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Caring for Caregivers - Expert Advice on Coping with Dementia

Throughout the various stages of parenthood, people have always referred to “the woods.” As infants, once our children slept through the night we were (supposedly) “out of the woods.” However, the forest was far more expansive than those early parenting metaphors suggested. Toilet training? Woods. Feeding themselves? Woods. Walking? Woods.Tropical, temperate, boreal. Woods, woods, woods.

Recently, when my eldest child turned 13 years-old, I benefited from the wisdom of friends whose sons and daughters have passed through the fires of adolescence. I realized I was not out of any woods. I am now, rather, strolling the pastures between them. Drivers licenses and drinking ages were crouched like bandits in the forest beyond the next bluff.

But, as with many of my sandwich generation peers, the next thicket bloomed even sooner than predicted; my mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and Lewy Body dementia. I have reflected on the trials, fears, and compromises necessary to see to it that she is being well cared for, as well as to accept what I cannot change. Through that article, and conversations since, I realized what a comfort it was for me to talk with not only other children of parents afflicted with dementia willing to share their struggle, but also to have access to the reassurance and expertise of those who support and treat victims of cognitive illnesses.

Though these diseases can manifest themselves through myriads of different symptoms, the caregivers’ challenges (and stresses, and fears) are remarkably similar. While families are often thrown into a state of panic by the realization of what steps must be taken to protect their parent, medical staff who specialize in caring for patients and their families rarely encounter a scenario they are not familiar with.

Sabrina Dion is a registered nurse at a private residence which specializes in caring for men and women at various stages of loss of autonomy.

She sympathises with those living with the emotional weight of moving a parent into a home for the first time. While altruism is an able motivator, the burden can detract from - and begin to deteriorate - the caregiver’s relationship with their spouse, their children, and their career. Dion says this can have devastating emotional costs:

Families are very upset, families feel a lot of guilt, families are going through a crisis.
Parents are no longer in their home, their safety’s at risk. So it’s a rush to get them into a safe environment.
It’s a struggle between, “How I am going to handle my home life?” and, “How am I going to make sure my mom or my dad, or either, or both is ok?”
And then I remind them, “What you’re doing is looking out for your mother’s or father’s best interests. You know they’re in an unsafe environment, and you know you can give them a better quality of life given you can’t change the outcome of dementia or Alzheimer’s.” 
This is where it becomes a mish-mash, this is where it becomes really challenging. You have to have a career, you have to get to work, you have to take care of your children. The you have to make sure that your parents - if they’re compromised with the loss of autonomy or of cognitive deficits - are taken care of as well. It’s a lot. Caregiver burnout, that’s the big thing that I look for...that’s my red flag.
Because you taking mom or dad to your home, and not being able to be there and not being able to understand, and burning out, is not going to help them in the long run.

Dominic Smith - Elder and Rehabilitation Care

Caroline Ménard is a psychologist, and coordinator of the Behavioural and Psychological Symptoms of Dementia team at the University of Montreal Geriatric Institute. She says it is often easiest to think of this time as a time to mourn^*:

It is no longer the mother or the person you knew. It is like mourning for the person you used to know; mourning for them before their passing. It is mourning for what was their daily life, which has now become the loss of a driver’s license or the person leaving their apartment. There is also the loss of the person they used to be; they may have been very reserved and now they act out. Those changes can be very, very emotionally difficult.

 Once the elderly parent is removed from the dangers of autonomy, the child and lifelong friends of the patient become spectators of the slow, long-term ravages of cognitive decline. The patient’s personality changes, their physical abilities diminish, and their memory becomes confused and diffused. Dion spoke to me about those feelings of helplessness:

You can visit your parent, and the parent doesn’t recognize you. That’s a really difficult one for children to deal with. That’s when a lot of the children come to my office and it’s like, “Wow, I can’t believe that just happened, that person is my mother.”
So it’s to remind them that if they call you your brother or your husband or tell you, “I know you but I don’t know your name,” just keep going with the conversation. Because there is no point in trying to pull things out of a person. It will get them frustrated, it will get them upset, it will get you upset.

Ménard points out that while specific memories may no longer be viable, emotional memories may last until the very end, and should not be ignored:

The person may not recognize a person as being their son or daughter, but they will still feel happiness when they see that person because of the history they shared.
I have seen people nearly unresponsive in their beds, but upon hearing their spouse’s voice, their eyes open and they smile. That is their affective memory.

Photo: Mariano Cuajao

Victims of Alzheimer’s may also become physically abusive to those they formerly cared for. This impulsive behaviour is the disease, not its host. It is an uncontrollable impulsive reaction. Although it may seem a very personal, hurtful act, the recipient must remind themselves they have done nothing wrong. They are caring for someone losing their filter.

Ménard iterates that each person digests the realities of Alzheimer’s in their own way. Some may react with urgency, while other need time, and distance. Reactions of families and friends can be as varied as the effects of the disease itself:

For some children, accepting what’s coming creates too much anxiety, it’s too difficult. Sometimes it’s better to just deal with this moment. But, eventually, you have to express your emotions. Support groups can be extremely helpful navigating a person through the changes which lie ahead.

She also stresses the importance of asking for help before burnout takes a physical and emotional toll:

There are many more resources than there used to be. There’s the Alzheimer's Society of Canada, for instance. It is important for the child to understand the illness. Since you yourself are a child, and you may also have young children in your life, you have to be able to express what you’re living through, and the emotions which are being triggered; that can be very helpful. You have to ask for help.

