Divorcing with Children:  How to break up like a grown up even though you feel five years old.

“Ah,” said our friend, “I remember when a break-up was a break-up. You hated each other, and all of your friends were on your side. That was loyalty. Now, you break up, and you’re still stuck with each other, and you’re not allowed to say anything bad because that’s the other parent. Just when you have something worth a real bad-mouth break-up, you can’t.”

It’s true. Having children together gives us more to hang in there for, and more to feel angry and disappointed about if it ends. And yet, no matter how bad we feel, trashing the other parent is just the wrong thing to do. Expert after expert repeats what common sense should teach us: working together respectfully after a breakup is absolutely essential when children are involved.

And yet, it is so very difficult. Parents living together can support one another in so many ways. Each parent can help teach children to respect and value the other. They can “tag team” when one notices fatigue creeping in or a temper about to flare. They can talk over decisions, share accomplishments and worries, and coach one another in the skills that both need. When a break-up damages the trust between partners, all of that may go out the window. Each one is now flying solo with no cheering section, coaching, or tag team support. That’s enough to make anyone feel let down, angry, and not very mature.

No one warned us that divorce can temporarily turn normal, well-functioning and mature people into hurting, frightened insecure children in grown-up bodies. Or that when we feel five years old, we will still have to be parents to even smaller people. To top it off, our real children also behave younger than they are because they, too, are hurting and frightened worried. They desperately need us to be the grown-ups that we look like, not the children that we feel like.

So, how does one hold it together to work with an ex-spouse for the children?

First, get support from other grown-ups. Spend time with people whose good sense and maturity you admire. Resist the urge to confide your troubles in your children, even if they seem mature. They may try to be a mature friend because they imagine that you need it. But a child should never not be a confidant to a parent’s troubles.

Second, think carefully and seek good advice about what to tell the children for their own sake. It’s an easy decision (or, it should be) to keep the details of your spouse’s affairs from your children. It’s also an easy decision to protect, whenever we can, the child’s view that their parent is a good person. But what of a spouse’s tendency to drink and then drive with children in the car? What of a parent who doesn’t show up for visits, or behaves in disturbing ways?  Get a consult.

When living together, we can use tag team parenting, monitoring and coaching to soften the effects of a spouse’s bad behaviors poor choices on the children. But when the break-up occurs, those very behaviors can escalate until we are genuinely worried about leaving children with the other parent. What should we tell children, and when should we limit or forbid contact when safety issues arise? These are situations without a fool-proof, one-size-fits-all solution. A professional counselor with experience and training in working with separating parents is needed. Ideally, both parents will see the a counselor and work out plans that everyone can live with. But even if only one parent is willing to see the counselor, the professional advice and support is may well be worth the time and expense involved.

Third, remember that time is on your side. The pain and confusion will subside. When it does, you will want to look back with pride, not shame on your words and behavior. Keeping the long-term picture in mind may help you to keep short-term impulses in check.

Fourth,  your lawyer’s job is not to “get as much as possible” for you; it to help you stay clear-headed, to avoid unnecessary conflict, and to move as efficiently through the necessary conflict as possible. If you have a lawyer who seems to be ratcheting up the conflict and increasing the negative emotions between you and your former spouse, start with a firm and clear conversation about values and goals.  Bring along somebody you trust.  If your lawyer’s values do not match your own, get another lawyer.  If your lawyer wants to interview and pressure your children, get another lawyer.

Finally, divorce with children involved is one of the hardest experiences that life can dish up, and no one should have to just tough it out on their own.  Seek a counselor, not just for your children but for yourself first, so that you can be the parent they need.  If your ex-partner will come along, so much the better. Find a one who has training and experience in this area, who is a Registered Clinical Counsellor (RCC), Social Worker (RSW), or Psychologist (R.Psych.), and who you trust to be fair, clear-headed and honest. Look for a counselor who will take the side of support the grown-up within you, and who will help you find the strategies that work for yourself and your children.

Elder Caregiving:  Navigating a family journey

this article was first published in the Island Word in 2008.

When loved ones need assistance in the tasks of daily living, our most powerful meanings of “family” come to the fore.   Caring for a family member in old age is one of the most complex, demanding, and meaningful experiences that life has to offer.  Like a journey, the caregiving path unfolds in unpredictable ways, with bumps and turns and setbacks, and with moments of exquisite beauty and gratitude.  Whether we embark on the caregiving journey as a single person or as a family, it is good to know what to look for, how to  take stock of where you are, and how to ask for direction and assistance when you need it.

Packing for the journey: What do we carry with us?

Every family has “heirlooms” for the caregiver to carry on her or his journey.  Some of these may be very tangible:  rocking chairs and cradles are tools that pass down generations of young mothers.  But for elder care, mostly we inherit rules, expectations and attitudes.

What did you learn as a child about elders?  Did you have any elders living in your home?  Did you learn to approach them as playmates, or as teachers of skills that you wanted to learn?  Did you learn to be extra polite and careful in their presence?  If they needed physical care, did you learn how to perform this carefully and gently?  Did people take pride in the physical care of the elder in the house?  Or were elders distant from your everyday life?  Did you learn to think of  elders with disabilities as beautiful, pathetic, comical, scary, normal, burdensome, or treasured?

And what were the maps that you inherited for the journey of elder care?  Was it something that only one person did, or did the whole family pitch in?  Was it a one-way street, or did the elder also contribute to family life? Were there times of laughter and fun, or was it always serious and sad? Was it done at home, or did the elder move into nursing care?  And if they did move into nursing care, was this seen as a relief, a tragedy, a betrayal, or just a change?

It is time to “unpack” these early-learned attitudes, and to decide whether to keep them or to replace them as gear for the journey.  We can also “shop” for new messages and attitudes that can help us.   What role models can you find, in your family or elsewhere, that exemplify the kind of caregiver that you want to be? Caregivers have much to teach one another. No two families, and no two cultures, are exactly alike in the tools, and the baggage, that they carry.  Talking with one another widens the options, and it is free!

Planning for the journey

Ideally, every family should talk, perhaps often, about the changes that can come with disability.  This is not an issue for elders only.  Anyone can find their lives dramatically altered with little warning.  Does you family know how you feel about institutional care?  About paid helpers? About family members performing personal care?  Are you all informed of the options for care, and of the supports that are available in your community?  Have you and your family considered the costs—in money and in time and labor—of care at home, in assisted living, and in an institution?

The more we can talk and plan for the eventuality of limited abilities, the less frightening the whole prospect becomes.  Change is inevitable.  Life can be different, and still rich.  Planning make it more likely that we will be caught unprepared, or that we will make ill-informed decisions under stress.  Well informed planning means we are more likely to be able to follow through on our good intensions, and, if not, to be at peace with decisions that become necessary down the line.  No one wants to be left feeling guilty about the care that a loved one received lat in life.  Planning ahead together can make it much more likely that when the end comes, those who loved and cared for the person can say, “we gave our best, and we did well.”

