Thursday, October 26, 2006
It seems I'm not as "Care Free" as I thought.
Before my mother awoke, yesterday, I received a call from one of my sisters, the one with whom I communicate the most. We always fall into an easy chatter, although not necessarily about easy subjects.
One of the subjects we traversed was the younger members of our extended family; the nieces and nephews and grand-this-and-that's. She has, for some years, been closely tending one of the youngest of these relatives. There is a possibility that this relationship will be overshadowed by the intrusion of professional care for the child, next year...for no other reason than that the parents seem to be unaware of the extraordinary, dynamic and valuable (to both parties) relationship my sister has forged with The Young One in question. My sister and I spent some time mourning the fact that the relationship isn't evident to The Young One's parents, talked about ways to bring it to their awareness and lobby for that relationship as at least as valuable to The Young One's development as a professional day care center could be. To lighten the flow of the conversation, I joked that if my sister had a hard time approaching the parents about this, "Have 'em call me, I'll tell them!"
We both laughed.
"No, don't," I continued, attempting to stoke another laugh. "Considering all the stuff I've said and written since April, trying to change the way everyone relates to Mom and me, the last thing I need is to distance yet another part of the family!"
"Oh, I don't pay any attention to that!" the sister with whom I was talking said.
I was momentarily startled. I immediately thought of the Care Free post and the post about relationships and wondered In other words, if you're beset with a howling dog, hang back until the dog is asleep, then, let that sleeping dog lie. The conversation continued to swirl fast around me, though, so I tabled my initial consideration and immediately entitled the fast receding comment, "An Offering Meant to Assure Me that I Had Not Managed to Distance Her."
Our conversation continued bubbling downstream, then Mom awoke and I was on my way for the day.
A couple of hours into our day, though, I noticed I was increasingly silent and preoccupied. I wasn't in a bad mood; just stony with thought. I replayed my sister's startling comment so many times and scrutinized each of my reactions to it, small and large, that I cannot now be sure if she said "don't pay any attention to" or "ignore". I think it's the former...but it feels like the latter.
Considering that this is probably how all my sisters would like to react to my occasionally ornery annoyance with all of them as extremely distant relatives during this time of Taking Care of Our Ancient One Mother kept me noticeably removed from my mother all day. I know this because, although my mother did not take offense at my preoccupation, nor did she try to break into it, she thanked me obsessively for every move I made on her behalf. She only does this when I am not fully engaged with her, whatever the reason.
I can't say that I've come to any conclusions about the struggles I encounter as my mother's companion being simultaneously distanced and dismissed by my sisters. I have, once again, discovered, over the last 36 hours, that it is a relief to, you know, "have it in writing". Keeps me from agonizing over suspicions, which is a mostly foreign and distressing reaction for me, anyway.
I suppose I should be busily trying to figure out a way to extend myself as more approachable, less likely to flare; come up with suggestions for relationship renewal; shuttle my mental and physical asses around finding materials to "make it easy on everyone"; see to it that Mom and I again become "the flexible ones"; allay everyone's feelings of guilt, whether or not each is aware of them.
Instead, I imagined a post-Mom's-death scenario in which everyone, except me, heaves a sigh of relief that "it's over" and now we can all go back to being sisters, again. I was struck with the similarily of this possibility to the possibility that the parents of The Young One may be ignoring the not-to-be-found-anywhere-else value of the relationship my sister has forged with The Young One while doing what her parents only acknowledge as "babysitting", out of a sense of guilt toward what they imagine to be the "burden" of child care they have "foisted" upon my sister. They don't want to realize that it is much more than "babysitting", maybe because they feel guilty that, in this society with its capitalistic view of survival and its attendant prerogatives, they cannot make themselves available to provide what my sister is providing. Never mind that they are not of the age or relationship to The Young One to duplicate my sister's relationship with The Young One.
I thought about how the caregiving capacity of elders (pre-Ancient elders) is devalued and, finally, taken from them, through this overwhelming, unspoken guilt. I thought about how this further isolates everyone within an extended family. I thought about how this universal, simultaneous devaluation of caregiving and guilt over care that should be available through the family system but is almost impossible to provide through it continues to ensure that in all matters relating to love and nurturing, our economic system continues to hold sway. I thought about all the new experiments being launched in the hopes of somehow straddling economic and emotional imperatives: Green House Assisted Living Facilities; Chosen Famililes; Eden Alternative Reorganization of Nursing Homes and their Professionals; Credit Given for Helping the Elderly When One is Younger From Which One Can Draw When One Is Older; An Obsessive Concern with Encouraging the "Independence" in the Elderly as Long as Possible. Not one of these attempts involves raising the relationship consciousness of our families; they all, in fact, reward, and are rewarded by, distance. No one is talking about how families need to confront difficult relationships and work through them so that families will want to encourage and support the kind of relationships my sister has with her Young One and I have with My Mother, and will face off with our current economic system and insist on the respect and the room to do this.
We are giving up on family, dismissing the value of hard won family relationships that take time and energy and concern and commitment because we're scared we'll be out of a job (and, not coincidentally, out of the chance for "personal fulfillment") if we don't. Then, how will we survive?!?
Maybe this is inevitable: A world without family. Maybe it's just another step in evolution and, one way or another, we'll adjust, and the world won't be so bad. Humans are nothing if not adaptable.
But, you know, here I am with my mother, her only immediate family, now, daily astonished at how this detailed, complicated relationship we've forged continues to mold and enrich both of our lives, and I'm thinking, I care about this. Without apology, without embarassment, I care about this. I wish I lived in a world in which it was easier for others to care about this, too.
