Dependence and Aging Parents

My mom and Paul, 2002. The Swedish rollator kept her out of a wheelchair
In response to my post on accepting dependence, Eve asked me: "What advice would you give to those of us with older parents who are soon to enter into a dependency stage?"

I wrestle with these questions for myself. I see my cousins struggle with the same issues with my aunts and uncles. My mother was incredibly healthy and active until she fractured her pelvis on a trip to Israel. In fact, she walked around Israel for a week with a fractured pelvis. I suspect only my father could tell her what to do; I often wished my dad were still alive to cope with her destructive decisions. Mom thought that her mom had taken a defeatist attitude toward her arthritis, taken to her chair, and given up her formerly active life. She was never going to be like her mom; exercise, yoga, great diet would all prevent that. But my grandmother lived four years longer, and taking care of her was relatively easy. She remained the loving, wise grandmother who was a great listener; she lived to know 23 great grandchildren.

In her eloquent tribute to my mom, my daughter Rose points out she was always moving. My mom never seemed anxious or depressed; she coped with negative feelings by activity. As her health and life fell apart very quickly, she wasn't comfortable about expressing her fears or grief. I often wondered if she had adequately mourned her little sister who died when mom was 5, her father who died when she was 17.

If my mom had been more cautious, she might still be alive to see six grandchildren married and meet three great-grandchildren. Anne, my oldest daughter, has told me dozens of times in the five months of her son Nate's life how much she misses Grandma. I used to tell my mom, "Mom, so many of your grandkids are just on the cusp of marriage and parenthood. Isn't seeing Mommy Anne worth letting us take care of you?"

Our generation is being encouraged to think we can defeat aging. The US can't cope with dependency at the beginning or end of life. Letting people take care of you can be the most loving gift you can give them. I recommend the superb blog, Time Goes By--What It's Really Like to Get Older by Ronni Bennett. If your parents are aging, encourage them to read it and discuss with you the many issues she raises. All of us constantly struggle with being able to ask for and accept help. I recently sprained my knee, and I hate to ask my husband for the help he is happy to give.

Even though it was challenging, I have always been glad I was able to welcome my mom into my home and give back a small part of what she had given to her family, her friends, the world. My then new husband Paul was wonderful with her. Since he hadn't known the super Mary, he could love the reduced Mary without mourning what was no longer there. People used to assume Paul was mom's son; mom get confused explaining she wasn't English.

Please share your thoughts and experiences with this.

Pandora's Box

Originally, I wrote this for the seniors I tutor on computers and the internet. You might want to share it with your grandparents or parents.

Initially, in the late 1980s, I did not bond with our first Macintosh computer. I named it Pandora and abandoned it to the custody of my four daughters for the its first few months of life. A lefthander, I could not master the mouse. Apple had a mouse–training program requiring you to use the mouse to drive an online car. I was close to tears as I repeatedly drove the car off the road to the sound of screeching brakes. My former husband, a radiation physicist, gave me excellent advice: “Relax, Mary Jo, it is not like poking around under the hood of your car when you don’t know what you are doing. If you touch the wrong key, it won’t explode.”

Fortunately for me, public librarians are given no choice about computer literacy. You learn or you leave. I quickly overcame my initial phobia. Now I cannot imagine life without my Mac. My four daughters love to travel for both business and pleasure. Anne, the oldest, has traveled to over 65 countries. At one point Anne was in Africa and Michelle, two years younger, was in Australia. Naturally anxious, I cold not cope unless I had my daily instant message or email fix.

A year ago, Anne flew to Singapore on an 18-hour nonstop flight. I checked her progress on Flight Tracker about once an hour. When Vanessa was working for the UN in Kosovo, she had a webcam at work. Seeing her waving and blowing kisses first thing in the morning was wonderfully reassuring. When she spent the summer in Rwanda studying the aftereffects of genocide, she could instant message me when I was sitting outside at my picnic table outside, taking advantage of our wireless connection.. That seemed truly miraculous. Now the girls live in Manhattan, Boston, and Chicago. We fully share in each other’s lives because we email everyday. We have an hguys email list; hguys are the girls, their husbands, my husband, my ex-husband, and my son-in-law's sister.

