Family Triage

I don't think my husband has seen the latest Statistics Canada sandwich generation stats.

He's been too busy being one.

The thickness of the slices of bread in that sandwich (two aging parents, four growing kids) and the skimpiness of the filling (one severely stretched 40-something guy) vary from week to week. Tonight my husband is looking like a the filling in a sandwich that has fallen to the bottom of someone's backpack: kind of squished and flattened.

He's made two separate trips to the city where his parents live –- a city two hours from our home -- and he'll be making at least one more trip before the week is finished.

Both of his parents were admitted to the hospital this week with separate health concerns.

At times like this, we switch into family triage mode. My husband focuses on caring for his parents while I do my best to hold things the most important things together on the home front. It's the only way to get over the hump.

When I compare my situation, as the oldest of four girls in a family, to my husband's situation, as an only child, I realize how lucky I am. When my Dad had his pacemaker surgery back in the spring, I had the luxury of sharing the worry load with my three sisters. My husband, being an only child, is on his own. And so are my in-laws, much of the time.

The health care system conspires against families – or so it seems at times like this. While we would love to have his parents move to our community so that they could live out their final years close to us, the chronic shortage of doctors in our community makes that impossible. It would be sheer insanity to move two elderly people with chronic and acute medical needs to a community such as ours: a place where 1 in 5 residents can't find a doctor. And so my in-laws struggle on day-to-day, two hours away from us, lonely and isolated much of the time; my husband burns up the highway between here and there and is slowly but surely burning out himself; and the health of three people close to me is being affected (four, if you count our son with Aspergers syndrome, who finds it really difficult to cope with his dad's many absences).

I try to provide whatever help I can to my husband, but I can't download the worry and frustration he is shouldering. All I can do is listen from the vantage point of someone who has been there and who knows that you have to do whatever it is you can do and feel you have to do and, at the same time, forgive yourself for not being able to do it all.

Often what you want to do is just be there -- to make time for both conversation and silence. I spent the night before my grandmother's death sleeping in an empty hospital bed in her room so that I would be there if she woke in the night and had something to say; or if she simply needed reassurance that she was loved and that someone from the family was near.

Just as you can never get back those early months in your baby's life, you can never recapture those final chapters in the life of someone who is growing older. And because you do not know ahead of time just how many chapters of that person's life story will ultimately be written, you don't want to take for granted any of the scenes in that story as they play out. After all, you're writing the script that will ultimately form more of the text of your memories -- the stories you pass down to your children and your grandchildren when they say, "Tell me about your parents...." many years from now.

* * *

Worth noting: "Boomers now live in a world of paid work, caring for children (with more adult children still living at home) and increasingly long-lived parents and friends. The size of the “sandwich generation,” the generation caring for children and older parents, is likely to grow. The aging of the baby boomers will result in a much larger proportion of seniors in the population. With lower fertility rates, there may be fewer adults to care for the elderly. Seniors already provide a significant proportion of care for other seniors."
- Eldercare: What We Know Today by Kelly Cranswick and Donna Dosman

Mother Metamorphosis

My first year of motherhood was all about change: watching my daughter wriggle and crawl from baby stage to baby stage and feeling myself make the mind shift required to move from the intimacy of the-two-of-us to the much more complex family that is born the moment baby makes three. It was no longer me and him: it was me and him and me and her and her and him: three times as many relationship combos to maintain in the same small space. No wonder the house suddenly felt so much more crowded. The house wasn't simply overflowing with piles upon piles of baby stuff, piles that grew by the day as new parcels arrived by mail, courier, or baby-obsessed neighbor. The house was fully charged with the high voltage energy of new relationship possibilities, possibilities that were both brilliant and dark at the same time.

I remember feeling this strange mix of anxiety and joy: being simultaneous head-over-heels in love with my daughter and freaked out about how much my own life was changing, particularly my relationship with my husband. I couldn't believe that a person could be so happy and so sad at the same time. Were he and I destined to drift apart at the same time that we had the best reason in the world to want to stay together? If we couldn't even carry on a conversation without arguing about something,would we ever come out of this dark place as a couple?

I've been thinking back to this time a lot lately, because I've emerged from another year of growth and introspection. At first everything seemed scary and uncertain in the wake of my youngest son's Aspergers diagnosis, but now my husband and I have found our way back to something resembling the new normal again. In the early days, weeks, months, I remember feeling like a new mom again; realizing that I didn't even know what questions to ask in order to figure out what I needed to know.

For the longest time, I felt like I was walking around in a daze that was eerily reminiscent of the isolating fog of new motherhood: unable to concentrate and yet thinking all the time. My husband felt much the same way, and yet we were each in our own, separate fogs. This time, with the benefit of knowledge gained over 20 years of parenting, we groped through the fog until we found one another. We knew we needed to remind ourselves that we were on the same team, not at war with one another; that we needed to support one another while we were supporting our son.