Along the Way:  Challenges, gifts, and respite

Most of the literature on caregiving for elders stresses the idea of “Caregiver burden”.

Families and Politics: Surviving Differences

This article first appeared in the Island Word in fall, 2004. 

He’s Green. She’s NDP. His parents used to be Socreds, and now they are Conservative Alliance members. Her parents don’t vote. Can this relationship be saved?

There is nothing like an election to bring out the differences in some families. Even after it’s over, the sorting out of winners, losers and disappointed hopes can leave a bitter sting that defeats good humour.

Serena had a grandmother who set a rule for her boisterous sons: no politics at family gatherings. The four brothers ignored the rule, and Serena’s childhood memories of family gatherings are full of the uncles arguing loudly, her father the only Democrat, and his children valiantly defending him among the cousins. When her brother tore the “Nixon Now” bumper sticker off Uncle Jim’s car, everyone was a little bit surprised that he survived to tell the tale. Yet these brothers still gather twice a year to tell stories, laugh, and, yes, talk politics. Clearly some families survive political differences.

One household Monika knows displayed two different party signs on their lawns during the last election – an example of living with party- political differences and taking it public. She was puzzled about why this isn’t seen more often around town. After all, how do these disagreements in households get addressed? Who does get to choose the sign? Or is the implicit rule “no agreement, no sign at all?”

In everyday life, similarity is the basis of friendships and of group solidarity, and the ability to highlight similarities is the first tool of every skillful negotiator. It is easy to feel close when we agree.

But if similarities bring a sense of closeness, then differences can bring a sense of distance and discomfort. If someone whom we admire expresses an opinion very different from our own, we are left with a state of disequilibrium. Psychologists have called this “cognitive dissonance”. It goes like this: “I like Susan, and I like myself. But Susan believes one thing, and I another, and we cannot both be right. Therefore, one of us isn’t as smart as I thought. How could I have been so wrong about Susan?” Cognitive dissonance demands some fancy thought-work if we are to keep both our self respect and our friendship. It takes a certain amount of maturity to hold on to both our confidence in our beliefs, and the connection to Susan. The more important the topic of disagreement, and the personal connection, the more painful cognitive dissonance can be. No wonder Serena’s grandmother made the rule for her sons: in a family that valued both politics and family ties, these differences felt threatening indeed, at least, to her.

Living with differences is a learned skill. One place where many people practice this is with siblings. Siblings fight because they can afford to (they usually won’t lose the connection), and because they can’t afford not to (they are stuck with one another and need to work things out). It matters very much how the differences of siblings in childhood are managed in a family; by adulthood, our sibling relationships are some of the deepest sources of support, or of pain, that we carry through life. “Blood”, said Serena’s grandmother, “runs thicker than water.” She wasn’t talking about genetics; she was talking about the value of permanence that allows, and requires, a relationship to be tested by differences. If we hide our differences in order to stay connected, then we end up in shallow relationships. Part of the meaning of family is a commitment to try and understand, and even to value, the differences between us. Understanding ought to bring us closer, and knowing that our place in the family will be safe should allow us to change and to explore new beliefs. It does not always work that way. Yet this is this kind of acceptance we long for, try to create for our children, and seek in the people we choose to call family throughout our lives.

With skill and faith in one another, differences eventually can make a connection between people richer. Talking about differences allows us to develop bonds between real individuals, irreplaceable because of their uniqueness. Differences can test a relationship, and in doing so allow us to reaffirm, or to move beyond, ties that were once based upon simple common interest. Talking about differences can also help to stretch and develop better thinking and problem solving skills, more empathy for others, and a broader perspective in life. Sometimes, talking about differences leads to a new and novel strategies for attacking tough problems.

When the differences heat up or seem overwhelming, as they may at election time, it helps to keep them in perspective. Remember that no one has a crystal ball; when it comes to politics, we are all giving it our best guess based upon incomplete knowledge. Mostly, what we all want is a just and prosperous society, where people can thrive. Acknowledge these common goals, and respect different theories about how to get there. Try to separate the political differences from personality or other issues that might be clouding the waters. Be honest with yourselves and with each other.  Remember that being wrong does not make a person stupid, selfish, or evil–just wrong.  Remember also that most of us will go to our graves before the verdict is in on who was “right” about politics.

When political differences threaten a family, and perspective seems lost, it might be a good idea to seek professional help. The goal will not be to decide whose position is correct, but to refocus the relationship in a mutually appreciative direction.

Generations of Summer

This article was first published in the Island Word in September, 2010. 

Summer is almost over, and the glorious, profligate colors of September–as though all the year’s paint supply had to be flung about with abandon, quickly—cannot quite erase the fact that November will be here soon. Everything has its season, and blackberry season means that the days of sleeping in without an alarm clock, of reading in the hammock, of tubing on the river, and of having the kids to ourselves are gone until next year.

At least we know that it comes back again. The seasons of fruits and blossoms are reassuringly perennial. And so, in some ways, are the seasons of going though human lives. But while we spiral around the calendar years, we also get older. By our fifties, we find that odd paradox of time, where events of thirty years ago can seem as close as yesterday morning, and yet they are also far removed and irretrievable. Summers for us bring visits “home” to Serena’s Midwestern states, where she pours over photographs with her mother, nuzzles the clan’s latest baby, and wonders over the changes that time brings. When her own grandparents seem, in her memory, to be always in their early sixties, it takes her by surprise that she is now part of the grandparent generation in her family. Two generations have passed since she and her cousins were photographed on the front porch of Harold and Phyllis Patterson’s home in Jacksonville, Illinois. The babies that she greeted with such joy as a new auntie are now starting careers and families of their own. The children that she went to school with are plump and middle-aged; the college rebels are established business people looking toward retirement.

When we were young, we thought that the world was made up of two kinds of people: the old, and the young. Lucky us—we were on the right side of that one! Getting old ourselves was highly theoretical. Our music would never be the subject of nostalgia—how could The Stones ever be played in the lobby of the Old Folk’s Home? “I can’t get no…Satisfaction” would always refer to sex, drugs and rock and roll; never to prune juice, bowel movements and rocking chairs. And this is true—our generation has the satisfaction (no pun intended) of hearing our music still being played, and loved, by the restless young. It was created out of glorious rebellion and it still feels naughty and brave like a 20-year-old. Maybe that’s what is so confusing. The soundtrack is still here, so where did the moving picture go?