We also have an extended family email list. My five brothers, their wives, my daughters, their husbands, my 11 nieces and nephews and their spouses--all belong. Sadly, my far-flung family infrequently see each other face-to-face at holidays, weddings, and funerals. But we have had many more family reunions in cyberspace.

I love how easy the internet makes sharing to share family photos. When caring for my mom in the last four years of her life, I digitalized thousands of family slides and photos. My husband Peter, a computer programmer, wrote software that enabled me to create photo websites. I can caption each picture and arrange all of them in chronological order. Last year, on each family members’s birthday, I created a special birthday website, scanning in pictures many family members had never seen.

My mom was the family matriarch; as her memory declined over the last four years of her life, the family story was endangered. Frequent viewing of her website seemed to clear the webs of dementia and helped mom remember both who everyone was and her own life history. At her wake, I was able to attach my Ibook laptop to our television set. Mourners were able to enjoy a slideshow of hundreds of pictures of Mary Koch, the vibrant, energetic teacher, trailblazer, and activist.

My husband Peter and I met on the Internet eleven years ago, September 1995. We both belonged to a Jane Austen discussion list. We love to tell people Jane Austen introduced us, even though I was on Long Island and Peter was in London. True love triumphed over 3,000 miles, the US Immigration and Naturalization Service, and a five-hour time difference. We were married December 1, 2001 and are living happily ever after.

My daughters say I know more about computers and the Internet than any 62 year old they know. I am very proud of that. I am so grateful I learned to love Pandora’s Box . At the bottom of Pandora’s box is hope. The Internet seems the most hopeful development of the 21st century, blurring national boundaries, furthering understanding and communication across religious and ethnic differences.

Being Around Normal Children

I was born in 1945. In the world I grew up in, children were everywhere. Until I was 2, I lived in my grandma's house, enjoying the attentions of five uncles and an aunt. I have 5 younger brothers and 45 first cousins. I went to Catholic schools that had 60 kids in a class. My parents each had six siblings; their families all lived with a 30-minute drive. We had countless family parties--baptisms, Holy Communions, Confirmations, graduations. In addition to babysitting for my brothers, I began twice-weekly babysitting for other families when I was 12. In the summers I worked as a mother's helper and then as children's librarian.

My youngest brother was 15 when my oldest daughter was born in 1973. Raising four daughters, I encountered many hundreds of children in La Leche meetings, playgroups, babysitting coops, cooperative nursery schools, school libraries. For 20 years I have worked intermittently as a children's and young adult librarian, meeting countless more children. Since I started social work school in 1991, I have treated children, teens, and families.

I don't want to be grandiose for a social worker. But I don't necessarily need to memorize the DSM-IV to know when a kid and her family are in trouble. Even more important, I am much less likely to mistake difficult developmental periods for lifelong mental illness. Often children's problems result from family, school, social, and economic problems; they can't be medicated away. A meeting with a child's teacher or grandparents help clarify the problem. Shrinks should consider home visits.

My "Normal" Children

I have been very disturbed by the epidemic of bipolar diagnoses imposed on children. I myself have struggled with bipolar disorder for twenty years, and I know the crushing stigma such a dire diagnosis imposes. Until about ten years ago, psychiatrists believed the bipolar diagnosis was inappropriate before late adolescence.

By any parental standards, my four daughters have turned out wonderfully. Such a happy ending was not predictable during their childhood and teen years.I teased them about it recently. Certainly, I worried at least three of them were bipolar, if not spawns of Satan, when they were younger.

Here were some diagnostic indicators. Obviously not all applied to all four daughters.