When I signed up for this motherhood gig 20 years ago, I thought that being a mother was all about raising children. I had no idea that my children would also be raising me – providing me with opportunities to learn and grow more than I ever thought possible, particularly during those times when I was challenged to the max as a mother.

Don't get me wrong. I certainly wasn't grateful for those soul-wrenchingly painful parent development opportunities while I was living through them, but, looking back, I know now that I wouldn't have developed the ability to care deeply for parents and children in all kinds of circumstances nor would I have evolved into the person I am today if I hadn't been given the opportunity to experience so many different types of highs and lows myself. If I'd set up parenting digs at 123 Easy Street, I might easily have assumed that all parents and kids live on streets like that street. I would have been terribly wrong.

Because our family has spent time on Infertility Crescent and Stillbirth Street and Learning Disabilities Lane and Eating Disorders Drive and Depression Drive and Aspergers Syndrome Street and at other assorted addresses, I know that Easy Street is a very tiny street; and that some of the families who have houses there are living in a state of self-delusion. They aren't really living the picture-perfect existence they think they are living. At any time, the foundations of their houses and their lives could come tumbling down.

Parents who've lived on the streets that spiral off from Easy Street know what it's like to feel as emotionally downtrodden as a partially stepped on or totally flattened caterpillar -- the kind of feeling you get when your something worrying or terrible is happening or has happened to your child. At first you think you're going to stay in flattened caterpillar mode forever. And then you decide that what has happened to your child will not be in vain: you will find a way to make something positive come from this experience. And so you start to inject life back into your squished caterpillar body even though, at first, your body says, "What's the point?" At some point, you find the courage to wriggle out of the what's-the-point cocoon you retreated into when you were at your most vulnerable. You reach out to the only ones who can truly understand (a group of formerly squished caterpillars who have somehow morphed into butterflies). You work hard to heal yourself and the rest of your family and to recreate your life in a new way. Then you watch yourself soar above the worries of the day, knowing you have what it takes to help yourself and your family weather the next storm.

Note:
I've just given my personal blog -- The Mother of All Blogs -- a major revamp. I've moved it over to TypePad and added links to hundreds (there may be over a thousand) of links to parenting resources and articles (with many more to come). If you're used to linking to http://www.motherofallblogs.com, you don't have to do a thing. You've moved with the blog. If you used to link to the blogspot address, you need to change your link for my blog over to the new address.

Potty Training Math

Is there a potty in your future? (Or, rather, your toddler's?) If so, you might want to sign up for this quick and almost pain-free crash course in potty training math.

27: There is little benefit to starting toilet training before age 27 months, according to researchers at the University of Pennsylvania. Start training children any earlier and the entire process simply ends up taking longer. (You may be ready for your child to be out of diapers, but that doesn't necessarily mean your child is developmentally ready to master the skills involved in learning how to use the toilet.) The takeaway message? Toilet training will be less stressful for all concerned if you wait until your child is both physically and emotionally ready.

8 to 10: You can expect the entire toilet training process to take about 8 to 10 months, according to researchers from the Medical College of Wisconsin. Don't expect overnight results and do plan for plenty of stops and starts. That's how the potty training process tends to play out.

32.5 to 35. Girls tend to be toilet-trained at an earlier age than boys, but there's huge variation from child to child when it comes to acquiring individual skills. Researchers at the Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee found that the median age for "staying dry during the day" was 32.5 months for girls and 35 months for boys, but there was variation of up to a year in the attainment of individual skills (e.g., showing an interest in using the potty, staying dry for two hours, indicating a need to go to the bathroom). Here's something else you'll want to know:Keeping your child in diapers during the toilet-training process can be counter-productive. Researchers at the University of Nevada discovered that wearing diapers increased the rate of accidents (e.g., wetting the diaper) and decreased the number of successful trips to the potty.

1 in 4: Approximately one in four young children develop a toilet training problem known as stool training refusal (a.k.a the refusal to poop on the potty). According to researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, the problem typically begins with hard bowel movements and pain during defecation. If parents can head off or detect these earlier problems, problems with stool training refusal (an understandable desire to avoid future bowel movements because bowel movements are now associated with pain or discomfort) can often be avoided.

POSTSCRIPT: The secret formula -- for success in potty training, parenthood, and life: "Being a doctor has made me a better mother, and being a mother has made me a better doctor....Both jobs require flexibility. No two children and no two patients are the same. For example...one child may be able to proceed through toilet training easily, while another may take months. Recognizing each person's needs and adapting my approach is crucial." - Sarina Schrager, MD, mom of two, writing in the February 2006 edition of Family Practice Management

Grand Theft Acorn

It isn't easy being a kid with a powerful sense of injustice. And if you're a kid like my 11-year-old son, a kid who carries an entire world worth of injustices on his shoulders, a simple field trip activity can become an impossibly painful and complicated exercise in big-stakes moral choices.