Our children turned 10, 13 and 24 this summer. G. has lost her baby face, but is still in the magical time of a Tom Sawyer childhood. Just getting some freedom, she is off on her bicycle or wading in the creek, with her best dog at her side. T., crossing the threshold into adolescence, has new, sharp angles where round cheeks used to be. He looks down on us from his proud height of over five foot six, and he has the upper body strength to make us glad that we have a big boy to help with the yard work. We tell him that stacking wood is good body development for football. And L., who once flew from the nest driven by rebellion and the desire to get as far from home as possible, now calls twice a week for long talks, whether she needs us to send money or not.

Summers are not an endless resource. We only have a few in which to create these memories of time-out-of-time. Yes, it will be nice to have some child-free hours again, but somehow school seems to pull them away from us, gradually washing out the strength of connection gained in these two long months together. Peers and sports and kid-culture beckon. We become the setters of limits, and the adjunct support system for goals set by other people; the coach, the French teacher, the best friend with a birthday party. We don’t set the rhythm, and we struggle to keep time to that outside beat. Summers are to be savored, and, if we could, we would can them like peaches to line our pantry shelves.

Seeing photographs of our parents, we are both struck that they were most beautiful in their thirties, when we were small. Now their beauty and dignity are very different, and, on some days, hard to see. Serena’s mother wants to delete every photograph of herself, declaring “that is not me,” at the thin hair, the under-the-chin “wattle”, and the facial expression that is somewhere between what she intended and what her Parkinson’s disease will allow. Monika’s mother is a fit and energetic woman in her 70’s, and therefore the changes are less dramatic. But there is a loss in realizing that we can’t rewind the tape and bring them back as we remember them, when they were the heart of the family, the place where we could bring our needs and receive sustenance in return. As we acknowledge that the summers we spend with them are now numbered, our mothers are very beautiful indeed to us; the soft translucence of their skin, the stories that they carry, the knowledge that such a source of love for us is still here, a touch or a phone call away.

Yes, summers give us the long days and twilights when time plays funny, non-linear tricks on us. We finally really “get it” that everyone starts out a fat little baby, then has a childhood when their innocence makes them worthy of every hope and every good wish. Then comes youth, when they are at height of their physical strength and the power of their sexuality runs strong and wild. Most of us continue along to become middle aged and, ultimately, elderly. Our rebellions become quaint in the eyes of the young, and they can’t quite believe that we were, still are, in tune with the longing and rage of Rock and Roll. It’s the way of families, the way of generations. It’s the way it’s supposed to be.

As fall and winter approach, we will be putting limits on the activities that structure our children’s schooling and free time to include only age-peers. We will seek out events and places that welcome us across the generations, bringing together old and young. We will continue to swim against the tide of age-segregation and try to allow our children to be woven in, securely, to the full tapestry of a community.

Are you listening, school and recreation workers? Churches and businesses and city planners? Let us have supper hours and Sunday mornings free from sports practices. Offer more multi-generational activities. We love the outdoor exercise park, the river walkway, the outdoor amphitheatre of Simms Park, and all the safe places that have been created or set aside for people to gather naturally for games or without a set program—keep these happening. And moms, dads, grandparents, aunties and uncles? Remember that what you offer is at least as valuable as Cadets or a sports team. Don’t let these activities, as valuable as they are, replace you as your children grow into being pre-teens and adolescents. Keep age-segregated activities in their place, as secondary adjuncts to family life.

This article first appeared in the Island Word in 2005. 

We see a lot of divorce in our office. Too much, really. Not that divorce isn’t sometimes appropriate; almost everyone knows someone who has needed to be out of a marriage that was unsafe, unhappy or terribly debilitating. But every divorce, someone once said, is the collapse of a small civilization. Children and adult relationships break down. Both of us have known first hand the toll of divorce, and perhaps that is why we are both committed to helping people, whenever we can, to build strong relationships that will last a lifetime.

Falling is love is easy. It is what humans are made to do. We can fall in love with good people, and with bad people. When there is no one around to love, the urge to love is still there. When Serena first came to Canada, she fell in love with a kitten no more than five inches tall; so small that it fit in her hand. She would look at that kitten in wonder, that something so small, but alive and warm, could mean so much to her. Those who know Monika may remember her first dog companion “Arrow”.

Getting through good times with a loved one is also easy. When people first fall in love, their cheek muscles often get sore from smiling so much. These are important times, as they provide us with a starting point to remember and look back upon in years to come, when the going is a little rougher or when we need to remember one another in the best light possible.

Serena is fond of saying that the best predictors of long-term love are how people fight and how they grieve. Conflict and hard times are what test relationships. Less obvious is that conflict and hard times also build relationships as they temper and strengthen bonds.

Here are just a few of the things that we have learned about making the hard times work to build a closer, stronger relationships. These rules apply to marriages and couple relationships, but they work equally well for friendships, sibling bonds, and for parent-child relationships in adulthood.

1. Remember the nice to “nasty” ratio. Every relationship involves saying things that the other loves to hear, like “I love your smile”, and also things that are difficult to hear, like “please, pick up your socks”. Relationships cannot thrive if the hard communications outnumber the loving and appreciative ones. In fact, it takes 3 to 5 “nices” to balance one “nasty’; and that is true only if the nasty is framed as nicely as possible, too! So take every opportunity to build up those “nice” credits with sincere compliments, expressions of affection, and loving gestures.

2. Monika has a favorite strategy for framing a grievance. She recommends beginning with a reassurance, such as: “Honey, I love you very much. I also need you to return the lid on the toothpaste because the leaky mess by the sink is driving me nuts.” This works very well for those who find criticism uncomfortable and threatening. Often a friendly reassurance makes disagreements easier to hear.

3. Stop to listen, and let your partner know you’ve heard them, before launching a counter-argument. It is amazing how far the words, “well, yes, I can see your point” go, even when they precede, “and I still think that there’s another side that you should consider.” Couples who can slow down and validate one another in the midst of a disagreement are much more likely to find a common solution, and much less likely to
feel damaged by the confrontation.

3. Take breaks if you need to in order to keep the tension at a manageable level. One way to do this is by restating your commitment to your partner, and your commitment to working through the issue. Then suggest a time to come back to the discussion with new calm and fresh energy. A break my be just the thing to help each get some perspective and move out of stuck positions. If one or both parties are tired or hungry, it is especially useful to take a break!

In one family we know this rule is very useful: No contentious topics after 10 pm. Arguments and discord will invariably occur and can be avoided if the topic can be postponed until the next day.

4. Practice makes perfect. Conflict is not something to be afraid of, or to avoid. But many individuals have tragic and frightening experiences with conflict, or they don’t believe that they have the skills to get through it safely. These people often benefit from starting with small issues to build up their confidence and skill. Unfortunately, they often do just the opposite; they ignore the small conflicts for as long as they can, waiting until things build up to a crisis point before bringing any conflict out into the open. Then, they either bury the issue, or they blow up. Burying issues may make for a quiet household, but over time it means that individuals hold more and more back from one another. Without this information, they can become strangers. Blowing up has obvious drawbacks, too. Practice your skills at talking through things, while doing whatever it takes to stay as calm and confident as possible. Get some coaching, if you need it! Like all things, positive conflict can be learned.