Guilt. That emotion that often forbids one from finding their way out of the woods. It is all-powerful, and ironically had its profile created throughout our upbringing with our parents. And no one can trigger a more pointed guilt reflex in a child than their mother or father. There is often so much unresolved, so much unspoken. And, now, as a result of cognitive decline, that relationship may be beyond redemption.

Dion reassures families that that time has passed, and children can feel pride in refocusing their energies:

I think a good reminder and takeaway is for children who have parents who have Alzheimer's or any type of vascular dementia or Lewy Body, is to remember that, whatever choice you’re making, if it’s for your parent’s best interests, it’s always the right decision. And you have to understand that you have permission to live your life and raise your own children. It’s the natural cycle of life.

Being lost in the woods is also part of life's natural cycle. With dementia, that journey can take years to complete. Perhaps the challenge is not seeking a path out of the forest, but to try to find the right tools for long-term survival, as well as company for the journey ahead.

Wayne S. Grazio - Lost (in one's thoughts)

* Interview with Caroline Ménard conducted in French. I provided the English translation.

 

 

Sgt. Pepper Puts a Spin on Connecting with Teen

We had a turntable in our basement, though I had no appreciation at the time of how inferior a machine it really was. It spun primarily Dr. Seuss's “Fox in Sox,” and its ‘B’ side, “Green Eggs and Ham.” Another favorite of mine was an LP of “Sneetches and Other Stories,” also by Seuss. The last track on the album - its “A Day In The Life” - told the story of Seuss's gender non-specific protagonist being stalked by a pair of pale green pants with nobody inside them.
In 1979, I was not yet 8-years-old; the thought of being pursued by abandoned trousers was darn spooky, thank you.
My records were decorated with chalk doodles and tattooed with permanent needle drags. But, who cared? The machine, and the stories it told, were timeless companions...until, that summer, I was introduced to what true magic could be conjured by a vinyl record.

My family’s semi-detached cottage was in semi-industrial suburb on the island of Montreal. Several times each year, the six of us would pack ourselves - and our patience - into a midsize sedan and drive five or six hours west to visit my first-cousins in Toronto. The three Ontario brothers were, on average, ten years older than I. So, not only was I careful to pack a healthy imagination for a long drive sandwiched between by siblings in the back seat, I was also smuggling a healthy portion of hero worship for the visit that awaited me.

As with most homes that are not your own, my perception of the house in the borough of East York was that it was filled with cool stuff. There was the secret kitchen drawer filled with Twizzlers and marshmallows. There was an upright piano guarding a basement room whose floor was coated with orange shag carpeting. As if waiting for a scene from Studio 54, the matting continued up the side of a bar, whose melamine counter was illuminated with red and green pot lights which resembled oven burners inverted into the ceiling.

Trippy. Even for an 8-year-old.

Each of my cousins’ bedrooms had as its centerpiece a high-end hi-fi system, with hearty speakers of dark wood and black mesh hiding behind them whatever magic made the music.

The stereo offered only two sources of entertainment: an AM/FM radio...and “phono,” which channeled the turntable.

While I sat cross-legged on his bedroom floor (my 1979 joints were more forgiving than they have been in the 21st century), my cousin selected an album from the horizontal stack in his closet and said, “You should listen to this.”

He handed me a pair of headphones which were so large that, once they were clamped over your ears, one could not help but compare oneself to Princess Leia, whose brunette Kaiser rolls had become legendary two years earlier.

The ‘phones were umbilically connected to the amplifier by the granddaddy of electrical cords - a black, coiled cable long enough to remain attached to your headphones and still offer a freedom of movement which would compete with the cordless technology a decade into the future (until it became a knotted mess as a result of too much pacing and multi-tasking).

The headphone jack sparked and hummed as I connected it to its female counterpart - as though whatever was bottled inside the machine sensed its imminent release.

Moments later, as the needle skated along the first inches of vinyl groove, I was introduced to “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.”

What a funny name, I thought.

Then, immersed in my first stereo recording experience, I was surrounded by an orchestra tuning up, followed by a rock band’s thirty-nine minute story which began “...20 Years Ago Today.”

Thirty-nine years later, my wife and I smuggled our thirteen-year-old son’s Christmas present out from the corner of our bedroom - an Audio-Technica turntable.

Everything old is new again.

In our basement, leaning up against books of decades ago by Ayn Rand and Stephen King (the former my wife’s, the latter mine), stood a dusty collection of mistreated vinyl: Faithful Seuss, Hitchcock stories, and Batman adventures. All of which were fettered with more scratches and speed-bump warps than any needle could handle.

The old gang was no match for a new phonograph.

This is why my son’s gift also included a certain album whose cover alone could captivate one for hours.

“Listen to this.”

Fate has its own sense of timing which often dabbles in the extremes of “perfect” and “horrible.” Ron Howard’s “Eight Days a Week,” was released in 2016. The following year, the world would celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Fab Four’s seminal album. As a companion to the musical landmark, PBS broadcasted “Sgt. Pepper’s Musical Revolution.”

The documentary dissected the LP: how it was recorded, why is was recorded, what techniques were used, and how innovated the band - and especially George Martin - had to be to glean the sound they wanted from 1967 technology.

Perfect. Fate provided my eldest with a Sgt. Pepper master class during the run-up to Christmas.

 

Turntable by David Lenker

 

While my son’s gift was uncovering the revolutionary magic of analog needles and grooves, my gift was reliving my adolescence through the hums of base notes and the vibrations of rock-band-meets-orchestra working its way through my bedroom floor.

