Yesterday I was talking to the woman who works at the front
office of my work. I have a one year old and she has an elderly father
with dementia and their care is surprisingly similar. You cannot just
leave them home and go to work. If you cannot stay home with them you
must hire someone to take care of them for you (and just hope and pray they do
it even half as well and half as lovingly as you do it). You must do
everything for them, bathe them, make sure they eat, dress them, etc. And
then there are the questions… O.M.G. the questions. You never realize how
little you know about the world until you have a little one. Sometimes
you look it up, sometimes you make it up, and sometimes the answer is just “I
don’t know”. And sometimes it’s the same question over, and over, and
over again. We are only human and it’s annoying. (If you say it’s
not you are a far more patient person than I). But losing your cool is a
terribly debilitating thing to do to someone.
Imagine you are a little kid and you ask “what’s that?” and
mommy says a word you’ve never heard before. You can’t say it yourself
because you aren’t sure what she said so you ask “what’s that?” again and this
time you watch her lips move but she isn’t looking at you. “What’s that”
and this time you saw the way her lips curled but you aren’t sure how to
pronounce it. “What’s That?”. And it goes on, and on, until you
finally grasp it. It’s a Sparrow! Is that bird a sparrow? No,
a finch, huh, ok. How about this one? No, a cardinal,
weird. And it goes on and on like that. Mom is awesome
because she always answers my questions. She’s so smart!!
On the other side of this is the poor mommy – “What’s that?”
“A sparrow” “What’s that?” “A sparrow” “What’s that?” “A sparrow” “What’s
that?” “A sparrow” “What’s that?” “A sparrow” and then on the way home
“Sparrow?” as she points to ever bird we see. Annoying right?
Yep. But imagine another scenario.
“What’s that?” “A sparrow” “What’s that?” “I
already told you, it’s a sparrow”. “What’s that?” “It’s an effing
sparrow” “What’s that?” “A SPARROW!!” “What’s that?” “Go
away”. Wow, mommy is mad at me and I don’t know what I did. I just
wanted to know what that was. I guess it’s not ok to ask questions.
And mommy is really scary sometimes.
Imagine a world where if you didn’t know something you
went on not knowing it because you were too ashamed to ask. Now in a
world with google you can easily and privately find your answer (usually) but 2
year olds don’t have google. They have mommy. And do you want your
kid to think you are smart and nice? Do you want your kids to ask when
they don’t understand something? Do you want your kids to come to
you when they have a question/problem? Then answer their questions.
Every time.
Fast forward to the 80 year old man with Alzheimer’s.
Computers didn’t come around until the end of his working years so sure he may
use it for e-mails and the like but it’s not really part of his daily
routine. As his mind slips away, names forgotten, places forgotten, use of
that awesome google function fades away too. Imagine knowing that you once knew
the answer to something but now you can’t for the life of you figure it
out. How scary when you know you are literally losing your mind? And now all you can remember is your daughters face, her kind sweet face
and ask her, for the umpteenth time, where is your room again? Imagine if
she yelled at you. Imagine how scary if the only familiar thing in your
world was mad at you. So you stop asking.
What people don’t realize (until they themselves are in the
situation) is that care givers of young children and elderly relatives need
help. And they need a break. They need alone time. They need
girls/guys nights out. They need a hug and someone to tell them they are
doing a good job. Because they are not in it for the pay.
I’m not saying patience is easy but I am saying patience
is essential.
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