5. Be there for one another’s’ hard times. When we are grieving or struggling, it is important to be able to lean on the one who loves us. If they aren’t there, our grief is compounded by disappointment in a relationship that we counted on. Words may not be necessary, nor do we need to fix what is wrong. If we’re not sure what to do, it’s fine to ask. Usually, touch or holding is just fine, so may be sitting together, or sharing a cup of tea.

6. Seek out people who support and respect your commitment to one another. This is especially important if you are part of a same-sex couple or a cross-cultural or bi-racial relationship:  these couples need to be especially diligent about building a community that recognizes and reflects back the value of their tie, because such validation doesn’t come automatically or in the popular culture of songs, movies, books, and cards.   Build a community around you so that you don’t have to rely solely upon one another to get your emotional needs met. Listen to one another, and allow some complaints and venting; but also work on supporting your friends’ relationships, and teach them how to support yours.

We would be amiss if we failed to mention the value of counselling in helping relationships through hard times. Especially when the same issues seem to keep coming around again and again without resolution, or when conflict no longer feels like a safe building process, a counselor can be very helpful. Relationships are a lot like gardens. Regular maintenance is time well spent. A new garden is an exciting project. But a mature garden represents years of effort, of frustration, of learning, and of wondrous discoveries. It is an accomplishment to savor, to treasure and to maintain.

note:  some of the tips above are drawn from the extensive writings of Dr. John Gottman, who has spent his career researching the behaviors that make for strong couples, and Dr. Sue Johnson, the developer of Emotion Focussed Couples Therapy. 

Losing a mom—bit by bit

“I’m going to cry when I leave here,” Serena said for the umpteenth time.  She spent the month of July taking the children to her beloved American Midwest, introducing them to aunts, uncles, cousins and a grandmother who embraced them as part of the Patterson clan.  They saw cornfields, buffalo, church basement suppers and Fourth of July fireworks.  They swam, hiked with Aunt Sue, caught fireflies, and played board games with Grandma.  But these beginnings were juxtaposed, as they often are, upon losses and endings.

Serena’s mother,  now in the advanced stages of Parkinson’s disease, has changed irrevocably.  Although her zest and appetite for life have not diminished, her body cannot respond.  Joan keeps falling, body pitching forward while feet remain planted.  People marvel at her “good bones”, but she is a fragile wonder who will one day, perhaps soon, be unable to live even semi-independently.  Already, her eyes often refuse to track the printed words on a page, and she, who for twenty years taught 12-year-old non-readers to break the code of literacy, cannot read.  One day, her mouth will not form the words that she so needs to speak, and we will lose the stories that she keeps for us—pictures of times and places that are gone for good.

On the day of her leaving, Serena was dry-eyed.  She ushered the kids through the connections of taxis, airplanes, busses and ferries. But when she saw Monika the tears came, relief mixed with deep sadness for the mother left behind in South Dakota.

Losing parents is hard.  And although it is devastating to lose a parent without warning, losing one slowly is, in some ways, a more demanding experience.  How can we say good-bye to the parent that we knew and depended upon, when she is still here, needing us?  We feel orphaned, on our own to navigate the world without an older, more capable generation above us to help.  In its place we have a new dependant, who is neither self-sufficient nor a child. Even in small things, Serena’s mother, unlike a child, feels entitled to speak her mind. And when it comes to big decisions, she is uncompromising.  Joan fixes her children in her intense gaze and says, “you will not decide for me when to enter a nursing home.”   This “dependant” demands, and deserves, to be in the decision-making role over her own life.

So what have we learned about making it through this life passage, giving to our frail or ill parents as much support and dignity as possible while maintaining our own health and well-being?  Here are some general points to consider:

1.  Avoidance will be regretted.  Stay in touch, and, to the degree that geography and family dynamics allow, involved.   This time is a gift—a difficult gift, perhaps, but an important one to accept and grow with.

2.  Don’t do this alone.  Construct a family team.  Everyone can do something—even if they live far away.  Set up a first-circle team that does the day-to-day care, and then surround that team with a second-circle whose job it is to nourish and support the first circle.  Distant siblings or cousins can be the debriefing team by phone; sometimes not being in the thick of the drama lends a useful perspective. A fresh perspective sometimes flags new concerns or brings a new idea to old problems.

Serena goes “home” to South Dakota for a few weeks each year, bringing fresh energy and an undivided focus that her sister, who does the day-to day care for their mother, may find in short supply.  This works so well that they save up tasks for Serena’s visits.  Her sister gets a break, and their mother gets some outings and variety.

3.  The senses of hearing, sight, smell and taste are apt to decline or be lost.  Touch remains our most primal sense—the first to fully develop and the last to be lost.  Reach out–hold hands, kiss cheeks, give foot rubs, or offer massage.

4. Now is the time to put photos into albums, sort and admire keepsakes together.  Review the past—gather history while you can.

5.  Savor the dignity that transcends bodily functions.  There is a particular beauty to translucent skin, laugh lines, and the tender soft folds of a “sagging” belly.  Admiring it may be a learned skill in our youth-obsessed time, but learning to see this beauty is essential to facing our own inevitable aging process.

6.  Get practical advice from the experts.  Occupational Therapists, Social Workers, Counsellors, Psychologists, Neurologists, Physiotherapists, Nurses, Complementary Health Practicianers (such as Accupuncturists and Naturopaths), Long-term Care Workers, and Hospice workers are some of the people who routinely work with frail elders and/or the families that support them. Let these professionals steer you through the labyrinth of practical considerations, from equipment to levels of assistance and specialized housing, to planning for death and the grieving that accompanies it.

7.  Think about what respite means to you, and line some up.  This might be time to go out and play, someone to talk to who understands, or the chance to savor something beautiful that nourishes your spirit.  Heck, go for all three!  You can’t draw water from a dry well, so top-up your spiritual reservoir often.

8. Let elders make their own decisions to the greatest extent possible.  You might not agree with their priorities.  We once knew a woman in her 90’s who smoked daily, to her daughter’s chagrin. “What does she think?” the old woman asked, “that I’m going to die young from it?”  Give in where you can.

9.  Take responsibility for your own health and safety, and try to separate this from the above principle (number 9).  Serena’s mother gets to make decisions about her own activities and supports (including paid helpers), but that power does not preclude her children from setting limits on what they can, or will, do.  For instance, if Serena’s sister is not available to take her mother to church, Joan can still go—if she accepts the help of someone else.  These kinds of negotiations are very, very tricky, and fraught with possibilities for guilt and resentment.  Almost every family needs a Counsellor at some point to help sort out boundaries and responsibilities.