In his room, just below mine and my wife’s, the record was spun over and over, with brief pauses only to rotate from side A and back again.

Nostalgia is a creeping companion. It appears to some as re-creations of memories, to others as the mechanical wonder of a needle racing round and round through a vinyl canal, digging from them the ghosts of an English quartet.
I think this is where the past is a wink ahead of the future.

The past was never instantaneous. Anticipation and patience were things to be celebrated: the moments during which the record spun, but the needle still searched for a composition’s first notes; the slow-motion retreat of a tone arm back to its seated position awaiting whatever jewel may be encrusted in the B side of a classic work.

Digital is instant. Digital is right now. To lag is to fail; to wait is to waste. There is no anticipation in buffering, only aggravation.

A vinyl record is, like a child, is something which must be cared for; something which takes time to play itself through; something to discover.
The only thing which gives more pleasure than marvelling in discovery is being awed by rediscovery.

I will never relive my first encounter with Green Eggs, or Hitchcock, or the Batman. But I can, thankfully, revel in my reintroduction to Lovely Rita (where would I be without her?). All thanks to a little help from a revolving platform, a curious teenager, and that infamous band leader, Sergeant Pepper.

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It was her makeup application that first made me think something was not right. Foundation that was a few millimeters short of her hairline, and a few more from her jaw.
Odd, I thought.
In hindsight, I recognize the irony—misapplied camouflage attempting to conceal a slow deterioration. A failed cover-up.
What gradually followed for my mother were lost words and mild disorientation.
Then, crisis.

As with addiction, when reaching out to someone with dementia one can only prod, and suggest, and hope. Often, however, there must be a bottoming out—a physical or psychological cellar, a darkness through which the ill cannot see without guidance and advocacy.
My mother fell into that cellar this past April.

The woman who had, after her own mother’s passing, assumed the role of family matriarch, was being crippled by the mysterious demons of dementia and delirium.
The transition was gradual: at first forgetfulness and disorientation, a solemn diagnosis of Alzheimer’s, and ultimately a terrifying psychosis triggered by the unforgiving combination of a urinary tract infection and slow cognitive decline.     

Two weeks earlier she was misplacing keys and struggling to comprehend Visa statements. Now, her apartment betrayed a scene of violence: a chair strewn in the hall, food and Corningware on the floor, and stories of strangers creeping up the back stairs where no stairs existed. To her uninitiated children, it was a psychological supernova; a terrifying introduction to the enigmatic and sometimes violent world of delirium.

Emergency Room, restraints, antibiotics, examinations, time.

Seven months later, the urgency is struggling to be replaced with acceptance, balanced with fatigue; the responsibility of a child towards their parent is wrestling with the responsibility of a father towards his children, and that of a grown adult granting himself the gift of self-care.

****

Jose Carlos - Alzheimer

ACCEPTING THE LOSS OF THE PERSON WHO WAS

In my experience, most adults have complicated histories with their parents, which inevitably colour any present day interactions. There are incidents which are both unforgiven and unforgotten. Our parents try to compensate for their own regrets by regularly offering course corrections on our own parenting voyage. Nearly every adult child / parent relationship is a full plate drizzled with appreciation and overbearance; with affection and exasperation.

Dementia unplugs the pool of personal history. All that was is drained away, one day at a time, and is replaced by a new iteration of a being who is not quite whole.
Reconciling one’s self with that, means learning to find an escape route through which you can permit yourself to be free of that history. It becomes a frank exercise in acceptance and objectivity: those arguments unresolved, and those wounds unhealed, can no longer be allowed to demand your energy, or your time, or your impatience.
Your parent, in almost every definable fashion, has become your child.

It suddenly became necessary for me to re-centre my thought process. I found it often useful to imagine my mother a stranger. How would I care for the elderly mother of a close friend? Which version of myself would I want to present to a septuagenarian in crisis on a street corner?
Those answers were simple: patience, kindness, and advocacy.
A relationship with acceptance, and absolutely no sense of a shared history.

Those touchstones of my relationship with my mother forty-five years in the making—my parents’ divorce and its consequences; personalities in conflict; disapproval and debate–must be buried in a grave alongside what used to be the healthy psychological profile of my aging parent.

Alzheimer’s and dementia: the ultimate arbitrators of any relationship.

 

Susan Sermoneta - L9999251

DAD, WHAT’S HAPPENING TO BUBBY?

As a child, I have become responsible for my mother’s well-being. As a parent, I am constantly standing on a teeter totter’s fulcrum, trying to credit my children’s intelligence by keeping them informed, while balancing that against the preservation of their memory of their grandmother who used to be well enough to host them for sleepovers and lead them on subway trips to see the Nutcracker.

Protectionism was my first instinct: euphemize recent stories of screaming, physical restraints, and terrifying hallucinations by replacing them with, “Bubby’s okay, and she sends her love.”

Much of that language trots alongside the timeline of the disease. During the first weeks, diagnoses are uncertain, and prognoses are hopeful. Time, though, slowly absorbs equivocation. Now, in early December, it is likely my mother is as improved as she will be. Throughout these months of treatment, bevies of conversations with physicians, nurses, mental health professionals, with my sister, my wife, and my mother’s lifelong friends, have helped me become comfortable with my own understanding of this disease. The result is my being more able, and more comfortable, being truthful and straightforward with my children.

