Yesterday, my eldest took his last law school exam. I thought he said it was today, so I was late congratulating him. But really, does it matter? He seemed just to want to get it over with. He always belittles these kind of milestone occasions--high school graduation, college graduation, culminating concerts, sports events. Every. Single. One. So the things that many if not most parents look forward to, I kind of dread. Because they're just another opportunity to feel that another opportunity to celebrate something has slipped away. Or been tossed away.
I can't blame any of this on the coronavirus, though I suppose we can blame the virus for the missed chance at least to attend law school graduation in person. I think they're planning some sort of online something or other, involving photos of every member of the graduating class. If my son remains true to his taciturn approach to such things, he'll probably just neglect to tell us when this online event takes place. And it'll be just another opportunity to celebrate something that slips away.
I don't blame my son; he's wired how he's wired. I can't change him. I do feel sad that the things other families seem to look forward to celebrating, we rarely do. Maybe the one exception was when my autistic son graduated from his high school transitions program. There was a potluck lunch after the ceremony, and a bus driver came up and told me that she remembered driving my son to preschool years and years ago. Someone had made a favorite dish of his. And I cried. I'm good at that, it seems.
But the boisterous, celebratory stuff that other families seem to take for granted? Doesn't seem to be in the cards for us. Certainly hasn't been yet. I'm not counting on it ever being, frankly. It would just be too painful to be disappointed, yet again, when another opportunity to celebrate something has slipped away. Or been tossed away.
I thought it might be nice to have a virtual toast of sorts with my son this evening. He readily agreed. He suggested 3p.m., and I replied that that seemed a bit early, but not if we were in Denmark, so why not? A short while later he texted back, saying he'd changed his mind. And this became just another opportunity to celebrate something that slipped away.
There's the challenge of quarantining. There's the managing of illness. There's the anguish of knowing how much pain and loss there is all around us. Then there is the stuff we inflict on ourselves. I think for me, at a moment when our choices are so very, very limited, that might be the worst thing of all.
Tuesday, May 5, 2020
Saturday, May 2, 2020
Parenting During a Pandemic: The Blessing of Blessings
Each Friday, when we usher in the Sabbath, is an opportunity to offer blessings to our children. We do this after we recite kiddush, sanctifying the Sabbath. This involves not only the aural transmission of words of blessing, but the tactile conveyance of those blessings through our laying our hands on our children's heads. One of those "children" is taller than I am, so I either reach the top of his head on my tip toes, or he leans down toward me. Either way, we make it work. My husband and I take turns, blessing each of our kids, using the blessing for males for our sons, and the blessing for females for our daughter.
It might seem quaint, even odd, to pause one evening each week to offer a blessing to one's children. I recall vividly, fondly, achingly, the sound and touch of my father's blessing me each new year, for the year ahead. It is one of the most cherished memories I have of my entire childhood and adulthood. I've no idea how my children will process or memorialize for themselves the experience of being blessed by my husband and me, but it's deeply meaningful to us as parents that we give them this experience, that we communicate our hopes that they will live lives of goodness, of peace, of security, sheltered and protected by God.
It may seem strange or even irrelevant to focus on such things at a moment of global struggle, in the midst of a crisis born of an illness that is beyond humans to control fully, much less banish. And yet, it is precisely in these times of chaos and loss of control that slowing down, that leaning in to that which is aspirational and hopeful in the best ways, matters most. I cannot promise anything to my children with more fidelity than that I will love them, that I will cherish and support them. What is a blessing, more than a commitment to those very things? It is through blessing my children that I convey to them that what binds us is not things, it is not the materiality of life. It is the connective tissue of hopes, dreams, love, and the solidarity of family. In the moment I speak the words of blessing, and in the moment in which I lay my hands on my children, that connective tissue is strengthened.
The possibility of offering a blessing is itself a kind of freedom. It represents a choice about how to express hopefulness and gratitude. At a time when choices are so deeply, painfully constrained, that freedom is exquisite. I cannot go where I want. I cannot be with others. I cannot meander in the physical world as I've been used to doing. But sequestered with my family, I am able to talk, and to touch, and to be in ways unmarred by the dreadful pandemic that is COVID-19. That in and of itself is its own kind of blessing.