10.  Let yourself laugh.  It may be black humor at times, but funny things really do happen with Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.  Tell funny stories among your team of caregivers.  And if you think your sibling is being morbid for laughing at something as serious as incontinence or memory loss, it’s time to lighten up—or at least refrain from judgment.

11.  If you feel like crying, cry.  Grief usually comes and goes in waves.  The grief that we feel while our parent is still alive does not make the grief that comes with death any easier.  Still, we can practice up on our crying skills.  Top up the liquids:  drink extra water to replace the tears.  Carry tissue paper or cloth handkerchiefs at all times.  Don’t apologize or let tears derail a conversation—they are a part of life and it’s time we all get used to them.

Most of us have at least some fear that we will have a time in our lives when we, ourselves, are frail, disabled, and in need of help.  Being there for our parents allows them to lead the way for us, to teach by example that the beauty and dignity of living extend far beyond any limits that we might have imagined.  Since we do have disability and pain as part of the human condition, we may as well seek some redemptive beauty in it.  Once again we recall  Leonard Cohen saying, “There is a crack in everything.  That’s how the light gets in.”

Raising Teens, Part 3:  Compassion and Empathy

This series was first published in the Island Word in July, 2012.

The teenage boy is trying very hard to project his new bad-ass image. He folds his arms, slumps and glares from beneath the flat-brimmed cap with the logo that is rumoured to be gang-associated. Two years ago he was a Lego kid; now his facebook page declares that he loves weed and collects switchblades. He earnestly tells the therapist how much he wants to beat up some poor kid with ADHD that “everybody hates” at school because the kid’s a “loser” and he thinks he’d be a hero for “taking [the loser ADHD kid] out.” This, the young client insists, would help his self esteem and win him the respect he craves.

What, the therapist wonders, am I supposed to do here?

Not that we are powerless, as parents or as therapists. But it’s time to admit two things: 1) Brute force, if it ever worked, isn’t going to work anymore, and 2) We are only half, at best, of the equation (more like 20%, actually). We share influence with school, peer culture, electronic and mass media, hormonally-driven attractions (remember those, you parents? Weren’t they amazing while they lasted?), and, most powerfully, the desires and the decisions of our kids themselves.

Compliance from teens is given voluntarily or not at all. Where nature whispers to the child, “you need these parents, so be good and make them want to love you,” it whispers to the teen, “challenge authority; soon, it’s your turn to lead.” Our ability to influence teens depends not upon being the biggest, but on our ability to engage with their better selves, illuminate their emerging hopes and dreams, and side with them as they face off against the fears and insecurities that threaten to derail the project of growing up.

The idea that adolescence is a time of “storm and stress” has waxed and waned over the decades. Freud and his cohort described a time when the calm and equilibrium of late childhood was shattered by the emergence of powerful sexual urges. The grandfather of Cognitive theory, Jean Piaget, wrote early in the 20th century that it was in adolescence that the brain developed a new capacity to imagine other, more ideal scenarios such as one finds in utopian fiction or in other people’s families. In contrast, the teen found his or her own situation hopelessly, maddeningly, and tragically inadequate. Then, according to the great Erik Erikson, there was the dicey project of forming a personal identity based upon personal goals, values, and an occupation that would define one’s place in the community. By the middle of the 20th century, any teen who wasn’t managing to worry and shock the elders was suspected of lacking in moxie.

Of course there was a countermovement. Late in the century it was common to assert that only a minority of teens went through significant crises, and that mental illness was relatively rare. Most teens, it was said, disagreed with their parents only about unimportant things like chores, hairstyles, clothing and house rules as opposed to basic values like religion and politics. Still, in whose houses were religion and politics more basic to family harmony than agreement on chores, hair and house rules? Not ours.

Now, new brain development research has sided with the old “Storm and Stress” model, after all.

Has the reader ever noticed how, in the growth spurt of pre-adolescence, children first outgrow several sizes of shoes, then their pant legs and sleeves, and finally, years after the beginning, short sleeved shirts and swim suits? Not everything grows at the same rate. Even the face is out of sync with itself as the nose and teeth outgrow the jaw and eyes. There’s a reason why these are called the awkward years.

It turns out there is a similarly a-synchronous sequence in brain growth during adolescence. The limbic system governs what, in graduate school, we called the “Five F’s”: fighting, fleeing, freezing, feeding, and fornicating. As we should have guessed, it starts its growth spurt years before the more conscious, thinking brain moves to catch up. And the connections between these areas—the lower brain that urges rash, emotionally and sexually-driven behaviors and the upper brain that encourages restraint, strategic planning, and consideration of long-term consequences—develop last of all. In fact, the fibers that carry messages between the upper and lower brain areas do not typically reach maturation until the mid-twenties. Readers may recognize this as the time when they recognized their own mortality, and began to act as though things really could go wrong.

So at last we know the truth about teens: their brains are renovation zones. Like our house during its reconstruction a few years ago, the mind of a teenager is no place to go walking without, say, thick-soled shoes, a helmet and a lot of caution besides. Where there were staircases there are now ladders, and whole rooms are inaccessible, sealed by plastic wrap and choking with drywall dust (or, in this case, hormonal fog). The faith that it will come together eventually keeps us from giving up in despair, but it doesn’t make the chaos and discomfort of day-to-day living much easier.

So what do we do? Master therapist and psychologist Daniel Hughes recommends cultivating an attitude summarized by the acronym PACE: Playful, Accepting, Curious and Empathic. It’s an attitude that he teaches both parents and therapists for helping children from infancy onward, and it’s applicable in marriage as well.

Exercising PACE with a bully may on first glance seem counter-intuitive. Why give acceptance and empathy to a bully? The answer is that acceptance and empathy lead us away from relying on shame to bring about good behavior, and that turns out to be a good thing for responsibility.

New research yields the (perhaps surprising) discovery that shame is inversely related to the capacity for empathy. Embarrass a child (or adult), and their attitude toward a victim is more likely to move toward contempt than sympathy. On the other hand, asking about and empathizing with the feelings of one who commits an injury (while not condoning the action or the motives) moves that person closer to being able to empathize with—and thereby sincerely apologize and make willing reparations to—his or her victim. So if we want “I’m sorry” to mean something, we need to first ask what happened and why.

Empathizing with teens isn’t easy. Ours seem to cover themselves with “parent repellant” at times—stinky feet, stinky clothing, and stinky attitudes. They especially don’t want to talk to us when they think that they are “in trouble”. Breaking through all of that resistance requires tenacity and patience. More than this, it requires that we put away our own shame about not having perfect kids, and not being perfect parents.  Their shame gets in the way; our shame gets in the way.

To get through our own shame barriers, we need  the camaraderie and empathy of other parents.