Later.
One of the subjects we traversed was the younger members of our extended family; the nieces and nephews and grand-this-and-that's. She has, for some years, been closely tending one of the youngest of these relatives. There is a possibility that this relationship will be overshadowed by the intrusion of professional care for the child, next year...for no other reason than that the parents seem to be unaware of the extraordinary, dynamic and valuable (to both parties) relationship my sister has forged with The Young One in question. My sister and I spent some time mourning the fact that the relationship isn't evident to The Young One's parents, talked about ways to bring it to their awareness and lobby for that relationship as at least as valuable to The Young One's development as a professional day care center could be. To lighten the flow of the conversation, I joked that if my sister had a hard time approaching the parents about this, "Have 'em call me, I'll tell them!"
We both laughed.
"No, don't," I continued, attempting to stoke another laugh. "Considering all the stuff I've said and written since April, trying to change the way everyone relates to Mom and me, the last thing I need is to distance yet another part of the family!"
"Oh, I don't pay any attention to that!" the sister with whom I was talking said.
I was momentarily startled. I immediately thought of the Care Free post and the post about relationships and wondered In other words, if you're beset with a howling dog, hang back until the dog is asleep, then, let that sleeping dog lie. The conversation continued to swirl fast around me, though, so I tabled my initial consideration and immediately entitled the fast receding comment, "An Offering Meant to Assure Me that I Had Not Managed to Distance Her."
Our conversation continued bubbling downstream, then Mom awoke and I was on my way for the day.
A couple of hours into our day, though, I noticed I was increasingly silent and preoccupied. I wasn't in a bad mood; just stony with thought. I replayed my sister's startling comment so many times and scrutinized each of my reactions to it, small and large, that I cannot now be sure if she said "don't pay any attention to" or "ignore". I think it's the former...but it feels like the latter.
Considering that this is probably how all my sisters would like to react to my occasionally ornery annoyance with all of them as extremely distant relatives during this time of Taking Care of Our Ancient One Mother kept me noticeably removed from my mother all day. I know this because, although my mother did not take offense at my preoccupation, nor did she try to break into it, she thanked me obsessively for every move I made on her behalf. She only does this when I am not fully engaged with her, whatever the reason.
I can't say that I've come to any conclusions about the struggles I encounter as my mother's companion being simultaneously distanced and dismissed by my sisters. I have, once again, discovered, over the last 36 hours, that it is a relief to, you know, "have it in writing". Keeps me from agonizing over suspicions, which is a mostly foreign and distressing reaction for me, anyway.
I suppose I should be busily trying to figure out a way to extend myself as more approachable, less likely to flare; come up with suggestions for relationship renewal; shuttle my mental and physical asses around finding materials to "make it easy on everyone"; see to it that Mom and I again become "the flexible ones"; allay everyone's feelings of guilt, whether or not each is aware of them.
Instead, I imagined a post-Mom's-death scenario in which everyone, except me, heaves a sigh of relief that "it's over" and now we can all go back to being sisters, again. I was struck with the similarily of this possibility to the possibility that the parents of The Young One may be ignoring the not-to-be-found-anywhere-else value of the relationship my sister has forged with The Young One while doing what her parents only acknowledge as "babysitting", out of a sense of guilt toward what they imagine to be the "burden" of child care they have "foisted" upon my sister. They don't want to realize that it is much more than "babysitting", maybe because they feel guilty that, in this society with its capitalistic view of survival and its attendant prerogatives, they cannot make themselves available to provide what my sister is providing. Never mind that they are not of the age or relationship to The Young One to duplicate my sister's relationship with The Young One.
I thought about how the caregiving capacity of elders (pre-Ancient elders) is devalued and, finally, taken from them, through this overwhelming, unspoken guilt. I thought about how this further isolates everyone within an extended family. I thought about how this universal, simultaneous devaluation of caregiving and guilt over care that should be available through the family system but is almost impossible to provide through it continues to ensure that in all matters relating to love and nurturing, our economic system continues to hold sway. I thought about all the new experiments being launched in the hopes of somehow straddling economic and emotional imperatives: Green House Assisted Living Facilities; Chosen Famililes; Eden Alternative Reorganization of Nursing Homes and their Professionals; Credit Given for Helping the Elderly When One is Younger From Which One Can Draw When One Is Older; An Obsessive Concern with Encouraging the "Independence" in the Elderly as Long as Possible. Not one of these attempts involves raising the relationship consciousness of our families; they all, in fact, reward, and are rewarded by, distance. No one is talking about how families need to confront difficult relationships and work through them so that families will want to encourage and support the kind of relationships my sister has with her Young One and I have with My Mother, and will face off with our current economic system and insist on the respect and the room to do this.
We are giving up on family, dismissing the value of hard won family relationships that take time and energy and concern and commitment because we're scared we'll be out of a job (and, not coincidentally, out of the chance for "personal fulfillment") if we don't. Then, how will we survive?!?
Maybe this is inevitable: A world without family. Maybe it's just another step in evolution and, one way or another, we'll adjust, and the world won't be so bad. Humans are nothing if not adaptable.
But, you know, here I am with my mother, her only immediate family, now, daily astonished at how this detailed, complicated relationship we've forged continues to mold and enrich both of our lives, and I'm thinking, I care about this. Without apology, without embarassment, I care about this. I wish I lived in a world in which it was easier for others to care about this, too.
Later.
