Should Medicine Cats Be Allowed to Have Kits? by Mousebrain ft. Eggsnake

Mousebrain and Eggsnake share their thoughts on the famous medicine cat rule.

Hello, it’s me Mousebrain! I’m here today with Eggsnake to talk about whether medicine cats should be allowed to have mates and kits. We both wrote entire essays about it in the elder’s den so why not publish it!
Eggsnake: unpopular opinion: the rule that says medicine cats should not have a mate or kits actually makes sense
hear me out: in real life, doctors or surgeons operating on family members is already a recipe for disaster. obviously, you’re gonna be more emotional because your loved one’s life depends on you, and you’re gonna make bad decisions because of that. in the warrior cats world, no medicine cat is going to want to see their kittens come into the medicine den with horrible battle wounds and be tasked with patching them up. no medicine cat will want to forcefully feed their kittens yarrow if they get deathberry poisoning. the job of a doctor is stressful enough operating on strangers (and in the warrior cats world, clanmates/friends) who can sometimes be screaming and crying in pain; having a family as a medicine cat is simply too dangerous, and too stressful.
to add to that last point, because there are oftentimes only two or three (sometimes only one) medicine cats for each giant clan, it’s only natural that the job would take up all that cat’s free time. they would have no time for a family when they’re already balancing all that stress with their vital connection to starclan. that’s why having a mate as a medicine cat is considered such a betrayal to the clan; it’s actively abandoning your duties. the lifestyle of a warrior cat is almost constantly fighting, getting sick, falling from trees, stuff like that; they need a medicine cat to always be there to help. not just a medicine apprentice, a full medicine cat.
that’s not to say this rule is perfectly logical, of course. these problems can be mitigated by having every clan have way more medicine cats (i’m talking eight at the very least for each one, the clans are absolutely massive). this would make it so that available medicine cats can do the others’ jobs when preoccupied with other [family] matters. the problem is that this role is attached to a connection to starclan, and that’s why medicine apprentices have to be chosen by the medicine cat. it’s confusing to me why they would make it this way when the clans are so huge and live such a dangerous lifestyle; why not have every cat learn herbs, and have a separate role for cats with a connection to starclan? but it’s undeniable that the medicine cat holds a lot of cultural importance to the clans, so maybe the fault lies with starclan, and they should just start giving a lot more cats a good connection to starclan or something like that, idk. the bottom line is, if nothing changes, then this rule shouldn’t change, either.
Mousebrain: Here’s my take on the subject: 1. In real life, doctors have kids all the time without any problems. 2. Medicine cats already deal with their family members all the time? Leafpool had Jayfeather, Hollyleaf and Lionblaze who she cared for. She also has a sister, Squirrelstar, parents, Firestar and Sandstorm. “The lifestyle of a warrior cat is almost constantly fighting, getting sick, falling from trees, stuff like that; they need a medicine cat to always be there to help.” But they don’t always fight anymore. Most issues are resolved without violence, we got a mediator. There wasn’t any violence in ASC except inside Riverclan, and just because a medicine cat has kits doesn’t mean that they will stop doing their job. Most medicine cats are spending at least 70% of the time collecting herbs or worrying about the latest prophecy. Alderheart also had a sister that he cared about but was able to heal her? Are you saying medicine cats should just not have anyone that they care about so they can do their job better? 3. “they would have no time for a family when they’re already balancing all that stress with their vital connection to starclan. that’s why having a mate as a medicine cat is considered such a betrayal to the clan; it’s actively abandoning your duties” They do have time for their families, because they already do have families. Jayfeather had Hollyleaf and Lionblaze? Alderheart had Sparkpelt? Shadowsight had his entire family? Clans are also extremely tight knit groups, there are no “strangers” so healing anyone would be just as stressful. It’s also not “betraying your clan”, because your mate can take care of the kits while you’re doing your job. This is also ignoring the existence of nursery queens, like Daisy and Ferncloud, who take care of kits as a full-time job.
Eggsnake: 1. but in real life, their kids almost always have other doctors to go to (and most kids in real life with doctor parents don’t get forced to join the army when they get older, at least not anymore, i think…). warriors is weird and has each clan only have a couple of medicine cats all sharing one den, and medicine cats don’t specialize into pediatrician cats, so the possibility of a medicine cat having to treat their own child for a serious problem is much higher.
