement.
I was always told, "Oh, your mom was probably young and couldn't take care of you."
(20:39):
Or your parents were too poor and couldn't take care of you.
That is not true.
Those are easy answers and it is not looking at all of the other layers that contribute
to how quarter million of the children have been adopted out of Korea since the 1950s.
The layers are economic, social, their international politics, their religion.
(21:08):
So the adoptions were starting post-war and now we have this boom in babies with unwed
moms.
At least for me, the time period where an eye was adopted, there's more factories.
Every work, more people from the rural areas were moving into the bigger cities, which then
meant more cohabitation and unwed pregnancies.
(21:30):
And then put on the patriarchal nature of society then, what do we do?
While it does have its roots in altruism, adoption is an individual imperfect, band-aid solution
for a systemic problem that leads children to be removed from the people, places and
resources that inform on so many fundamental aspects of their identities.
(21:55):
It is a trauma to separate a child from their homes, their ancestors and their cultures,
especially given the critical intergenerational kinship networks that naturally form among
blood relatives.
There's a lot more to say about the many intersecting complexities about trans-racial transnational
adoption, but I'll just say, as with blood and DNA.
(22:19):
Paperwork that gives the baby a new name and new parents does not a family make.
Adopties have a mom, dad, extended family, but that doesn't get at the quality of relationship.
That is based on the work that you put into how you relate to one another and building
(22:43):
that relationship, not just on those titles.
That makes a family is a very individual question that we all have to ask ourselves, who do
we consider family, why do we consider them family and just that personal question of,
to me, what does being a family mean?
Just because you are "family" that's the title does not necessarily mean you enjoy spending
(23:07):
time with them.
I know lots of people in work and outside of work who do not want to go back home for
the holidays.
I want to spend time with family because they are not the ones who are supportive, encouraging
and loving in the ways that they need or want.
Think about the rise in celebrating friends giving, having a holiday with your chosen family,
(23:29):
the people that you would want to be around, in addition to the quote unquote traditional
family holiday.
So I think we are moving towards just that idea of those who we can count on, who support
us, who are encouraged, who love us in the ways that we need and want.
Just based on title.
Too often we talk about family as who's your real family, right?
(23:50):
They don't want to say real because, again, going back to the adoptive narrative of who
are your real parents.
My parents who adopted me are still real.
They're not fake.
They're not figments of my imagination, right?
But who's my genuine family?
Who's my authentic family?
Who is the family that I choose to surround myself with and call family?
(24:14):
Those are the people that validate my experience in a firm, what I'm saying.
They're the ones who are supporting me, who I know I can share who I am, if that makes
sense.
You know, adoptive families themselves are not well studied.
(24:35):
There's a dearth of literature on adoptive family dynamics and comparison to blood families.
We have a lot of anecdotal stories and there's certainly been some research done in the early
90s.
But there's just not a large body of research on adoptions, particularly from a family science
or family sociology perspective.
We do, however, have a lot on adopties themselves or ourselves.
(25:03):
We adopties have long been used in observational and experimental psychology as research subjects,
especially in any research investigating the age-old question of nature versus nurture,
a field now called epigenetics.
Epigenetics is looking at the interaction of the environment or nurture and genetics
(25:25):
or nature.
Where nurture turns on that nature gene, right?
And so something in the environment helps grow or encourage something that might occur
more naturally.
In a dopte, they still have those genetics that are being interacted with this new environment
that they're in.
(25:46):
Those epigenetics may play out differently for adopties versus children here with their
biological parents.
And so I think that when you think about nature versus nurture, so much of it is one of those
natural inclinations, do we see and then do we encourage as they grow?
Whether that's finding community or building up different talents?
(26:13):
So it's so interesting that like this musical baby was adopted by this visually creative
mom.
My mom is more of an introvert.
I'm more of an extrovert clearly, but it meshes so well.
So while I don't carry her introvertedness, I can understand people on that level because
of her, which is great.
And I'm very desire to stay involved in her community has really rubbed off on me because
(26:39):
I love to be involved in my community.
That was our friend, fellow podcaster and actor, Melissa Vector.
Also known as Melly, I am the host and creator of a kid podcast called Stude Kid Stories.
I work in kid podcasting by day and I'm a musical theater performer at night.
(27:01):
So much of Melly's podcast addresses, well, family and how to make people feel included and
welcomed.
All vital parts of truly feeling with and among family, which Melly and I discussed.
The first thing that comes to mind when I think of family is belonging.
I don't need blood to be like, that's my family, you know, the idea of chosen family.
(27:25):
We see church family, you see your school family like, who do you belong to?
Who were you connected to?
Who you care about 110% who you love 110% and it doesn't even have to be blood.
What communities do you want to insert yourself in that unconditional love and care and support?
(27:45):
Like Katie and I, Melly is also adopted, but there's one significant difference in her family
story.
Her mother and her biological family were already connected through geography and racial identity.
I'm not the trans-racial adoptee.
I was born in Baltimore and I've been with my mom since I was seven days old.
(28:08):
She was approached in church and she's like, "Okay, I can foster a kid.
I think in the state of Maryland, I can legally get adopted until I was like four or five.