They are old enough to understand that if I am not bringing them to visit their bubby, it is probably best they are not exposed to what lies on the far side of that hospital door.
My answers to their questions have finally become frank. We speak of depression, and dementia, and Alzheimer’s. At a psychologist’s request, we send videos of the grandchildren. I explain to my children that bubby becomes agitated and sad, and seeing them, even though a tablet’s screen, brings her great comfort.
It is one of the cruelest dimensions of this type of psychological disintegration: there is just enough residual intelligence and understanding for my mother to recognize the grandchildren, and to ask after them, and to be comforted by their image. However, enough logic and dimension has been stripped away that every day brings with it bursts of fear and anger, and outbursts of tears and confusion.

“How is Bubby?”
She’s not well. She gets very sad. But she misses you. She loves hearing stories about you, and seeing pictures of you.
And she probably won’t get better.

 

Susan Sermoneta - L9999251

GUILT VS SELF-CARE

Summers, for me, are a period of lighter workloads and more flexible hours. If there was good fortune to be found in what was transpiring with my mother, it is that the crisis was born in late April.
This resulted in my sister (a school teacher with similar flexibility during the summer months) and I were in a temporal position of being able to become full-time advocates during an emergent situation.
Each of us was on-call either daily or every second day at the hospital, asking questions of the medical staff or being bedside attempting to digest a prognosis. We were able to be present during her UTI diagnosis and treatment, and then throughout the decision-making and healing process of a double craniotomy. We were there to provide recognition and comfort when she was moved for a short period into a residence, and then researched on her behalf and advocated for her readmittance to the hospital when her cognitive and behavioral condition became once again unstable.

Summer’s end brought with it the fall of our flexibility, and the onset of not only real life (school for my sister and my children, and my more demanding workload), but also with it the complicated logistics of my mother no longer being at a residence down the block from me, but rather in a hospital which would demand extra hours of weekly commuting were I to attempt to maintain my previous visitation schedule.

I was also beginning to understand the toll of caregivers’ fatigue. I was short-tempered with my family, not sleeping properly and was slinking back to fast food and potato chips as dopamine delivery systems while I was stuck in rush hour traffic. (It became a ritual that I meet my sister outside her house prior to hospital visits with a McFlurry for each of us. What she never knew is that, when I was alone, I upsized my small to a medium. Here lies the confession, sis.) 

Therapy helped. Although guilt is the world’s most sensitive hair-trigger. Every call from the hospital elicits a churning of regret. My ability to overcome and assuage my guilt is directly related to the nature of the conversation.

The calls I have learned to most easily recover from are those from the nursing staff informing me my mother has fallen, but is unharmed (a several times weekly occurrence), or the necessity of hiring someone to care for her toenails, or the connection or disconnection of the television.

Conversely, guilt perverts itself into shame and sorrow when my mother calls asking if I have any room in my house, even for just a day or so, so she can live with her family while she obtains a new credit card and shops for a condo. The pleas are tear-filled. I can hear my mother fighting to sound as rational as possible, as though she were aware that her psychological health was tenuous, and under constant evaluation.
(Even in relaying these details, my guilt coerces me into justifying that, during those same conversations, she will confide in me that there are men chasing her, that she had been out for a drive earlier that day, and that she has been caring for her cat. All this while not realizing she has not left the hospital for months.)

Many people who visit a counselor for their marriage or other relationships are told: you cannot love others unless you learn to love yourself.
That seemed to me the mantra of ethereal hipsterism until a few months ago.
Now, I accept it as a truism.

My mother is in a place where she is being cared for. We are fortunate that, despite the nurse’s salary she earned throughout her career, she was a careful and steadfast financial planner and we are thankfully able to provide companions for her.
I am learning to give myself permission to be my own first priority. Who do I want to be? How do I want to feel? What kind of energy do I want to reserve for my own family?
Finding the answers to these questions is far easier that implementing their solutions.
My mother’s friends and more distant relatives, who are satellites to her predicament, grasp for news and explanations and understanding. Helplessness can be excruciating. I have learned to answer only when it is convenient for me, and only truthfully. I have accepted that, if my mother’s condition has worsened, or improved, or stabilized, it is not because of what I have not done. It is because this is the nature of this disease.
No amount of my attention can scrape away plaques and tangles, or frighten away hallucinations, or defeat depression.
Her bedside will welcome me when I am available, and will wait silently during my absence. All the while, dementia will creep in through the cracks, whether I am posted guard or not.

****

The gifts of a long-term illness such as Alzheimer’s are as few as the memories the disease leaves in its wake. However, its lessons can be ironically abundant and fruitful. Discovering those lessons, and drawing meaning from them, is the slog.
I relentlessly try to remind myself that each day offers rewards in some form. A hug from my children, my wife’s humor showing up in a text, driving in the middle lane while absorbing an hour of my favourite podcast.
Forever in the shadow of those moments lurks the awareness of the life my mother is “living,” a grey room in a geriatric hospital. Sadness. Fear. Loneliness. Confusion. The cruelty of a disease which strips away not only mental souvenirs, but with them wedges of personality and understanding.
Since beginning to speak aloud (and write) of these circumstances, I have met many peers and friends who have been affected by dementia in those people dear to them. Many who suffer from Alzheimer’s are left docile and accepting, even from within their cognitive blindness. Others, like my mother, are treated more cruelly. The remaining aspects of their personality are darker embers, sediments not deglazed.
Why? What determines one’s experience with dementia? Genetics? Personality profiles? Environment?

The only certainty seems to be all the things which will forever be uncertain. And acceptance seems to be the only state which allows us, the satellites to the disease, to continue to function from a place of patience, and gratitude for ourselves and for our own families.
It is a mental exercise of daily personal challenge and learning. Should I ever become afflicted by Alzheimer’s intellectual invasion, I hope that—at the very least—I can remember a life lived without regret.