Parents need one another more through the teen years than at any other age; yet these are the years when we tend to draw back. Play dates, car pools, and “parent attendance required” activities are replaced by the care of aging parents and trying to get off the mommy track at work. Maybe we are even afraid to admit in public that we are mystified or repelled by our once-adorable kids.

But listen to small groups of parents at ballgames and after school concerts. Do you see ones with tears running down their faces, and no one is certain whether they are happy or sad? Their laughter is laced with bitter recognition, which is eased by knowing they are not alone. It may be gallows humour, but we’ve earned it and we will survive together.  When we are understood and empathized with by our fellow parents, we feel renewed for the heartache and struggle ahead.  We often feel clearer in our own minds about what to do next.  We find a little place of calm amidst the chaos in these moments of shared comaraderie, and we cherish it.

This is the same place of calm that we can offer our teens in those moments when, against the odds, we break through our own self-consciousness or outrage or embarrassment at our cluelessness, and they break through their fear of being in trouble, and, wonder of wonders, we sit together in shared attention and compassion.  Glory be!  Now, we can get somewhere!

So, parents, will we get this right? Will we usher our children through a world that is fundamentally meaner and leaner than the one we knew, without a scratch on the paint job of our brilliant parenting or their brilliant careers? Heck no. But we will survive, and most of them will, too. It is not time to pull back from our children, but it is time to join them in compassion and empathy, asking questions and listening  as they find their own inner voice of direction.

Remember:
• We are not in charge. Don’t let go of the teen, but do put down the remote control—it doesn’t work anymore. Put it next to the guilt—on a shelf far out of reach.
• Trust the blueprint; the renovation period will not last forever.
• PACE:  Playfulness, Acceptance, Curiousity and Empathy. Try to really “get” your child’s side of the story. At least accept that they have a story.
• Reach out to other parents of teens. If the world dumps on parents, parents will dump on their teens. Counteract this with PACE toward one another; we all need it.

Empathy allows us to find a calm center amidst the Storm and Stress; a small bubble of shared attention where, though we may still be in pain, we are not alone.  It works between parents, and it works between parent and child.

“What’s the matter with kids today”? First of a series.

this series was first published in the Island Word between February and July, 2012. 

Five teen suicides in a year. A senseless knife attack that left one child dead and two families shattered. Six families and a community in grief and shock, wondering what went wrong and how to stop it from happening again.

The community reactions are immediate, informed by shock and yet remarkably positive and helpful. The grace with which the children’s families have responded is nothing short of astounding. “Talk to someone” is the simple phrase that students have coined to prevent further deaths, and if we had to choose a three-word strategy, we cannot think of a better one. While we simmer in theory and evidence, analyzing the many contributing factors and causes of teen suicide, a phrase the size of “talk to someone” is what the kids need to put in their pockets right now—a life-saver that is easy to remember and grab hold of when the seas are rough all around them.

But we are people of theory and evidence, deep thought and analytical tendencies. “We struggle with 1000-word limits, let alone Twitter and the 15-second sound bite. We want to build an adult structure of understanding so that when the kids do talk to us, we have something to offer them in the way of empathy, strategy and hope. So we are starting a short series on the new (and age-old) realties of adolescence.

This month, we’ll start at the beginning: the Cultural Creation of Adolescence.

Moving from childhood to adulthood has never been particularly easy. Tribal or village cultures dealt with the problem through specialized education, spiritual exploration, and elaborate rituals culminating in rites of passage that declared to everyone, “this child is a man”, or “this child is a woman”. But we don’t live in single-culture villages anymore.

The time of life that we call “Adolescence” began to emerge among the leisured and educated classes late in the 19th century, but did not really take off until the 20th. By the 1950’s, most 13 to 20 year olds in the US, Canada, Western Europe and Australia felt that they were in a special time of life that had always existed: neither child nor adult, they were “teen-agers”, with a fashions, music, language, and a proper workplace (high school) of their own.

Wealth played a large part in the creation and the length of adolescence, and it does today, as well. It takes a certain amount of wealth for a family, or a society, to allow well-muscled young people to stay out of the economy (although, as we shall see, they are far from being out of it entirely) for a prolonged period of learning. Adulthood comes earlier for the working classes. But, arguably, the complexity of our post-modern economy now makes a prolonged education necessary for everyone.

At the same time, an over-supply of young people for a shrinking manual job market has created a second problem: what to do with young people until the labor market is ready to absorb them. The cultural diversity, urbanization, and geographical mobility of Canadian society have also worked to make “finding oneself” (developing an identity) a much more difficult and complex task than it was down on the farm.

So it is that Adolescence, once a privilege of the rich, is now a necessity for all classes, driven by both genuine and artificially created training and education needs, increased competition for fewer jobs, and the complexity of forming a clear sense of individual identity and direction in an ever-more-complex social world. The boundaries of adolescence have also widened, stretching from the “tween” accomplishment of “double digits” (reaching age 10) to well into the 20’s, and even longer. In a youth-envying culture, it seems everyone wants to be an adolescent—even though going through it actually seems to, as the kids put it, “suck.”

It started out so well. We now look back on the teen-agers of the 1950’s with nostalgia, and there are some valid reasons to do so. For those who were of the right color and social class to participate in it, the teen-age culture of fluffy sweaters, football games, love ballads and even Elvis-styled rebellion was fairly simple to navigate compared to that of today. There were jobs with middle-class paychecks to look forward to, even if one wasn’t academically gifted. Church, family, school, the law, and transparency of small-town life wove a secure, if stifling fabric around youth well into the 1960’s, when adolescent culture was more openly rebellious and questioning of adult authority.

But something happened to youth culture between the 1950’s and the 21st century. What began as a creation of youth themselves became a commodity that was manufactured by adults and sold to the young. Actual young people were demoted, from inventors to a market. And in order to separate young spenders from their money, the products themselves had to magnify and exploit the gap that separated adolescents from their more fiscally and socially conservative parents. Thus the “generation gap” was created, and it continues to be re-created as the margins of what is acceptable in popular culture are pushed further and in new directions with each decade.

What are the boundaries being pushed by youth culture in this decade? Some of the margin-moving we think is pretty cool. For instance, today’s youth are, by and large, much more likely than their parents to accept homosexuality and gender-bending as a part of the natural diversity of human beings. And, at a deeper level, they are more likely to embrace the natural diversity of human beings as being a good thing. They have a large capacity for cross-boundary empathy that does not rest upon the erasure of difference, but upon it’s celebration. Even the words once used to tag outsiders: “geek”, “nerd”, and, in some spaces, “queer”, are now embraced as emblems of pride. Yesterday’s outcasts may be tomorrow’s heroes.

