Coping with Un-cope-able Parents

Who’s This Book For?

QUOTATION: “The light isn’t shining enough on me.” (This ironic complaint was uttered by the impossible mother of a friend who makes it her life’s work to be the center of attention. On this occasion, an inadequate number of lamps were turned on in her basement lair.)
You WILL Be Served By This Work If:

• You laugh out loud – no, make that ROAR – in recognition of your circumstances within the Impossible Parents Questionnaire J

• You’re wondering: “Am I a secret brother or sister to this woman, because otherwise how could she possibly know our family so well”?

• You’re thinking, “Finally! Someone on the Planet who ‘gets’ what it’s really like to deal with my folks. Hallelujah!!!”

• You easily recognize that you’re compelled to read further because this book contains information you need to receive.

• You draw HOPE from the possibility that there is a way to navigate your parental relationship so the highest and best for all concerned can be attained.
You don’t necessarily find connection to this extract from MORE magazine, dated February/March 2011. Author Karen Hamilton argues that even though looking after an aging parent can be heart-breaking, love conquers all. OK…
Ms. Hamilton remembers standing over a bathroom sink holding her Dad’s dentures and seeing her smile reflected back in the bathroom mirror; he’d just thrown up because he had cancer and was dying. She acknowledges she could have felt resentful or disgusted, but in that moment found herself “privileged”.
She equally draws out the example of a 52-year-old single mom who waded right into the muck of assisting with her father’s bathing to cleaning his colostomy bag – concluding that children who care for elderly parents find it “fulfilling and affirming”.
Further, the author goes on to subtly deride images conjured up by the word, caregiver. To quote, “I envision a worn-out woman caring for her elderly, cranky parents; she’s doing her best but barely getting by, isolated, angry and tired. One notch up from crazy cat lady, she’s somebody nobody wants to be.”
Helloooo!!!! Have I just entered some kind of weird alternative reality? Last time I looked, I haven’t (yet) turned into some kooky eccentric that people cross to the other side of the street to avoid simply because I practically gag in the face of such self-righteousness. That is, unless someone isn’t telling me something!
Count me amongst those 70 per cent of (mostly) women who consider tending to head-strong parents stressful and who are worried the pressure might do us in. In its defense, the article goes on to report that caregivers who experience such tension have a higher mortality rate – 63 per cent – than non-caregivers of the same age. Thank you for the concession.
You Will NOT Relate If:

• You’ve never experienced any of the above behaviors or attitudes.

• You’re right now saying to yourself: “I love my parents. They’re perfect – whether passed away or alive. What are you talking about, Carol-Ann?”

• You have difficulty acknowledging you’re in the minority of the population if you have no such issues with your folks. Lucky you! Be glad. Please never take your situation for granted in a self-congratulatory way.

• Your folks fit images like the photograph of a granny singing group featured in a local magazine called The Hurricanes; these ladies look like they’ve totally got it “going on” even in their matronly attire – electric guitars in hand and one pounding her drums with gusto in the background!

• Your parents’ attitudes parallel that of a 91-year-old senior who makes his own bread at home – and does 24 sit-ups plus push-ups a day. I don’t even do that, for Heaven’s sake! This gentleman can’t see but he’s just moved houses, and doesn’t “plan on sitting around all day”.

• Or, your Mom is like this alpha-grandmother depicted by Howie Kahn in a December 2010 O magazine article. Initially shut down when her husband passed away in 1965, she now holds court at the seniors’ home. Votes are cast to determine who is permitted to sit at her dining room table. Should a resident doze off in the lobby, Grandma indignantly vocalizes: “It makes it look like old people live here. If they want to sleep, they should go back to their beds.” (Now, I do recognize that Un-cope-able Parents come in all guises, and you may find this lady’s harsh strictures over-the-top. What irks in one family may not annoy in another.) I personally admire her feisty nature, having wished my own mother had possessed more backbone.

• You secretly or overtly condemn statements within the Impossible Parents Questionnaire in this fashion: “Wow. What is her problem? She’s talking about the two people who gave her life. She has no right to her feelings.”

• You entertain no other possibility (should your parents ever become incapacitated) than to house them in your own environment because that is what children “should” do in order to look after those who brought them into this world.
On the other hand, those for whom this work is geared will immediately recognize this final bullet is something you will never entertain – to bring one or (God forbid!!) both into your sacred space. Over your dead body! For, you know you’d be giving up your last remnants of balance and sanity – maybe even tethering to this world!
Of Note: Even those couples in my circles who willingly assumed the admirable stance of taking in their loved ones wound up temporarily dissolving their marital bliss until after Dad and Mom passed away.