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I'm Not Old, but I'm Getting There. (Just Ask My Night Table).

 My teeth have begun to fall out. The medicine cabinet is now the Brundle Museum of Natural History. You wanna see what else is in it?                    

                                                    - Seth Brundle, "The Fly" 1986

My night table has become my museum of natural history. It is a display table on which my children witness my slow progression toward old age. As with all life forms that have come before me, I am barreling towards extinction.
My most recent reminder of this came courtesy of my dentist:

    "Do you grind your teeth when you sleep?" he asked.

Maybe I do, I thought. I do a lot of things is my sleep; I fly, I play a key role in abolishing slavery, and I beat Mr. Boitano to win the battle of the Brians and give Canada Olympic gold in 1988. 

    "Maybe. I don't know. Why?" I respond.
    "I see evidence of grinding. There is considerable wear here...and here. I recommend a night guard."

So, now I have one. Another apparatus (in the same family as dentures, I think) that I must add to my daily routine, which is becoming a preparatory school for old age.
Shall we start from the bottom, up? 

I'll bundle together my ankles, knees and back; like a cable package. I do this for you, Dear Reader, as an ode to brevity. I'll also bale my joint issues in an effort to attribute them all to my athletic youth: a glorious amateur career in figure skating. 
I have degenerated disks and lumbar arthritis, my left knee feels like a melon in a vice when I assume a crouch position, and my ankles...hurt. I don't know why they do, and, as part of the enduring male tradition of denial, I don't seek a resolution, lest I be told I can no longer jog - the only exercise I get.
I am now also one of those middle-agers at whom I used to giggle. If we plan an outing during which we will be walking more than a kilometre, I must wear sensible shoes. Sensible; even the word connotes tedium and decrepitude.
My physical tenderness fosters a complimentary sympathy from my kids: "Can we wrestle, Dad, or is your back sore?"
They used to just tackle with abandon.

I feel I am 45 years-old with a fossil's fragility.

Skeleton - Hans Luthart

There is one other joint that may soon require attention. Pain killers and anti-inflammatories are now nestled next to my eye glasses on my night table. When I am too lazy to fetch my specs from the place I last forgot them, my elbow performs diligently as a hinge, searching for a focal point as I read four pages before nodding off.
Oh, long live the night-life!
(I also cannot fall asleep without a knee pillow. That's right, like rival siblings, even my patellae can't lean next to each other without being irritated.)

If ever I forget my knee pillow, I'll have to look for it in the middle of the night. No worries, though. I'll have time to do that when I get up to pee, at 1:20, 3:15, 4:50, and when the alarm goes off around 6.
Truthfully, this is not entirely a consequence of waning years. I have bladder sphincter dyssynergia (just click the link if you're interested, I'm too old to explain it to you. Time is life.)
This condition, too, is medically treated. My daily Myrbetriq vial stands next to the anti-inflammatory like a bishop guarding a rook.

 My lifestyle is also...aging...but, in a good way, like blue cheese. Stephen King has lost his spot to historical non-fiction (oh, please, I'm not that heady. Historical non-fiction still loses the war to Grisham and John Sandford).
I recently introduced my son to Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band with the obligatory, "This is when people still wrote great music." Typical. Nothing other than what existed during my youth is worth anything.
When "Billy Jean" was on the radio the other day, I told my daughter, "When I was your age, this was the biggest song on the planet!"
She replied, "You say that every time an old song comes on." 

An old song. That's me, now.

Yes, yes, I know. Perspective. Decades to come. I still have my health. Grandchildren to look forward to. First World problems. I know, I know.
But this is my blog. So, shut up. Give me twenty minutes to whine.

There. I feel better.

I'm just saying, aging awareness is a new phenomenon for me.
I am, "by the time-ing" a lot:
    "By the time my kids have kids, I'll be retired (I hope)."
    "By the time my kids are my age, I'll be almost eighty."
    "By the time I finish this post, I'll be ready for a nap."

I love napping. What's with that?

What I don't love is waking up from my nap and dealing with a knee pillow, a night guard, a full bladder, a sore back, and lost glasses.
It is what it is, but I don't have to like it.

By the way, when did I start using the term "night table"?
As a kid, I just threw my shit on the floor. Now, I hate when my kids throw their shit on the floor.

 

BT Montreal: When is the Right Time to Become a Father?

Discussions about women's biological clocks are fairly routine. Interestingly, studies have begun to pop up showing that men, too, experience decreasing fertility sooner than we first thought. When asked, men also admitted to feeling deep regret about choosing career over parenthood. 
This was the topic of my most recent visit to Breakfast Television:

When is the Right Time to Become a Father?

I Want Loneliness for Father’s Day

I have always craved solitude. Perhaps this is a symptom of the fractious household I grew up in. Heaven meant alone time, either in front a mirror imagining myself the Garfunkel half of the duo while lip-syncing into a deodorant stick, or lying in the dark at bedtime being entertained by Bob Newhart’s standup routine threading through my cassette player.

Now I am a 44 year-old husband, a father of two children—ages 11 and 9—and the co-owner of a 1955 detached cottage which is making demands on my DIY skills that I can’t keep up with.

I am gainfully employed at a job which allows me to earn a decent wage while also being available to involve myself deeply in household chores, to coax my daughter through piano practices and stand at the sidelines during her soccer games, and be a committed volunteer at my children’s school.

I am a solid citizen.