2. treating their other family members is definitely also an issue. my point here is that they shouldn’t add to that issue by starting a family of their own. the fact that the cats don’t fight so much anymore only slightly resolves the dangerous lifestyle of a feral cat, as there are still diseases, other wild animals, natural accidents (like trees falling), etc.. kittens, especially newborn kittens, require an insane amount of maintenance (especially if the medicine cat is the mother – if they are the father, then it may be a little less demanding), so yes, it would be a major distraction from their jobs if not preventing them from doing their job entirely. i’m not saying that they can’t have loved ones, i’m only saying that this rule makes logical sense because of how strssful their job already is.
3. as stated previously, kittens require a lot more maintenance than adult cats. hanging out with family can be as simple as talking while sorts herbs; if you imagine kittens as human toddlers, you can imagine how much time and energy raising them would take. they need constant attention, they need food from their mothers, they need to be taught the warrior code and things they won’t learn during apprenticeship. permanent queens would certainly make this easier, but even then, that’s like leaving your child with a babysitter for nearly their entire childhood life. they still need you, and they still need to a form a bond with you, or they probably won’t be very fond of you later on in life (know this from experience). this also would not get rid of the issue of medicine cats having to treat their own kittens for terrible wounds or conditions. i believe i’ve made my point about the already-messed up nature of the medicine role by now, but i’ll say it again: their job is already stressful enough, and i’m not saying their job is not already ridden with emotional dilemmas. having kittens would only exacerbate this issue.
to summarize: the job of a medicine cat is messed up and stressful enough, and they don’t need the extra stress of starting a family to harm their job performance, and by extension, their clan. honestly with all this being considered it’s pretty obvious that this role was not thought through very well. because of the nature of the clans, this job is like juggling being an er doctor with being a priest with being a functional human being (i compare the role of a medicine cat to the role of an er doctor because of how frequently the cats would realistically come in and how serious their injuries can be). being an er doctor is one of the most stressful and emotionally demanding jobs in existence, to force all of those responsibilities along with all that starclan crap onto just a couple of cats is ridiculous. honestly idk why any medicine cat would even want to start a family when they have that much stuff to deal with. i may be overexaggerating how stressful this job would be, but i’m just being realistic.

Mousebrain: “but even then, that’s like leaving your child with a babysitter for nearly their entire childhood life…”
It wouldn’t be their entire childhood, only if there is a medical emergency that you need to take care of, you could leave you kits with the queens while you are taking care of it. Normal warriors do this all the time when they go out doing stuff, the kits are in the nursery and the warriors come by when they can to check up on their kits.
I wouldn’t say Starclan even matters in a med cat’s actual duties at all. There are med cats like Shadowsight and Mothwing with no connection to Starclan at all and they are doing perfectly fine. Starclan isn’t much of a responsibility either, its just that you have to talk to you ancestors every half moon for a couple minutes while most of the time they have nothing useful to say to you. Some of the time, if you are integral to the plot, you will get something to stress about, but all these cats usually do is tell their leader. I wouldn’t say it is comparable to being a priest because they don’t actually have any duties other than to chat with dead guys and very rarely tell their leaders about any prophecies once a month.
Also its not like med cats are always overworking themselves or anything. Most of the time there is no cats that are sick or maybe some mild injuries. Med cats don’t work that much more than ordinary warriors regularly, they only do when there is an emergency. Emergencies don’t happen very often in the books, and yes, for those few chapters the med cat will struggle to be with their kid because they need to solve the problem. The rest of the time, they could be taking care of their kits. Other than those few chapters, the med cat life is fairly routine, collect herbs, prescribe meds / do quick treatment, Starclan once a moon.
Warriors also has a strong kinship structure within the clans, a kit born in the clans is like kin to everyone. The elders and queens tell the kits what they need to know, which isn’t very much.
“they need to be taught the warrior code…” They don’t though. We can see in the books that kits pretty much know nothing except from stuff from overhearing elders (and a little bit of xenophobia). They only are taught the warrior code as an apprentice.