It might seem quaint, even odd, to pause one evening each week to offer a blessing to one's children. I recall vividly, fondly, achingly, the sound and touch of my father's blessing me each new year, for the year ahead. It is one of the most cherished memories I have of my entire childhood and adulthood. I've no idea how my children will process or memorialize for themselves the experience of being blessed by my husband and me, but it's deeply meaningful to us as parents that we give them this experience, that we communicate our hopes that they will live lives of goodness, of peace, of security, sheltered and protected by God.
It may seem strange or even irrelevant to focus on such things at a moment of global struggle, in the midst of a crisis born of an illness that is beyond humans to control fully, much less banish. And yet, it is precisely in these times of chaos and loss of control that slowing down, that leaning in to that which is aspirational and hopeful in the best ways, matters most. I cannot promise anything to my children with more fidelity than that I will love them, that I will cherish and support them. What is a blessing, more than a commitment to those very things? It is through blessing my children that I convey to them that what binds us is not things, it is not the materiality of life. It is the connective tissue of hopes, dreams, love, and the solidarity of family. In the moment I speak the words of blessing, and in the moment in which I lay my hands on my children, that connective tissue is strengthened.
The possibility of offering a blessing is itself a kind of freedom. It represents a choice about how to express hopefulness and gratitude. At a time when choices are so deeply, painfully constrained, that freedom is exquisite. I cannot go where I want. I cannot be with others. I cannot meander in the physical world as I've been used to doing. But sequestered with my family, I am able to talk, and to touch, and to be in ways unmarred by the dreadful pandemic that is COVID-19. That in and of itself is its own kind of blessing.
Sunday, April 26, 2020
Is Sunlight The Best Disinfectant?
I've never been someone to embrace bumper sticker slogans about life. "You got this!" "God only gives you what you can handle." In fact, I kind of hate them. I actually think it insults people who are suffering to gloss over their suffering with sports-like encouragement, or cheap theology. Life is more complicated than that, and people deserve to be heard, to be listened to.
As someone who's experienced more than my share of emotional nadirs, I know how hard it is to pull yourself up, to go from fetal position to standing. There's rarely been, for me, any kind of logical explanation regarding why I snap out of it, and get up and get going again. As a parent, I think it must have to do with having children, because there are things we do for our kids that we would never do just for ourselves. But then I think of how many people can't and don't manage that, for whom their kids don't tether them to all that is good and hopeful and future-oriented.
Sometimes I think it's just the turning of the clock that matters, the shifting from night to day. Darkness within and without can be a combustible combination, but there truly is something about daylight. It can feel, in a deeply cliched way, like a new beginning. But it can also feel like a rebuke; like the sun rising is in effect saying, "I'm up. Why on earth aren't you?" Depending on how you take it in, daylight can be the motivation you need, or it can be the thing that makes you curl in on yourself even more.
My daughter, who recently began practicing mindfulness, described to me talking to her thoughts. I think that's such a good thing. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I've been doing that my whole life. It's how I deal with airplane turbulence and with other fears and worries. And it brought me back to what a neurologist told us twenty years ago about our newly diagnosed autistic son. 'All of us talk to ourselves," she said. "Some of us just do it out loud." That truth has stayed with me. Perhaps it's why I'm so attached to words. I see them as a way not only of getting myself up and over some of life's speed bumps, but a way of connecting with others wrestling with similar challenges. Yet I also know that words can be a barrier, that they cannot bridge every divide. Since words are how we typically describe our experiences, and there are some experiences we cannot access, words can be the very thing that stand between human beings, no matter how much we want to connect.