I am an evolved male.

What do I want for Father’s Day? For it all to go away.

Photo: Looking for Sunset by Giuseppe Milo

There is one universal truth for parents: the moment you accept the responsibility of child-rearing is the same moment you abdicate the right to absolute selfishness, forever.

There will be date nights; there may be weekends away without the kids; and there are sleepaway camps which provide a sense of freedom while they ironically also instill a sense worry and longing. Even once alone, reclined in an Adirondack, it is impossible for a parent to psychologically transcend their role. We will read two pages of John Irving; then we may spend a moment spotting shapes of mammals in the clouds; then we will ease ourselves into a shallow dream; then, inevitably, we’ll wonder how the kids are doing.

You may have gotten away, but there are no direct flights to true escapism.

We are kind and loving, but not completely selfish and free.

I miss selfish and free.

There seem to be only two of the three-hundred-and-sixty-five days per year when a parent can attempt unabashed narcissism: Mother’s Day or Father’s Day, and on his or her birthday.

Despite that greedy right, there is an aura of Romper Room circle-time celebration surrounding Parents’ Days.

It is a day of gathering.

This is especially true when your children are tweens, as mine are.

They have outgrown the ignorance of toddlerhood—when they present you with a pipe cleaner stickman, and can then be led away and distracted by sandboxes and beetles. By the time they are teenagers, you are as relevant to them as a bathing cap in the Sahara, especially on Father’s Day. They yearn to give you the gift of abstention from your household on your auspicious day; a day with Daddy is uncool.

But, tweens? They still devote significant classroom time crafting keepsakes and composing poetry they can barely stand to withhold from you until the third Sunday in June.

  “I’m so excited to show you what I made for youuuuuu!”

Crap.

They still want you, and they want you to want them.

  “Daddy needs some alone time for Father’s Day,” is not only a bizarre and abstract concept to 9-year-olds, it is also hurtful to them. Once it’s run through the tween filter, it is received simply as, “I don’t want to be with you today.” The message is distilled into an empirical form of selfishness and rejection.

How can you want to be away from me? “Me” is love, “Me” is fun, “Me” is your children, you jerk!

Photo: Life's Pathway by Mariyan Dimitrov

But, I’m tired.

My Gen-X level of engagement and involvement is exhausting. I’m dizzy, perhaps due to too much helicopter parenting?

I want twenty-four hours of selfish unpredictability.

I want to lay on my bedroom floor and stare at the ceiling, listening to the baseboard heaters crackle until...until I don’t want to do that anymore.

I want to play half of a song on that piano I don’t play anymore, and listen to its sound echo off the walls of my empty house. Then I’ll play another half of a song, and then maybe a whole song. And I’d like to maybe play for an hour, or just for five minutes, and then maybe go back to that later.

I want to fall asleep in front of a movie—perhaps one of the Oscar nominees...any of them, really, I’ve seen none of them.

When I wake up from my nap, I want to rewind it and watch the rest without scolding myself for not having started dinner.

I want to stand in my son’s room and talk to his guinea pig in an honest way that I can’t do when people are home because they’ll think I’m crazy.

A heart-to-heart with a rodent who also has nowhere to be.

I just want time.

Time is that thing that, at 44-years-old, is in decline—certainly in terms of quality, if not quantity.

I’m in love with fatherhood. And loneliness, in a permanent state, is a tragedy. But, like a favorite dessert or a seat under a tree, solitude would trigger some necessary decompression.

I believe being a parent is a gift. But, by definition, it is a gift which requires you to give and give and give.

On Father’s Day, I just want to take one...full...day.

I’ve lost my corny imagination which convinced me I was Art Garfunkel; I’ve thrown out that Sanyo cassette player; I don’t want to also dismiss my need for solitude.

I just don’t know how to explain that to my kids without bruising their hearts just a little.

So, on Father’s Day, we’ll do something together, as the family we have worked so hard to build.

Perhaps I’ll call in sick the following Monday, and spend some time talking to that caged rodent.

 

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Grandparent Handbook Builds Bridges Between Generations

When I received my review copy of Lynn Wilson's A Handbook for Grandparents, Over 700 Creative Things to Do and Make With Your Grandchild, I expected to find within its pages a lot of cute pictures, some children's drawings, and a few notes to Gramma and Grandpa about how to go about making collages with their little grandchildren.
I expected a sort of Arts and Crafts for Dummies.
Instead, this must-have work is so multi-dimensional, it would behoove both grandparents and parents to stow a copy on a shelf which is within easy reach at all times. 

While there are many tools available to teach parents how to shave balloons and make papier maché, very few also have "above the fold" advice stressing the importance,  and the delicate balance, of a parent/grandparent relationship. Before I discuss the encyclopedia of activities which comprise the vast majority of the book's pages, I would like to mention how important I found its opening section.
Lynn's book begins its journey with several pages devoted to helping grandparents understand that, yes, they play a vital role in these little people's live, but most important decisions lie with the child's parents, and must be respected. Also within that first chapter are wise words for parents who must come to understand that the older generation are no longer the parents they grew up with. They are now grandparents who have earned their retirement years, and whose joints and energy levels are not what they used to be:

Parents must also have realistic expectations about the amount of practical help some grandparents are willing and able to provide given their own plans for their retirement or their work commitments. Grandparents' involvement will vary significantly between families.