After my fabulous experience on the first field trip of the year a few weeks ago, I wasn't about to miss the field trip to a local nature sanctuary.

The fact that doing so would allow me to spend a couple of hours of Election Day romping around in the leaves with a great group of kids made it the easiest choice I'd had to make in a long time. All I'd have to focus on was keeping track of three kids as they romped around in the fall leaves.

Everything was going along just perfectly until we got to the squirrels vs. the blue jay activity: an interactive activity designed to teach kids just how heartless the world can be. It was, on some strange and twisted level, the perfect lesson to be teaching the kids on Election Day: that there are winners and losers in every contest; and that nature, like life itself, can be mercilessly cruel.

Here's how the activity worked. The kids were told that they were squirrels. They were given five acorns and told to hide them near their homes (a hula-hoop sized circle that they placed on the ground). One kid in the class was picked to be the bluejay. His job was to run around stealing acorns from the squirrels while they tried to bury their acorns for the winter. The squirrel who had managed to squirrel away the greatest number of acorns would be the winner because he would be the most likely to survive the winter.

Some of the squirrels were fine with being robbed of their food supply for the winter. They didn't take the activity too seriously. My son was not fine at all. He was protesting the rules of the game before the activity had even gotten underway. How arbitrary of nature! How unfair! And then the bluejay came along and stole not just his acorns but his hula-hoop-sized circle, too. That wasn't even part of the game!

I had to take him aside and explain that he'd figured out the whole idea of the activity – nature is cruel – before he launched a personal vendetta against his bluejay classmate.

I could already see the wheels turning in his head as he stared in amazement at his happy-go-lucky classmates:

"Wake up squirrels! Are you going to let the blue jay get away with grand theft acorn yet again? Are you going to accept acorn crime in your own backyard just because it's the way things have always been or should we try to make things better for the next generation of squirrels?"

The only good thing about being a kid with a strong sense of injustice is that you are naturally drawn towards the path through life where you can make a difference. The downside, of course, is that it isn't the smooth, paved path that leads to Easy Street. It's often the rocky path with unexpected twists and turns. But I wouldn't discourage my son from following the path that's calling him for a minute. It's where the real living takes place.

* * * ---* * * ---* * * ---* * * ---* * * ---* * * ---* * * ---* * *---* * * ---* * * ---* * * ---* * * ---* * * ---* * * ---* * * ---

Please Note: I'll be back at the Today's Parent Fall BabyTime Show on November 7, 8, and 9. Here's a brief description of what I'll be doing.

"Bestselling Canadian pregnancy and parenting author Ann Douglas returns to Today's Parent Fall BabyTime Show. Come show off your belly or your baby and chat with Ann one-on-one at the "Ask Ann" booth. Then test your knowledge of all things pregnancy, birth, baby, and beyond by playing The Mother of All Trivia Games. You don't have to be a mom or a mom-to-be to play. In fact, some of the most enthusiastic participants in our trivia game at the springtime show were dads and other relatives. All you need is a spirit of adventure and a willingness to take risks (two prerequisites for parenthood, by the way). So get yourself to the main stage by the time the trivia games begin. You won't want to miss out on the fun."

Thanksgiving

You can't help but take note of the changing of the seasons when you're burying a baby in October. The sky may still be impossibly blue, but the brightly-colored autumn leaves tumbling to the ground serve as a reminder that the carefree days of summer are forever gone.

It's been 12 years since we buried our stillborn baby. On the first anniversary of her death, my husband and I visited her grave with a two-week-old baby, a six-year-old, a seven-year-old, and a nine-year-old in tow. For the next ten years after that, we headed to the cemetery as a family on the anniversary of her death, standing together as a family and silently recognizing how this tiny little person who never took a breath affected all of us in powerful and unexpected ways.

This year was the first year we weren't all in one place on the anniversary of Laura's death. Our oldest son was in another city, attending college. Our 20-year-old daughter's schedule was out of synch with the rest of the family's. So the remaining four of us – my husband and our two youngest sons – headed to the cemetery after dinner last night and spent a few minutes together reflecting and remembering. The brass on Laura's grave marker was sparkled brightly in the warmth of the autumn sun. It looked as if the plot had been freshly mowed.

* * *

Just before I was ready to head to bed, our 20-year-old arrived home. She was walking the walk of the righteously indignant.

"Aren't the cemetery people supposed to take care of Laura's stone? I had to pull out all kinds of grass with my hands."

Routines may shift and evolve as the years march along, but I am thankful that my kids' sense of family is still there. They may not be at the dinner table as often as they were when they were toddlers, but they understand who they are and where they fit into the life and history of our family: family members we see on a regular basis; family members we see occasionally; and family members who are no longer with us, but that we honor and remember in our hearts.

It's a connection that allows them to feel both rooted, powerful, and strong, like a giant maple tree reaching up toward the sun. They know that they are part of something bigger than themselves: a multi-generational work-in-progress.