Do you wonder sometimes why your life has turned out like it has?

Why does one parent need you right now?
Why you’re caregiving dad, not mom, or vice versa?
The obvious reason is dad or mom is still here and needs care.
That’s the obvious reason, but not the only one.
It’s no coincidence.

It has a lot to do with what you need to learn. What lessons have come your way.
Where you are and what you’re doing is important and significant not only to you, but how your experience ripples out and touches others.
Some have pleasant, easy caregiving experiences. Not too many.
Relationships are complicated, and even when they’re not, caring for another life can be exhausting, frustrating and challenging because there are so many aspects to it–physically, financially, dealing with the medical community and other family members–it’s about as pleasant as licking a porcupine!
I also wonder about those people, with nice parents. Nice spouses. I feel as if I’m studying an alien species that breathes in water. How do they do that? I ask myself.
I had to ask myself why my dad passed fifteen years before my mom. He died of heart disease and had struggled with it for about a decade, he’d had a valve replacement, several veins replaced, he lived on nitro-glycerin tablets, and in the end his heart simply wore out. I was relieved for him to pass knowing he was out of pain and not struggling for every breath. He held on for my mother. She asked him to and he did. For as long as he could.
Dads can be stubborn, cantankerous, strong (headed and bodied), non-communicative, cold, (maybe less affectionate, or shows it in differnt ways), proud, demanding, opinionated, and controlling.
Not all dads. Just some. Caring can be a real challenge. And some of those challenges are inherent to the fact that you’re dealing with testosterone.
Men are proud critters. They’ve always been the one to help others. They’ve provided for a family, fought in a war, held a job down for 30+ years and now you, their child, is going to tell them what to do?
I can understand that it may take a bit of an adjustment period.
The list may sound stereotypical, but I believe many of those traits are more personality than gender based. Stubborn? Cantakerous? Demanding? Opinionated? My mom staked her claim to all of these. But there’s a male version that adds a whole other level of independence and stubborness to this scenario.
Dads can also push our buttons. A lot of history runs between dads and their kids. Hurts, frustrations, wanting to please your dad, obey your dad, honor your dad–how do you do that and still change his diaper? It’s tough.
Let’s be fair here. Not all dads were Ward Cleavers. We adults have to deal with the disappointments and hurts from childhoods and teenhoods that maybe have been marred by absentee dads, alcoholic dads, angry or distant dads–and now, we have to care give and act like one happy family?
That’s another post, but know that you can find a way to take care of you and provide the care they need.
Sometimes dads are difficult to care for because of all the things they won’t let you do.
Not just you, but anyone. Pride again. They don’t know how to stop being that person they were for so long.
How do you reach your dad? Especially if you have a hard time (either of you or both) talking about things of the heart

• Be patient
• Let them have their way on things that don’t really matter
• Honor them. Treat them with dignity. “Brag” about who he is, and all he’s done when you’re out in public or when people come over
• Focus on how proud you are of him as a person–not just a list of things he did. It’s hard for him to reconcile himself to not being able to be that strong, tough guy he used to be. Focus on inner qualities of patience, humor, kindness, wisdom–things he still possesses
• Choose to focus on the good times, the good in him and in you. Let go of the “you weren’t there for me” moments of your life
• Pay attention to anything that interests him–birds, politics, how to cook perfect scrambled eggs, vintage cars–find ways to connect
• Smile. Do something they like–pull out the sports page, buy him a car magazine.
• Be easy. Let go of your own fussiness and let the time just flow.
• Before long, you’ll see a softening in him–less combative–and if you can get just one small acknowledgement in a week, then you know you’ve broken through.
• Ignore the bluster. If he’s fussy, demanding, opinionated, even angry–ignore it. Do the care you need to do–take him to the doctor, give him his bath or meds and just let him gripe while you keep doing “your job.” Griping is one way of handling the embarrassment–a way to distract him and you from the task at hand

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This Father’s Day, if you don’t have a great relationship with you dad, then focus in one thing to be thankful for. Write it down on an index card and put it in your pocket of what you’re wearing that day. If things get off course, pull that out and focus on what you’re grateful for.
Why you’re caregiving your dad and not your mom may be a mystery to you, right now. But I bet in time, you’ll see why.
I know that I had a soft spot for my dad–and it would have been easier for me to be kinder, more patient with my dad, I’m a Daddy’s girl. But it wouldn’t have been good for him. He was in pain. He needed to pass on to the other side. Perhaps my caregiving would him would be hard on him. I was his little girl.
But I believe the biggest reason why I had to care for my mom is that I still have lessons to learn from her–how to be a wife, a mother, how to become an older woman, how to die. I also needed to learn how to stand up for myself. I still had some forgiving to do. I still had some letting go to do. I needed to know that I had the strength and tenacity to see it through to make plans about my own integrity and personhood based off what she had to teach me.
Caregiving is a two-way street. Each have something to gain. Each have something to learn.

~Carol D. O’Dell
Author of Mothering Mother: A Daughter’s Humorous and Heartbreaking Memoir

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