So then around, I want to say six years old, I was like, "Mommy, I want a little sister.
Like, I'd send me a little sister."
And then the social worker called and said, "Hey, Ms. Victor, Melissa's biological mom had
(28:30):
another kid.
Would you be open to adopting her as well?"
And she turns to me and she says, "You want a little sister?"
Of course, I say, "Yes."
So I got to grow up with my biological sister.
I do not share my mother's blood, but I share so many other things.
And there's a list of 100 things and blood is number one.
(28:52):
I share 99 of those things.
And I always say you look like the people that feed you, the unconditional love and care
of support that is between the three of us is unmatched.
I belong to my mom, belong to my sister.
I belong in this family.
I love that.
Whether by nature or nurture.
(29:12):
Like Melly, I do in some ways look like the ones who fed me.
I smile and speak exactly like my mom, per my friend Yuki.
And when friends who see me at my best notice just how grounded and pragmatic I can be, I attribute
that to both of my parents.
(29:33):
On the other side of things though, I was definitely the black sheep.
Still am.
A cat, the music, Weird Al.
Things that are intrinsically part of who I am.
But my folks showed themselves to be genuine family to this scrappy little cabbage patch
kitten by celebrating and supporting my quirks.
(29:56):
Thanks, Ma and Pa, Kitten, my real parents, my genuine kid.
But enough about me.
At this point, we've come far in this kitty family investigation.
In my research, I came upon a really great article in LitHub examining the word family across
(30:18):
the diversity of cultures and languages.
The common thread wasn't blood or the structure.
It was the sharing of a domicile, a safe and warm place to call home.
I was actually talking to a vet friend of mine this week and one thing she mentioned to
me that I thought was just fascinating and it's so true is that really it's only been
(30:40):
the last 25, 30 years they've created these great medications to make sure that our animals
don't have fleas and ticks.
Cats can be in the house all the time.
So I think because they are more indoor now and can be indoor more often, they are seen
more as a part of the family.
(31:00):
Well friends, or should I say fam?
Since we well established that this "nuclear family" is total fiction.
I hereby declare that anyone who you mutually hold in your heart and welcome into your home
definitely are cats, counts as a full-fledged member of the fam.
(31:22):
And if you need me to write a strongly word and note to your manager justifying your
PTO request to take Mr. Whiskers to the vet, call on me or send them this episode.
Hence, my airtight, totally uncontroversial case for including cats as full-fledged family,
not as visitors, not as pets, but truly genuine chosen family.
(31:46):
Family.
When I call you family and I become yours, your can becomes mine.
We're all just six or less degrees apart in that way.
We are all now each other's family.
And that's our cats too.
(32:09):
Y'all, when I gaze upon the faces of my son and my daughter, it makes me feel so lucky.
What a blessing to have adopted these two.
Hey Snugs.
Okay fine, next time you write the episode closing.
Alright, we tried that in season one.
Soms.
(32:32):
I can't believe we've arrived at our final destination this season.
Thank you so much for joining us on SS 6 Degrees of Cats.
Talk about a trip.
The team and I had such a blast and we really appreciate the kind of notes, emails, reviews,
and of course, the interactions on social media and on our Substack.
(32:55):
Please keep them coming.
We'll be taking a break for a few months, preparing for the launch of season three with a fresh
roster of passengers from the worlds of academia, the arts and the sciences with our usual
unique take on the world through, of course, cat-eyed classes.
Please keep on following us on all the social media channels.
(33:15):
We're @6degreesofcats.
(Number six, please.)
And of course, keep the podcast app fresh because we're going to be popping in here and there
with announcements and extras.
The best way to stay on top of things is to subscribe to the companion newsletter, which
is our mailing list.
So until then.
(33:36):
I want to thank my wonderful experts, Carol Johnson, Katie Bozek, and Melissa Victor.
While the opinions are my own, the research and work is theirs.
If you'd like to learn more about them, please check out our show notes, which also include
the references and research that went into this episode.
If you loved it, please shout it from the rooftops.
(33:58):
Write your local officials.
Recommend it to your favorite mailing lists or famous people or folks who are looking
to give away money to intrepid podcasters with cats, like me.
And we're always grateful for the kind of comments and five star ratings you're leaving
in those podcast apps that's super helpful.
And we appreciate that.
(34:19):
But most of all, we appreciate you.
Thank you so much, dear listeners.
To paraphrase one of our favorite songs, we are family.
Because as you all know by now, everything is connected.
One, two, one, two, three, four!
Six degrees of cats is produced, written, edited, and hosted by yours truly, Captain
(34:41):
Katie, aka Amanda B. Please subscribe to our mailing list by going to linktr.ee/6degreesofcats
or look us up on all those social media platforms.
You'll be first in line for the extra audio and more treats that can connect with us there.
All episodes are dedicated to the misunderstood, the marginalized, the resilient, and the
(35:06):
weird.
And of course, all the cats we've loved and lost.
We don't have a cat or a dog.
We have a hedgehog.
They are nocturnal, so she's more active in the evening time.
She eats a mixture of cat food.
(35:27):
You're going to have to do like a combined hedgehog cat podcast.
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