“this also would not get rid of the issue of med cats having to treat their own kittens for terrible wounds or conditions. i believe i’ve made my point about the already-messed up nature of the med role by now, but i’ll say it again: their job is already stressful enough, and i’m not saying their job is not already ridden with emotional dilemmas.,,”
The emotional dilemmas would probably never happen, worst case scenario the cat just chooses a cat to save. Having more than one med cat would eliminate any biases and prevent a hypothetical from being an emotional dilemma anyway. Leafpool also did have kits and nothing changed for her, no emotional dilemmas and she was able to treat all of their wounds.
“this job is like juggling being an er doctor with being a priest with being a functional human being (i compare the role of a med cat to the role of an er doctor because of how frequently the cats would realistically come in and how serious their injuries can be)”
But, how many patients does an ER Doctor have on the average day? 15 – 20. Med cat? 1 – 3. How long does it take an ER Doctor to deal with the issue? A couple hours. Med cat? 10 – 20 minutes. How often do ER doctors have to deal with lethal situations? Every day. Med cats? Once every few moons or so (on average). Sure a med cat may have to deal with dangerous injuries, but 99% of the time they don’t. I already talked about how they aren’t really so much as priests as they are fortune tellers (once a month btw), so I don’t think their jobs are stressful enough to ban them from having kits.
Eggsnake: everything you describe here is going by book logic rather than actual logic. what i mean by that is, while i’m speaking from a realistic point of view, the books most certainly aren’t. in the recent books, sure, it may make sense for them to be allowed to have families because they get so few patients for some reason, but if you just look at what a medicine cat is supposed to do (that is, treat their whole clan for injuries/illnesses and be their clan’s main connection to starclan) the rule makes way more sense. i believe the authors came up with it when the books were first being written because of the reasons stated in my original comment, before they had the whole book series/evolution planned out.
to elaborate on emotional dilemmas: this may have been poor wording on my part. it’s very hard to see clanmates in pain or sick and be tasked with saving their lives. apparently the books are written so that the mental health toll on medicine cats is never explored, which kind of sucks, i’m gonna be honest. that’s just another byproduct of the books not being all too realistic.
to elaborate on them not being written well: treating just a couple patients a day when the clans have over fifty cats or something all living in the wilderness which has natural predators, dangerous terrain, etc., especially when they go to the medicine den for something as minor as a thorn in the paw… that just doesn’t make any sense. if they really did get that few patients and they didn’t actually have to have a connection to starclan (which apparently they don’t anymore, that’s my bad), their jobs are just incredibly free. what do they do all day?
(by realistic, i mean logical, i don’t think the books need to drop their fantasy atmosphere or anything. obviously this is a children’s book series centered around talking cats so i don’t expect them to actually describe the life of an er doctor. i just expect the books to hold themselves to some sort of logic, which they honestly don’t, which is exactly why this somewhat reasonable rule doesn’t make any sense in this context)
Mousebrain: 1st Para: We are talking about med cats in the books though, so the book logic is the actual logic lol. I guess you are talking from a design perspective that the way med cats were originally implied to be designed they wouldn’t be able to have kits. But we will never know what was going through the authors’ heads and med cats have consistently been written in a way that would completely allow them to have kits.
2nd Para: Ikr! It is rarely explored in WC but in emergency cases, it is. The time when the cats start getting Yellowcough, you can see the toll on the med cats before it is cured for good.
3rd Para: There aren’t many predators in the forests, we see foxes a couple of times throughout the series but 99% the cats never get involved with them. All of the warriors know their territory inside out, so the terrain usually isn’t dangerous to them (except the occasional thorn). But this is how med cats are written throughout the main series, so this is canon. So yeah! Their jobs have a lot of down time that they could be using to take care of their kits the way they are written in canon. Alderheart even does take care of his kit (Twigbranch) and take her to Shadowclan to play with Violetshine when he was a medicine cat.
“i just expect the books to hold themselves to some sort of logic, which they honestly don’t, which is exactly why this somewhat reasonable rule doesn’t make any sense in this context”
Yeah, Warriors is notorious for having a lot of plot holes and unexplained decisions by the authors. But this context is what we have, and based on this context, med cats should 100% be allowed to have kits. If Warriors were written in a way that was actually brutal, with many deaths and injuries happening every day, I could see med cats not allowed to have kits as somewhat reasonable. But that isn’t what Warriors is about, so med cats should be allowed kits.

That’s it for today Blogclan! If anyone wants us to continue this debate or if you want to see other debates, let me know in the comments!