I can do SPOT-ON Natasha:
Boris, you FOOL!
Of course they are! Our cats are our babies! And I read something recently that supports that: when cats are kept as housecats, they enter a prolonged adolescence, even if they're of adult age, and it's especially true of females.
Which might explain why our 7 yr old Tuxie hisses like a kettle everytime she lays eyes on the 7 month old kitten Annabel, I guess it's her version of "mean girls."
But Tuxie has always been emotionally dysfunctional; she was a feral kitten who showed up on our carport, literally starving, nothing but bones, fur, and fleas, so she never socialized properly to humans; to this very day, if anyone other than us enters the house, she runs and hides like she's running for her life. Annabel is a more typical cat, she sees something interesting, she runs to investigates it -- naturally she finds Tuxie FASCINATING, so she runs to her -- Tuxie construes that as being chased, and reacts with extreme negativity. Once Annabel is pretty much full-sized, we're going to stop separating them and just let them hash it out. If Tuxie bats Annabel with her claws, I think Annabel will get the message.
Andria