Thinking about how words can connect us and also how they can keep us apart, I was brought back to my college thesis about language. I'm not sure I was entirely conscious of it at the time, but it was fundamentally a thesis about my father, z'l, and about how his experiences during the Holocaust, and as a survivor, left him forever trapped and forever apart. He could describe his experiences, he could tell us his stories, but we could never truly access his experiences through his words. We could hear the words and make sense of their meaning in a technical way, but we could never get inside those words to access their deeper, truer, felt meaning. And that was the double cruelty of surviving genocide. It wasn't only about the direct losses--in my father's case, the murder of his mother, his three brothers, his sister-in-law and his two- and four-year old nephews--it was the imprisonment inside those experiences that was his fate for the rest of his life.
My father, z'l, is someone who got up every day, for whom I do think daylight mattered. But that daylight was always shadowed by something deeper, darker, and even more permanent and reliable than daylight. So while sunlight might be the best disinfectant, there are some things it can never, ever cleanse from us.
As someone who's experienced more than my share of emotional nadirs, I know how hard it is to pull yourself up, to go from fetal position to standing. There's rarely been, for me, any kind of logical explanation regarding why I snap out of it, and get up and get going again. As a parent, I think it must have to do with having children, because there are things we do for our kids that we would never do just for ourselves. But then I think of how many people can't and don't manage that, for whom their kids don't tether them to all that is good and hopeful and future-oriented.
Sometimes I think it's just the turning of the clock that matters, the shifting from night to day. Darkness within and without can be a combustible combination, but there truly is something about daylight. It can feel, in a deeply cliched way, like a new beginning. But it can also feel like a rebuke; like the sun rising is in effect saying, "I'm up. Why on earth aren't you?" Depending on how you take it in, daylight can be the motivation you need, or it can be the thing that makes you curl in on yourself even more.
My daughter, who recently began practicing mindfulness, described to me talking to her thoughts. I think that's such a good thing. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I've been doing that my whole life. It's how I deal with airplane turbulence and with other fears and worries. And it brought me back to what a neurologist told us twenty years ago about our newly diagnosed autistic son. 'All of us talk to ourselves," she said. "Some of us just do it out loud." That truth has stayed with me. Perhaps it's why I'm so attached to words. I see them as a way not only of getting myself up and over some of life's speed bumps, but a way of connecting with others wrestling with similar challenges. Yet I also know that words can be a barrier, that they cannot bridge every divide. Since words are how we typically describe our experiences, and there are some experiences we cannot access, words can be the very thing that stand between human beings, no matter how much we want to connect.
Thinking about how words can connect us and also how they can keep us apart, I was brought back to my college thesis about language. I'm not sure I was entirely conscious of it at the time, but it was fundamentally a thesis about my father, z'l, and about how his experiences during the Holocaust, and as a survivor, left him forever trapped and forever apart. He could describe his experiences, he could tell us his stories, but we could never truly access his experiences through his words. We could hear the words and make sense of their meaning in a technical way, but we could never get inside those words to access their deeper, truer, felt meaning. And that was the double cruelty of surviving genocide. It wasn't only about the direct losses--in my father's case, the murder of his mother, his three brothers, his sister-in-law and his two- and four-year old nephews--it was the imprisonment inside those experiences that was his fate for the rest of his life.
My father, z'l, is someone who got up every day, for whom I do think daylight mattered. But that daylight was always shadowed by something deeper, darker, and even more permanent and reliable than daylight. So while sunlight might be the best disinfectant, there are some things it can never, ever cleanse from us.
Tuesday, March 24, 2020
Parenting in a Time of Pandemics: What Masks Don't Protect You From
After four days in a Philadelphia hospital, where he was being treated for COVID-induced pneumonia, my son was released. He returned by medical transport to the apartment he lives in alone for now, since his roommate left to live with his girlfriend when my son returned sick from his spring break from graduate school.
Hearing that my son was likely to be released, my husband and I made plans to head down to Philly and do a "dump and run," dropping off all kinds of supplies. We'd done something similar the week before he was hospitalized, when we were still able to be near him, inside his apartment, however briefly. Even then, we didn't touch. I just blew him kisses from the hallway as we left, and gave him a mock hug. If you want to know one thing that really sucks in the life of a parent, I can tell you that it's giving your sick child a mock hug. Such things should never exist.