 I especially like these passages, which speak to grandparents of how different modern-day parenting may be from what they were accustomed to a generation ago. These are delicate words which are often more easily transmitted through a book suggestion than spoken in person:

Family dynamics are always changing. Over time there may well be many changes in your immediate and extended family. There are many challenging transitions that can affect families, and it's important to be respectful of each unique circumstance. A new baby, an adopted child, a move, a new school, illness, death, separation and divorce, another set of grandparents to build relationships with; these can all have a drastic effect on the members of any family. In many of these situations, your daughter or son will need your support as never before.

*****

As our children find partners who may be from different ethnic or religious backgrounds, grandparents will be exposed to various cultural influences and differing social conventions. This may influence the parents' beliefs, attitudes, and expectations to child rearing. Whatever the circumstances, successful relationships between all parties will depend on open communication.

Sometimes it's nice to have someone speak for us, isn't it? 

The early chapters of the book even go as far as teaching grandparents that a visit by their grandchildren does not translate to a behavior free-for-all. Ms. Wilson offers specific methods for ensuring there is a continuity for the child as far as an expectation of respect and responsibility, and several ideas for how get a child to clean up after themselves once all the toys have been given a run-through. In other words, even at Gramma and Grandpa's, there are House Rules.

Now, on the to the nitty, gritty.
Before I explain how magnificently this book offers what must be thousands of ideas to be shared between and a grandparent and a grandchild, I will make the suggestion that this is a book which is best consumed in small doses. This is definitely a reference guide, not a novel. It can be overwhelming if a grandparent, upon receiving the book, feels he or she must digest all this information and react immediately to call to make your house safe, acquire age-appropriate toys, and buy all the classic children's books. (Ms. Wilson actually actively discourages grandparents from rushing out and purchasing a "truck load of toys," and, for that, we thank her! There is even a fantastic section of gift suggestions...other than toys!)
I would inscribe this book "Dear Mom and Dad, to be used only as needed. Love, Me."

The meat of the book is divided into sections and subsections of indoor and outdoor activities, ideas, and crafts.
The real genius of this work is its rhythm, simplicity and the repetition of its layout. (Just how kids like things!)
Each section has a master theme, for instance, Bath Tub Fun. There you will find at least a dozen ideas, each rarely more than a sentence in length. There are always "Simple Ideas" for young children, and "More Complex Ideas" for older kids.
In each section I found ideas which were very different and wonderfully original when compared with suggestions I've read in best-selling magazines and on the popular websites.  These sections are also decorated with children's drawings, memories and thoughts from children, parents, and grandparents, as well as children's book suggestions which match each chapter's theme.
There are sections dealing with recipes, nature, rainy days, technology, books, and even some suggestions for what to do on snowy days (this book does work for us Canadians!)

 One of the great things about this book's building block—its heart—is it can generate as much excitement and interest in a grandchild as it can in a grandparent. If I were a grandparent (my kids are 11 and 9-years-old respectively, so I'm in no hurry!), I would definitely encourage my grandchild to "Grab the handbook off the shelf and pick something to do!"
There are literally years of what-to-do within its pages.
I especially like the chapter about extended stays at Gramma and Grampa's, because that means a little quiet reading time for mom and dad, or, as I like to call it, Naptime for dummies.

 

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"Questions Parents Ask" Column Now Translated Into French

I write a weekly column, "Questions Parents Ask" at Lifeworks.com. I have been authoring it for more than two years. I am proud to announce that these columns have now been translated into french. 

The french version of the column can be found here: Questions Les Parents Demandent.
With the holiday season upon us, I decided to reprint a column I wrote about how parenting can sometimes mean losing touch with close friends.
Enjoy, and happy holidays:

Ai-je perdu le temps d’entretenir des amitiés?

​Un ami dont je n'avais pas eu de nouvelles dans la dernière année m'a téléphoné un soir. Encore. Il m'a laissé un message vocal. Encore. Je lui ai répondu par courriel. Encore. « C'était un plaisir d'avoir de tes nouvelles! », lui ai-je écrit, point d'exclamation inclus. « Je suis désolé d'avoir manqué ton appel! » Un autre point d'exclamation.

J'ai peut-être menti concernant cette dernière phrase. Je me connais bien. J'ai probablement regardé qui appelait et choisi de ne pas répondre parce que j'étais trop fatigué. Trop fatigué pour me remémorer tous les événements de la dernière année méritant d'être racontés à un ancien camarade de classe.

J'ai également perdu de vue d'autres amis dont un parti vivre dans les Prairies, à une demi-journée d'ici en avion. Ce dernier me manque beaucoup. En ce qui concerne ceux demeurés dans la région, soit ils n'ont pas d'enfant, soit ils en ont mais plus jeunes ou plus vieux que les miens – ce qui crée un fossé entre nos plus petits dénominateurs communs : l'heure à laquelle nous allons au lit, les films que nous visionnons, la façon dont nous dépensons notre revenu disponible.

J'ai assisté récemment à une réunion d'anciens du secondaire, 25 ans après la remise des diplômes. J'ai renoué aisément avec un ami qui, en plus de vivre près de chez moi, a des enfants du même âge et du même sexe que les miens. Nous nous sommes promis sincèrement de demeurer en contact. Quelques jours après la réunion, il m'a envoyé un message pour me dire encore une fois combien il serait génial de réunir nos enfants au parc un après-midi. « Absolument! », lui ai-je répondu. Un autre point d'exclamation inutile.

La plupart des gens qui me connaissent bien me décriront comme une personne volubile et sociable. Alors pourquoi ai-je de la difficulté à garder le contact? Comme bien des parents, le temps que je passe sans mes enfants – seul ou en compagnie de ma conjointe – est rare et précieux. Je fuis le téléphone. J'évite mes courriels. Mon cercle de vie s'est refermé un peu plus à la naissance de chacun de mes enfants.