And yet, for every movement of culture there is a countermovement—a reactionary push in the other direction. Culture always seems to be moving in two directions at once, and to comment on trends is to invite arguments that can only be settled by admitting to paradox. While some youth are pushing for an end to the whole notion of human divisions and their necessary correlates of “insider” and “outsider” statuses, others are intensifying the punishment of those who transgress against their ever-narrower, ever-more-elusive definitions of “normal”.

The punishment of nonconformists has probably always been part of adolescence, even (maybe especially) in those simple, tribal village-based cultures that we started with. And it’s always been brutal. But today’s brutality is informed by a mass media that lags far behind the vanguard of embracing diversity. Stereotypes and ridicule are standard fare on television. That ridicule has turned especially vicious in the era of “Reality TV”.

Ever since “Survivor” in the early 1990’s, we have watched the nightmares of teen life played out for entertainment and instruction: how to “vote someone off the Island” and survive another day as one of the cool people. Like the cartoon characters of our own childhood who got up every time to try again, whatever horrible outer punishment they had been subjected to, the losers of reality TV appear unscathed. They smile, shake hands with their abusers, and exit with grace, their pain buried. Shaming rituals of reality TV set the bar of acceptability ever-higher, and blame the victim for falling short. Only perfection is safe.

Of course, we can’t lay the blame all upon Reality TV. Politicians have also stooped to levels of incivility and ridicule that would have been unacceptable in the past. A labor surplus and tight job market have plagued the economy for nearly half a century, and our children, many of them without siblings, grow up under the collected performance pressure and angst of two frustrated generations before them. Shrinking school populations and financial pressures have resulted in a large, impersonal system where old grounding concepts like “School Spirit” ring hollow. Parents are stressed to the breaking point with work, money troubles, and the challenge of maintaining adult relationships in a highly mobile society. Between moving about with parents and being shuffled from school to school and class to class in the community, adolescents have to build their personal identity and their social networks on shifting sands. Teens are concentrated in a highly competitive world of peers, where the “pecking order” has to be re-established every few months.

The upshot of this is that a culture has developed among adolescents where shaming is at an all-time and toxic high, perfectionism and it’s twin, underachievement undermine creativity and learning, and disorders of anxiety, depression, and addictions plague the kids. While “talk to someone” is a good antidote to suicidal impulses on an individual scale, we believe (and with some heavyweight scholars behind us) that suicidal thoughts and behavior among the young are symptoms of a culture that is out-of-whack and needs a some serious work at the adult level.

This series will explore the following topics:
• Bully: it’s a verb, not a noun. Causes and some responses that work.
• Media: is Facebook the enemy?
• School: could it become a safe harbor?
• Community: Bringing generations together.

Stay tuned, and stay in touch! We welcome suggestions from our readers at www.grunbergpatterson.ca.

Adult Supervision and the Cyber Playground

This article first appeared in the Island Word in Winter, 2009. 

Candace (not her real name) is dragged into therapy by her mother, who has caught the teen spreading a vicious rumour about a classmate on Facebook. Scowling, Candace wants to focus the session on “the real problem; my mother’s snooping”. Howard is suspended from school after a webpage dedicated to the sacking of an unpopular teacher is discovered to be his handiwork. He is furious at the school administration for “censoring free speech”. Sadie is mystified by a failing mark on a research project that she completed by cutting and pasting downloaded material from a website. And James, who on a mandated weekend visit investigated his father’s Internet browser’s history, declares triumphantly that his father, “a pervert,” has been looking at pornography online.

The names are made up, but each of these problems has come through our offices repeatedly in recent years. Adults feel one step behind their children in the use of Internet technology, and children run with this advantage, to their own detriment.

Just what is the role of parents in their children’s computer and Internet usage? What is good supervision, and what is ‘invasion of privacy’? What is legitimate research and what is cheating on homework? And do only parents have a right to privacy with regard to their computer usage, or do those same rights apply equally to every member of the household?

Like TV in the 70’s, the computer is the center of a shared peer culture to which adults are marginal. Unlike TV, however, the computer culture of children is interactive and designed to be beyond the oversight of adults. If TV was a toy, cyberspace is a playground. When adults think about the computer in TV terms, words like ‘censorship’ pop up, with all of their negative connotations of over-protecting children from knowledge itself. But this is not a single piece of culture that children witness, like a book or a play. It is a location for the invention of culture—including new games, tricks, language and rules. It models unique forms of cooperation, creativity, altruism, bullying, theft, and destruction. In this context, “censorship” is a red herring.

If readers are old enough to remember playing outdoors, then they know that children resist adult supervision. Doing our best to be out of grown-up sight, we made up complicated versions of role-playing games, from “house” to “army spies”. We pushed our bodies and our courage to their limits climbing things that we weren’t supposed to climb—swing sets, trees, fences, buildings. We spoke “Pig Latin”, certain to baffle the adults, and we passed notes right under their noses. Sometimes we got away with it; sometimes we didn’t. Sometimes we were darned lucky to be caught, like the summer when Serena’s siblings and the neighbor children held a club—by candlelight, under the porch of the Methodist parsonage amid the straw bales used for insulation in the winter.

It would be oversimplification to idealize those times as innocent. Bad things happened, and the pain of physical and psychic injuries inflicted during play forms a large part of our business. But much worse would have happened had we been successful in fully neutralizing all of the adult involvement, seen and unseen, that shaped our play. Because they had been children themselves once, the adults knew the territory of our exploits; they knew where to look for us and how to tell, by the unnatural quiet, that we were up to something forbidden. Even when we thought we were unobserved, we weren’t. Deep down, we knew that, and the knowledge that there would be hell to pay if we got caught helped to keep us thinking about actions and their consequences. We could insist that our games were “none of their business”, that our tree forts were “private property—keep out” and that our rooms were strictly off-limits to parents until the cows came home, but the privacy of children wasn’t much respected back then, nor should it have been otherwise. It was our job to protest adult supervision, and it was their job to give it anyway.

If we think of cyber-space as a playground, then we aren’t very far behind our kids. We know about bullying, cheating, stealing and spying—we probably tried it all ourselves. And we know that “it’s none of your business” is a big red herring; of course it is adult business to steer kids toward their better selves until after they’ve left home (and maybe even later).

Here are some tried-and-true lines for when kids insist on “privacy” to cover up their cyberspace misdeeds.

Kid: But all of my friends have computers with Internet in their bedrooms, why can’t I?

Adult (brace yourself): If all of your friends jumped off a cliff, would you do it, too?
___________________

Kid: Why do you read my online journal / blog—it’s private!

Adult: If it’s a private journal, use paper and pencil and store it under your mattress. If it’s online, it’s not private.
___________________

Kid: You are such a hypocrite—I know what you do with your Yahoo account! Porn!

Adult: What are you doing looking at my Yahoo account? That’s like listening at your parents’ bedroom door; it’s not done.
____________________

Kid: But why do you get privacy and I don’t? You hypocrite!