We made good time to Philly from New York City. It was just us, a smattering of cars, and a steady stream of trucks on the highway, hauling goods this way and that. You realize who's really, truly important in the pecking order of working folks.
We let our son know that we were five minutes away, then that we were just outside his building. He didn't want to come down. He's so afraid of making someone else sick...us most of all, I think. It so happened there was a woman just to the side of the building, directing two youngish African-American women how to get into the building. Turns out she was letting them in to help her husband, who is home getting chemo treatment for cancer. "Bad time to be sick with that," she said.
"Do you know how we can get into the building? Our son doesn't want to come down." "I can buzz you in, but if you punch in his apartment number, he can let you in." Of course I didn't recall my son's apartment number, so I texted him. Then I punched it in and got a voice I didn't recognize, a Mr. Goldstein. "Who are you here to see?" I told him, and he buzzed us in. That wasn't Sam and I'm pretty sure it wasn't his roommate, but we were in, so I'd solve that mystery later.
We took the elevator to the third floor and walked the long hallway to his front door. The building's a converted factory, and it feels like one. I pulled the suitcase behind me, while my husband carried the two reusable tote bags. The suitcase had essentials, like clean underwear and socks, the PS4 Sam's sister got him for Chanukah, and a bunch of books, including All the Light We Cannot See, which I've been reading. Since I had both a hardcover and softcover version, I was able to give him one. I often recommend and pass books onto my son, so this was just that, in the middle of a pandemic.
The tote bags had homemade banana bread (mine), and homemade vegetable soup (my husband's). It had toilet paper, hand soap, body soap, mandarin oranges, oatmeal packets, energy bars, a mask, a box of tissues, a bottle of Purell, some wipes, some sliced turkey, salmon salad, and a loaf of bread. I don't know how long my son will be quarantining post-hospital, so I gave him what I hope is enough. Of everything I could think he might need.
We got to his door, put down our stuff, and I knocked. Then I stepped back. He opened the door slightly and urgently waved us off. We backed up some more. Then he opened the door, and I could see him, in his blue face mask, gray sweats, and light brown slippers. Before he took the bags inside, I waved to him. I think I blew him a kiss. "Love you, Kip," I said. Or was that only in my head? I made sure I didn't cry.
Then we turned around and left. Per usual, I desperately needed a bathroom. The nearby gas station didn't have one I could use, so a security guy suggested we go to the train station. We did. It was eerily quiet. I did my business, and was grateful for automated soap and water at the sink. When I came out, not two feet from me, a homeless guy asked for money. "Sorry, I don't have any on me," I replied. Then I went back to the car. Told my husband that I hoped that close-up exchange didn't leave me sick. I've been trying so hard to practice serious social distancing, and in a split second, it all went to hell. But it is what it is.
Back in the car, I remembered that for some reason, Sam had venmo-ed me some money a while back. I never used it, and I decided he might need it more right now. So I venmo-ed it back to him. I saw a "Thank you!" with a big red heart emoji from him for the care package. "Banana bread's great!" Thumbs up and a kissy face blowing a heart from me in acknowledgement. It all seemed so gentle and innocuous. But it's all so indescribably awful.
When I speak to Sam, for the briefest of minutes, he sounds sick and depressed. Am I hearing fear in his voice too, or is that the voice in my head getting in the middle of our calls? I don't honestly know. But I do know that even if a mask can protect you from the droplets in the air, it can't protect you from the hole in your heart, the one that's supposed to be filled with the hugs and kisses parents give to their kids.
Hearing that my son was likely to be released, my husband and I made plans to head down to Philly and do a "dump and run," dropping off all kinds of supplies. We'd done something similar the week before he was hospitalized, when we were still able to be near him, inside his apartment, however briefly. Even then, we didn't touch. I just blew him kisses from the hallway as we left, and gave him a mock hug. If you want to know one thing that really sucks in the life of a parent, I can tell you that it's giving your sick child a mock hug. Such things should never exist.