• They wouldn't pick up their toys. I have stepped on 20,000 lego pieces in the dark.
• They once decorated their bedrooms with a mixture of desitin and baby powder.
  They were chronically late. No one could get off to school in the morning without substantial maternal help, usually involving driving.
  Bedtime was a joke. A friend said you could call our house at any time of the night; someone would be sure to be awake and delighted to talk to you about your problems.
• They told their mommy "fuck you" with not an ounce of guilt or remorse The major culprit, when asked why she was acting like a devil child at age five, explained "Mommy, I used all my goodness up in school." Now she is using her goodness working for international peace.
  The Writer absolutely refused to do the assigned kindergarten homework, writing sentences using a list of words. "Writers don't use other people's words."
  They almost never lost a power battle with their doormat mommy. My oldest, the Adventurer, should have been born with a printout, "You will win exactly five battles with this child. Choose them carefully." I did win the important battles, but I only learned their importance by losing most of the rest.
• The Writer had meltdowns because the new washing machine wasn't blue; the pretty blue rental car had vanished; her aunt and uncle didn't have a second child her age; she was not attending a school that closed three years previously; there wasn't enough snow; election day would be a day before her 18th birthday three years from now. Her tantrums were reserved for the existential order of the universe.
• They only ran fevers, thereby missing school, on the three school days without the gifted program pullout. I conducted ad hoc home schooling for bored students who missed an astonishing amount of school.
• The Adventurer only pulled the hair and dumped sand over the heads of playmates whose mommies would reliably go round the twist (Anne has traveled to over 65 countries, and has lived in Niger, Rwanda and Kosovo.)She ended her three-year sand eating on the day our doctor looks her in the eye and assured me that her sand-eating diet must account for her excellent health. For old-times sake, she would occasionally revert to the diet when babysat by a hysteric mommy.
• At age 2 Michelle magic marked a $2000 painting. To be fair, the culprit was only two and the artist was able to fix the picture.
• The same culprit at age two also destroyed another family's audiotapes of their kids when babies and toddlers.

I questioned my sanity again and again throughout their childhoods. But I am very proud that I could cherish their intelligence, creativity, and individuality and was never tempted to drug their uniqueness, no matter how it disrupted our lives. They claim that are going emphasize order more and creativity less with their own kids:)I foresee much amusement watching them try.

Book Worm

This picture was taken at my grandmother's house, February 1, 1947, the day before my brother Richard was born. I was 18 months old. her kitten. In my baby book my mom wrote: "A book worm--she loved all books. At 2 years her favorites were Dumbo, Children's Garden of Verses, Alice in Wonderland. Was always eager for Cinderella, Goldilocks, etc." Under my favorite books, she listed Daddy's and Uncle George's yearbook, Mother Goose, all magazines, ABC book. Later I wrote in Nancy Drew.

My interest in my dad's yearbook indicated that I was fascinated in family history and dynamics from infancy.

Are book worms made or born? Mom and Dad were consummate book worms. People who say they don't have time to read baffle me. How do they stay sane? How do they escape? How do they figure out stuff? I have always coped with problems, illness, tragedy by going to the library. Reading blogs, I go to my library site to reserve books that someone has highly recommended.

My first library card seemed magical. I vividly remember my awe when I realized that card was a passport to the whole world. My sister-in-law once paid me the supreme compliment: "Your idea of domesticity is putting your books in alphabetical order."

Reading always took precedence over housework in my family. I was enchanted when three -year-old Elizabeth crooned to her doll: "Don't cry baby; mommy will read to you." My mom introduced me to my favorite author, Jane Austen, when I was 12. Jane Austen introduced me to my second husband.. I made a Austen literary allusion on an internet support group, and Andy made a witty comeback. I was instantly smitten. Little did I know how much reading about green cards awaited me.

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Posted By Mary Jo Graves to Matriarch at 10/04/2007 10:39:00 AM