Adult: Parents have privacy; children have supervision. It’s been that way since God was a child—and it still is.
____________________

Kid: I hate you!

Adult: You’ll get over it. Meanwhile, “grounded” means no computer access.
____________________

Kid: I pay for my Internet account, then I have privacy.

Adult: Paying for it is good—Internet is a privilege you’ve earned. Let’s make a set of rules and a plan so you can earn the second privilege of privacy, if that’s what you want.
_____________________

Kid: I can always sign on at the public library, you know.

Adult (who knows that library space is not private): Oh, and while you are there, would you please pick up my order?
________________________________

Kid: Why are you so mean?

Adult (pick one of the following; vary them randomly):
a) Because I’m going to get that ‘Meanest Parent on the Block’ award this month if it kills me.
b) I don’t know—maybe it’s genetic
c) Because I’m evil
d) It’s not mean to look after your safety

Get the picture? Cyber-misbehavior only looks new and intimidating because it’s in the cyber-realm, where we think our kids can out-maneuver us. But they can’t, because it’s still misbehavior and we still remember how to handle that.

One last word: Children need playgrounds that are well designed for safety, and adult oversight that is minimally invasive. Good games deserve some space, and some independence lets kids exercise their own problem-solving and imaginative skills. Some Internet spaces provide this; some do not. Good software can help. But always (a) keep the computer in a publicly visible space, in the midst of (not separate from) family life, (b) keep at least one eye and one ear open, and (c) share with other parents what you know about what the kids are up to.

The Kind Father

This article first appeared in the Island Word in June, 2009. 

It was a child’s birthday party, with parents and pre-schoolers mingling, sticky cake bits and juice accumulating on the floor, a cheerful video playing in one corner. Nobody noticed that an older child had left the baby gate open, until a large man launched himself sideways across the room, successfully blocking a toddling baby just before it toppled down the stairs. The move had the unconscious, no-time-to-premeditate efficiency of a football tackle, but the laminate tile didn’t “spring” like outdoor turf, and Serena winced in sympathy as a two-hundred pound dad hit the unforgiving floor.

What is it that makes a man into a father? The act of becoming a biological father is so fleeting and low-risk that evolutionary theorists all-but-dismiss it’s importance in bonding animal fathers to their offspring. The list of mammalian species (or any species) where fathers actively nurture, protect and provide for offspring is short. Some human mothers would argue that the list of men who do so reliably is heartbreakingly short, as nearly one in five Canadian children will likely have no contact with their biological dads this Father’s Day. Yet the beauty of a man’s protective love propelling him like an awkward rocket across a crowded room to block a baby’s fall is beyond words. “It’s a wise child who recognizes its father”, goes the old saying, but we always thought that was a lucky child, and luckier still if the father is recognized with joy and comfort rather than shame or disappointment.

It is, we think, difficult to be a good father. We have to be somewhat hypothetical on this point, since we are mothers, daughters and sisters of men, but spectators when it comes to the art of manhood. Serena feels a kind of camaraderie with primary family wageearners, and Monika knows the feeling of accomplishment that comes from helping with house remodeling (not paint and wallpaper, but actual walls and floors!). But these are forays into limited areas of masculinity, and we approach them from the foundation of our upbringing as girls. We were neither encouraged to be powerful nor shamed and brutalized into being “tough”. We don’t have to live up to, or to live down, the reputations or the expectations of our own dads. When we do “fatherly “ things, we make it up from scratch, and that is different from following in the footsteps of someone who may, or may not have, managed the “provide, protect, teach and lead” mandate well.

But our work as counselors requires us to walk in the shoes of our brothers. And we have our own experiences with husbands (both of the ex-variety for many years now), brothers, and fathers (our own, and those of our children). The men we know have an overwhelming desire to be the “good father” in the birthday party story: a Superman figure in comfortable clothes, able to leap tall buildings as their children require.

When the wood was stacked for the winter, the larder was full, and the children were snug behind strong walls that kept out both storms and predators, our fatherly ancestors must have felt pretty good about themselves. There was time to dispense wise advice, teach a craft, play a fiddle or tell bedtime stories. But today’s fathers have a more complicated job. A wolf at the door was one thing, but climate change, economic turmoil, political corruption, war and changing technologies are the modern man’s version of weather: things that can wipe out everything we’ve built over the years, and that are beyond our power to control. The old recipe of “provide, protect, teach and lead” is not only difficult, but obsolete in the wake of the declining male wage, a collapsed resource economy, and women who feel, and who are, capable of co-leadership. Without a road map, some fathers have fallen into despair, shame, addictions, or anger—lashing out at themselves or their loved ones in place of an enemy that is too pervasive, too diffuse to just go out and shoot. Others have left parenting to mothers, burying their own grief somewhere out-of-earshot from that of their children, who needed them to deliver what they believed they didn’t have to give.

Calvin Sandborn has been walking the walk of father and son for a long time. His book, “Becoming the Kind Father: A Son’s Journey” chronicles his struggle to find within himself the tools to heal to wounds of a failing, 1950’s model of fatherhood. Sandborn’s book seeks understand his disappointed and angry father as a product of his time, his chances and his choices. But Sandborn goes further: he outlines a step-by-step path for healing and becoming the sort of father that he needed for himself, and that perhaps all of us—sons and daughters—need.

Our cultural road to manhood, according to Sandborn, requires boys to turn off their emotions (except anger), and put on “the father’s armour” of duty and aggression. This robotic version of manhood, like the toy action-figures that our kids want to play with, is a poor place to start when it comes to holding a baby, much less comforting and teaching a child. Getting from Robot-Man to Kind Father requires a great deal of courage and patience. Uncovering and naming emotions, re-discovering empathy, forgiving oneself and others who have fallen short of ideals, and, ultimately, learning to be a kind father to oneself are Sandborn’s steps toward fathering for a post-Patriarchal world.

In our house, Father’s Day has always been difficult. Missing fathers loom large and the gap between the sentimentalized Hallmark-version of fatherhood and the lived experience of day to day family life is wide. By inviting Calvin Sandborn to the Comox Valley, we are attempting to embrace Father’s Day in a way that fits for us: a day to connect with the “fathering” parts of ourselves, to encourage the development of our beautiful and kind son, and to dream of what a renewal of the father’s role could mean for children.

These days, the mandate protect, provide for, teach and lead children is too much to place on one man without support from other men. But we can imagine fathers working together to change the world into a safer place, where the “wolves” of poverty, illiteracy, and pollution, and the “storms” of war and economic crashes would no longer threaten anybody’s children. And it starts at home, in the heart.

Calvin Sandborn’s book, Becoming the Kind Father, is available from New Society Publishers (www.newsocietybooks.com/books/becomingthekindfather.), by order from Laughing Oyster Bookstore (or your neighborhood bookstore), or from Amazon.