We made good time to Philly from New York City. It was just us, a smattering of cars, and a steady stream of trucks on the highway, hauling goods this way and that. You realize who's really, truly important in the pecking order of working folks.
We let our son know that we were five minutes away, then that we were just outside his building. He didn't want to come down. He's so afraid of making someone else sick...us most of all, I think. It so happened there was a woman just to the side of the building, directing two youngish African-American women how to get into the building. Turns out she was letting them in to help her husband, who is home getting chemo treatment for cancer. "Bad time to be sick with that," she said.
"Do you know how we can get into the building? Our son doesn't want to come down." "I can buzz you in, but if you punch in his apartment number, he can let you in." Of course I didn't recall my son's apartment number, so I texted him. Then I punched it in and got a voice I didn't recognize, a Mr. Goldstein. "Who are you here to see?" I told him, and he buzzed us in. That wasn't Sam and I'm pretty sure it wasn't his roommate, but we were in, so I'd solve that mystery later.
We took the elevator to the third floor and walked the long hallway to his front door. The building's a converted factory, and it feels like one. I pulled the suitcase behind me, while my husband carried the two reusable tote bags. The suitcase had essentials, like clean underwear and socks, the PS4 Sam's sister got him for Chanukah, and a bunch of books, including All the Light We Cannot See, which I've been reading. Since I had both a hardcover and softcover version, I was able to give him one. I often recommend and pass books onto my son, so this was just that, in the middle of a pandemic.
The tote bags had homemade banana bread (mine), and homemade vegetable soup (my husband's). It had toilet paper, hand soap, body soap, mandarin oranges, oatmeal packets, energy bars, a mask, a box of tissues, a bottle of Purell, some wipes, some sliced turkey, salmon salad, and a loaf of bread. I don't know how long my son will be quarantining post-hospital, so I gave him what I hope is enough. Of everything I could think he might need.
We got to his door, put down our stuff, and I knocked. Then I stepped back. He opened the door slightly and urgently waved us off. We backed up some more. Then he opened the door, and I could see him, in his blue face mask, gray sweats, and light brown slippers. Before he took the bags inside, I waved to him. I think I blew him a kiss. "Love you, Kip," I said. Or was that only in my head? I made sure I didn't cry.
Then we turned around and left. Per usual, I desperately needed a bathroom. The nearby gas station didn't have one I could use, so a security guy suggested we go to the train station. We did. It was eerily quiet. I did my business, and was grateful for automated soap and water at the sink. When I came out, not two feet from me, a homeless guy asked for money. "Sorry, I don't have any on me," I replied. Then I went back to the car. Told my husband that I hoped that close-up exchange didn't leave me sick. I've been trying so hard to practice serious social distancing, and in a split second, it all went to hell. But it is what it is.
Back in the car, I remembered that for some reason, Sam had venmo-ed me some money a while back. I never used it, and I decided he might need it more right now. So I venmo-ed it back to him. I saw a "Thank you!" with a big red heart emoji from him for the care package. "Banana bread's great!" Thumbs up and a kissy face blowing a heart from me in acknowledgement. It all seemed so gentle and innocuous. But it's all so indescribably awful.
When I speak to Sam, for the briefest of minutes, he sounds sick and depressed. Am I hearing fear in his voice too, or is that the voice in my head getting in the middle of our calls? I don't honestly know. But I do know that even if a mask can protect you from the droplets in the air, it can't protect you from the hole in your heart, the one that's supposed to be filled with the hugs and kisses parents give to their kids.
Friday, March 13, 2020
Parenting in a Time of Pandemics
As I've watched the virus tide rising, and what was just a virus morph into a global pandemic, I've been interested to see how I have--and haven't--reacted. I'm one of those people who can get undone by something simple at times--like not being able to find those socks I know I put down a minute ago--but give me a real crisis, and I can be weirdly calm. I think that comes from having grown up with constant complications and challenges on the home front, so my normal has consistently been lived at an elevated pitch. So much so that I gave up noticing a long time ago.