J'ai perdu le temps de forger et d'entretenir des amitiés lorsque je suis devenu parent. Je sais qu'il me faut aller vers les gens et communiquer avec eux, et que les amitiés sont tout aussi bénéfiques pour les parents que pour les enfants. Je vais rappeler cet ami que j'ai retrouvé, et planifier un après-midi au parc. Dans un avenir rapproché.

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How Can I Change for the Better?

I write a weekly column, "Questions Parents Ask" at Lifeworks.com. I have been authoring it for nearly two years.  I thought it would be relevant to repost this particular column on my blog. 

****

We are changed by multitudes of experiences; by tragedies, by relationships, and most definitely by parenting.

The irony of parenting is it demands a flexibility of spirit during those years when we become more and more assured and steadfast in our own belief systems.
We struggle to teach our children open-mindedness and the advantages of critical thinking; while we stodgy parents gradually seem to become convinced we have found the easiest way of doing almost everything.

 Inflexibility and likeability are inversely proportional.

 Our children and (for the most part) our partner will always love us…but will they always like us? Of course not. Not always. But it is important as we grow older not to lose our intellectual and emotional elasticity. Part of maintaining that flexibility – that likeability – is understanding that some things are worth capitulating to simply because they are important to somebody who is important to us.

Sharing by ryancr via Flickr

 Where (or whether) you go on vacation; altering a work schedule to be more available; being more understanding of a family member’s choice of friends (or the volume of the music blaring from their room!), are all examples of the constant adjustments and conversations which define a family’s dynamic as a being unto itself.

 Compromise is as necessary as it can be difficult, especially as age coupled with the triple role of partner, parent, and individual, combines to make you gravitate more than ever toward a need for your own space and your own sources of stress relief.

 There are very few greater gifts you can give to a family member than to demonstrate your understanding for what is important to them.

I was once told “The most interesting person in a room is the person who makes you feel like the most interesting person in a room.”

We spend a lot of time sharing rooms with our partners and our children. The challenge is to not only seem interested, but to be interested. Our relationships will inevitably change us. Being attentive to how you change can not only result in more “I love you’s” but, even more importantly, more “I like you’s.”

Parents: Remember When You Used to Remember Stuff??

Do you remember when we met?
That was the day I knew you were my pet.

                        - Sea of Love by John Phillip Baptiste & George Khoury, 1959

I have no idea what you're talking about

                        - Me, 2014.

Being a parent is inversely proportional to being able to find your stuff.
We spend so much time and brain energy coordinating our offsprings' school work, social lives, and personal hygiene it's a miracle we can find the car in the driveway, never mind the keys tucked under the garbage can in the powder room. (How did that happen? Did I have to go that badly??)

I never sweated the standard forgetful fair; glasses on my head, the television remote I had in my hand 18 seconds ago, the lost telephone receiver I put down (while in the middle of a conversation) to help my daughter zip up her jacket (yes, I left my friend stranded on the line...she called back).

However, a milestone was reached last week as my wife recounted fond moments of a family vacation I don't remember being a part of. We're talking a whole week. Coma patients have regained consciousness with less memory loss.

Photo: Entropy ≥ Memory . Creativity ² by Jef Safi

This forgotten vacation incident was, for me, the mental brick wall I stumbled into after a comfortable several months stretch of wandering into the bathroom only to forget why I was there (oh yeah, I do have to pee); of sitting excitedly in front of the TV forgetting which show I was excited about wathcing; and of hopping into my car to pick my kids' up at a playdate, but heading toward the  office instead.

There have been articles like these about "Mommy Brain", "Pregnancy Brain" &  the "Forgetful Parent".
They are very forgiving. We are mentally taxed with all matters parenthood, they say, and we therefore reallocate our available memory power towards maintaining jobs, maintaining a household and maintaining relationships with our children and/or partners.

But, forgetting a whole vacation?? I mean, if the lab in "Total Recall" (please see the original before seeing the remake) existed on the island of Montreal, I would have to go and have memories implanted from places I've already been. How sad is that?

- Where and when would you like to go, Mr. Bodanis?
- Umm. My Mom's, please. A week ago Saturday.

Yikes.

 

Can you help me remember last week?

 

 I've started to give fake answers to my kids:
"Dad, remember that project I told you we were starting at school? With the boats?"
"Ummm, oh yeah! With the boats!"
Please don't tell me I have no memory of enrolling my 9-year-old in a Naval Academy.

I blame a lack of exercise - I've really fallen off the wagon (again!). Exercise, proper nutrition and a proper night's sleep promote mental health (is there anything they don't help?...yes...my guilt trip. Hey! A guilt trip...that's a vacation I never seem to forget.).
In a nut shell, that realization/admission means one thing: I'm to blame for my own mental deterioration...great.
It's not the kids. It's not the marriage. It's not maintaining a home, and an income, and the crumbs of a social life. The problem is not enough exercise, and spinach, and unconscious hours on a bed.

All I have to do is remember to treat myself better.
I'm probably overdue for adopting a healthier lifestyle. After all, I owe it to myself, and to my wife, and to my kids. After all, I want to be around for them as long as possible.

...some time later...

The weirdest thing just happened. I was just standing in the vestibule wearing one sneaker and a Garmin heart monitor...where's my other sneaker?...Where am I going? Do I need to tuck a Nitro tablet under my tongue?

 

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