Scientifically, cats literally relate to humans in at least a partially parental way.
Making biscuits on you is a kitten behaviour. Cats learned to make cries that have elements of human infant sounds as part of their self-domestication. They literally seek a relationship with us with features of parenthood to it.
Yes, they can absolutely tell the difference between human children and adults and also co-parent with us on kittens AND human infants - that’s why many cats will put up with clumsiness and somewhat unwieldy love from their human’s babies and toddlers that they would never tolerate from an adult human, because that is *their* giant hairless kitten too, and they *get* that kittens are clumsy and playful and don’t mean harm.
Feral cats live in colonies and have complex social relationships. They can react to us as adults *and* as parents, because that’s a common situation in colonies.
I hate when people who, frankly tend to not understand animal social behaviour even slightly, denigrate our relationships with our animal companions. It’s too frequently just anthrocentric BS; this idea that humans aren’t another animal too and that one of our species behaviours isn’t seeking community, including with other species as well as our own.
None of this means it’s okay to treat a cat like a human baby, or worse yet like a toy. The point is that cats are autonomous social beings like us, even if the way they manifest that is different from the majority of humans or dogs, and having a form of a parental relationship with your cat is absolutely fine, same as having a sibling relationship, or a roommate relationship, and people who denigrate others for regarding their animal companions as autonomous beings with their own needs, personalities and emotions are being shitty.