I dealt years ago with a full time job, a dying father, and a disabled son, all at once. I'm not sure at the time I appreciated the toll all of that took on me, but it surely left an imprint. Fast forward some years, and my mom is now dealing with her sixth (or is it seventh?) bout of cancer, on top of heart disease, and the general diminishments of aging. And that disabled child is now a young man, with ongoing needs and challenges. One of which is how to explain to him just what a pandemic is. That one just makes me laugh honestly, because it's so utterly ridiculous. I talk about germs everywhere, and people being sick, and why we can't travel and no, I don't know when we can take a trip, and what we'll be doing in April or May, and on and on. I remind him to wash his hands coming and going, and not to touch the elevator buttons with his bare hands, though he can still play elevator operator in our building, announcing floors to everyone or no one, depending on who's in the car with him.
For my child with anxiety, I try to keep the news at bay, and provide other distractions and conversational topics, but real life inevitably seeps in. It's about not having that seeping become a flood that overwhelms and terrorizes. In fact, I took the radically opposite approach by taking her very recently to Madrid for a long weekend, slipping back into the U.S. just ahead of the latest idiotic travel ban. We had a wonderful time. Full stop.
Then there's my child with a fever, chills, and pounding pressure in his face. Just a head cold? Sinus infection? Who knows, but I had to tell him that he couldn't come home, because his brother is on immune-suppressing meds and that's a risk we can't take. So I'm trying to monitor from afar, checking in with the university's health services, relaying what they told me to his girlfriend, and hoping that she--being the wiser and more pragmatic of the two--will take good care of him. And keep herself healthy and safe in the process.
Life has never been uncomplicated for me. So this feels like an extension of that, with everyone else folded in this time. I guess it's like going from an all-volunteer military to all of us being conscripts. It changes everything. Or maybe for some of us, it changes nothing much at all...
I dealt years ago with a full time job, a dying father, and a disabled son, all at once. I'm not sure at the time I appreciated the toll all of that took on me, but it surely left an imprint. Fast forward some years, and my mom is now dealing with her sixth (or is it seventh?) bout of cancer, on top of heart disease, and the general diminishments of aging. And that disabled child is now a young man, with ongoing needs and challenges. One of which is how to explain to him just what a pandemic is. That one just makes me laugh honestly, because it's so utterly ridiculous. I talk about germs everywhere, and people being sick, and why we can't travel and no, I don't know when we can take a trip, and what we'll be doing in April or May, and on and on. I remind him to wash his hands coming and going, and not to touch the elevator buttons with his bare hands, though he can still play elevator operator in our building, announcing floors to everyone or no one, depending on who's in the car with him.
For my child with anxiety, I try to keep the news at bay, and provide other distractions and conversational topics, but real life inevitably seeps in. It's about not having that seeping become a flood that overwhelms and terrorizes. In fact, I took the radically opposite approach by taking her very recently to Madrid for a long weekend, slipping back into the U.S. just ahead of the latest idiotic travel ban. We had a wonderful time. Full stop.
Then there's my child with a fever, chills, and pounding pressure in his face. Just a head cold? Sinus infection? Who knows, but I had to tell him that he couldn't come home, because his brother is on immune-suppressing meds and that's a risk we can't take. So I'm trying to monitor from afar, checking in with the university's health services, relaying what they told me to his girlfriend, and hoping that she--being the wiser and more pragmatic of the two--will take good care of him. And keep herself healthy and safe in the process.
Life has never been uncomplicated for me. So this feels like an extension of that, with everyone else folded in this time. I guess it's like going from an all-volunteer military to all of us being conscripts. It changes everything. Or maybe for some of us, it changes nothing much at all...
Sunday, November 10, 2019
Milestones and Medication
Veteran's Day is the birthday of my eldest. This is the first Veteran's Day when he will be a year older and also a newly minted member of the U.S. military. The double meaning of the day from this point forward is something I won't need reminding to hold onto.
In the next few weeks, my other kids will celebrate birthdays as well. We don't make a big deal of birthdays (much to my event-planning daughter's chagrin). And my eldest is nearly militant about not celebrating his birthday. So he's getting some belated food deliveries that hopefully will be nice surprises. Some pastrami with all the fixings, and a few days later, his favorite cookies, from a bakery I go a little crazy in, whenever I get there.
My autistic son will celebrate his birthday at his culinary work site, which is pretty great since one of the teachers offered to bake him a cake, and he'll have peers to celebrate with for a change, instead of just family. Last but surely not least is my daughter's big day. She's basically given up on trusting us to get her a gift she'll actually like, so she recently sent me photos of about twenty different things she'd be happy to get as gifts. It's actually a relief to be told what to get her, rather than deal with her disappointment if we choose badly.
This is all the mundane stuff of family life, which is kind of great when family life has had so many stressors for so long. Just this weekend, my mom underwent surgery after falling down a flight of stairs and breaking her hip. We're hoping she'll get back to being fully mobile after some time in rehab. It's been slow going so far in the hospital.
And just last night, we were out with newish friends, a couple whose son has experienced challenges not dissimilar to those one of our kids has been wrestling with. It's a funny kind of bond in an adult relationship, when you connect over the shared struggles of your kids. It's comforting, more than anything. It's also humbling. Then again today, out for a short walk with my autistic son, I ran into another friend. She'd essentially fled her apartment because her kids were making her crazy. She showed me the expletive-laden texts from her teenage daughter, just to prove the point. I said, "Come on over. I've got coffee, cookies, wine, whatever you might want." She stopped over for a few minutes, but said that she really wanted to go for a walk. So I joined her.
Lots of conversation about her daughter's insistence on having access to certain medications after diagnosing herself over the Internet...of course. We talked about how her husband goes one way with her daughter on these issues, while she goes another. And I just shared my mantra that if, as parents, you're not pulling together, in the same direction, you'll wind up pulling apart. I told her that I thought her daughter wanted to see a certain doctor who'd been pretty freewheeling with meds because she wanted a candyman, rather than someone who would obligate her to do the hard therapeutic/behavioral work in tandem with any needed medication. And I told her that as parents, it's our job to help our kids make the best choices for themselves, rather than indulge whatever pops into their underdeveloped teenage brains. Since their daughter is not yet eighteen, it's even more imperative that her parents continue to help chart the course. And since they're also paying for whatever treatment she accesses, I also think they get to have a pretty strong say. That's not blackmail; it's just reality. I don't think as parents that we're in any way obligated to enable our kids to make irresponsible or even self-destructive decisions. It's excruciating to have kids in pain, kids who are struggling. But none of that means ceding to kids control over medication and other decisions they don't have full grasp of and cannot take full responsibility for.
I know in my husband's and my parenting journey, we've done our best to make sure that our kids are engaged in whatever decisions we've had to make. But we have one child who has been unable for most of his life to make consequential decisions---including about his health--so we've had no choice but to make them for him. We've also made choices for our other kids, sometimes on their behalf, but as often as we could, in consultation with them. Life doesn't always line up neatly, allowing for deliberative choice-making, with lots of engagement and back and forth. Sometimes, you just need to get shit done. And sometimes in a hurry, during a crisis, under the time gun, whatever.
Parenting can be brutally hard. And loaded with some not very good options. But that doesn't mean you can punt on choosing. And when it's not brutally hard, it can even be more difficult than that. But we have to keep trying. And coming back to the love that animates all of our choices. Even if our kids hate us for making them.
Wednesday, October 30, 2019
Is There an Upside to Being Seen?
It seems that I've become that person, the mother others notice. And react to. Just the other day, as I was staring at what I think were the booster engines on the Saturn V rocket, a woman approached me and said, "Are you ok?" I was actually startled by her question, since I didn't immediately know why she was asking. "I have a son who's autistic. I see it in your child." I don't actually recall responding because, after all, what would I say? "Keep smiling," she added, and walked away.
I'm not exactly sure how I felt about that encounter. Well, that's not entirely true. I think it hurt my heart. Not because what the woman said was unkind or uncalled for. I knew she was reaching out with kindness, with empathy. And I will always, always, be grateful for folks like that. It's just that other people seeing you struggle, seeing your child struggle, is something that just hurts. It's not that I'm embarrassed about it, since I make a point in those moments of not seeing other people who might be seeing me. It's just that it brings the most intimate of family struggles out into the open in a way that is like wearing a wound, like bleeding profusely as you go through what otherwise look to the outside world to be the normal activities of family life. But of course there's nothing normal about any of this.
And just a day after the Saturn encounter, I found myself explaining to a lovely, well-meaning flight attendant that my child is not rude or disrespectful. My child was in fact stuck in an obsessive loop that didn't seem to have an exit ramp. Clearly, the flight attendant saw something in my eyes, on my face, that led her to offer to intervene. That would not have made anything better, so I demurred.
After the plane took off, I went back to the galley to explain to her why my child was behaving that way. Which led her to reveal her own struggles, with anxiety. That led to some quite wonderful conversations during the flight, including our sharing photos of our rescue dogs (hers and one of ours look exactly alike!), and my learning that her dog Charlie is the only one who can get her 88 year old mother with dementia to take a shower. Charlie visits her mom and by licking her mom's leg, somehow effects the transition to showering. I also learned that her mom still smokes, that she and her husband try to keep her mom safe, and that she still buys her mom cigarettes.
This is the same flight attendant who took it upon herself to move us to two empty rows in the plane before takeoff. She did this while I was in the restroom and when I came out and saw that we'd been moved up, I asked my husband why. He told me that she'd said to him, "Your wife's a doll." Well that was completely lovely and totally unexpected. But I also think it was one woman who understands pain and struggle reaching out to another. And that was kind of perfect. And wonderful. And heartbreaking. And gratitude-inducing. And a reminder that sometimes, being seen can be a very good thing indeed...
I'm not exactly sure how I felt about that encounter. Well, that's not entirely true. I think it hurt my heart. Not because what the woman said was unkind or uncalled for. I knew she was reaching out with kindness, with empathy. And I will always, always, be grateful for folks like that. It's just that other people seeing you struggle, seeing your child struggle, is something that just hurts. It's not that I'm embarrassed about it, since I make a point in those moments of not seeing other people who might be seeing me. It's just that it brings the most intimate of family struggles out into the open in a way that is like wearing a wound, like bleeding profusely as you go through what otherwise look to the outside world to be the normal activities of family life. But of course there's nothing normal about any of this.
And just a day after the Saturn encounter, I found myself explaining to a lovely, well-meaning flight attendant that my child is not rude or disrespectful. My child was in fact stuck in an obsessive loop that didn't seem to have an exit ramp. Clearly, the flight attendant saw something in my eyes, on my face, that led her to offer to intervene. That would not have made anything better, so I demurred.
After the plane took off, I went back to the galley to explain to her why my child was behaving that way. Which led her to reveal her own struggles, with anxiety. That led to some quite wonderful conversations during the flight, including our sharing photos of our rescue dogs (hers and one of ours look exactly alike!), and my learning that her dog Charlie is the only one who can get her 88 year old mother with dementia to take a shower. Charlie visits her mom and by licking her mom's leg, somehow effects the transition to showering. I also learned that her mom still smokes, that she and her husband try to keep her mom safe, and that she still buys her mom cigarettes.
This is the same flight attendant who took it upon herself to move us to two empty rows in the plane before takeoff. She did this while I was in the restroom and when I came out and saw that we'd been moved up, I asked my husband why. He told me that she'd said to him, "Your wife's a doll." Well that was completely lovely and totally unexpected. But I also think it was one woman who understands pain and struggle reaching out to another. And that was kind of perfect. And wonderful. And heartbreaking. And gratitude-inducing. And a reminder that sometimes, being seen can be a very good thing indeed...
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