Family Squeeze Read online

  “So you’ve been stealing her money, eh?” I laugh. “What money?”

  The boy is strong but tender, with eager eyes and a hunger for life. But sometimes I wonder if he’s seeing too much of it, if what might be coming scares him. Sometimes I want to shield my children from life. Yet what do you do? Take them only to movies with happy endings? Never buy them a puppy? At least if your heart gets broken, you’ll know you have one.

  Out in the car, I ponder this journey we’ve been on the last few glorious and frantic years. I may not know much, but I do know this: We will walk this road together. I have no idea where it will take us, but just as my parents took time for me, I will take time for them. As surely as childhood is about family, old age is family time too.

  I think of a friend’s advice: Right foot, left foot, breathe. “Help,” I mutter. “I’m squeezed between my parents and my kids.”

  And God speaks with words from my younger son, this gift of God who at times I feel like throttling. “So Mom is a basket case, Grandmas in the loony bin, and Steve has malaria. Other than that, things aren’t bad. Happy birthday, Dad.”

  When he talks like this, I want to lock him in a bear hug.

  “It could be worse,” I say. “My youngest son could start dating.”

  “Maybe,” he laughs, cupping his hand out the window against the oncoming wind.

  His laugh has me thinking I can muster the courage to face a birthday cake with forty-four lit candles. Maybe climb out of bed again tomorrow and move my feet, one at a time.

  Retirement at sixty-five is ridiculous.

  When I was sixty-five I still had pimples.

  GEORGE BURNS, WHEN HE WAS ONE HUNDRED

  “Honor your father and mother’—which is the first commandment

  with a promise—”that it may go well with you

  and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.”

  EPHESIANS 6:2-3

  Somewhere back in the last century, my siblings and I began to face the fact that our parents were aging. We noticed this when we caught Dad backing his Ford Tempo out of the driveway without the aid of mirrors, only to park the car in the flower bed. Sometimes he drove like an Indy racer, and other times farmers on combines would pull out to pass him.

  It was as if my once-athletic father, who had been the picture of good health until just after retirement, was kidnapped by those makeover guys on ABC and kept in a room while they dyed his hair, wrinkled his face, and forced him to push a cane around for the rest of his life.

  In a matter of months, my dynamic dad seemed to officially enter old age, waving a sad farewell to baseball with the grandkids and his patriarchal role at family reunions. Instead, he would tire easily, find a sofa, and doze off. I wasn’t sure I had ever seen my father cry, but now the tears came readily as he sat in my green leather chair—the tiger of my youth, now panting under a shade tree.

  Ramona and I talked about aging a lot in those days, wondering what role, if any, we should play in Mom and Dad’s lives. Of their five children, I lived the closest, just a ten-minute stroll from their house—the perfect distance when we needed baby-sitting services. But there came a day when Mom and Dad no longer accepted the assignments as eagerly, and when they did, they didn’t move quickly enough to chase the kids from poisonous plants or fast-moving buses. I joked with them about it, saying it’s a good thing we don’t bear children in our eighties; we’d likely fold the strollers before removing the kids.

  Though their house was tiny, for them it had grown in size. My mother, who had waged a successful battle with dust and dirt her entire life, finally waved the white flag. Their lawn, once carefully groomed, now required one of those farmer’s combines, not a mower. Through faint tears Dad admitted that things were too big for him now. The only part of the house that was too small was the medicine cabinet. He talked of moving into a seniors’ lodge, where they would experience measured independence but no room for company.

  “We want life around us,” he confessed. “Old people are like manure. Spread ‘em around and they do some good. Pile them together too long and things start to stink.”

  I went to peers for advice. Those who had been through it were bursting with compassion. A few had regrets. The ones with the most advice and the strongest opinions hadn’t traveled this road before. But we all agreed on one thing: 100 percent of living people are aging. And not since the dash on Methuselah’s tombstone signaled 969 years have people lived so long.

  When my parents were born, less than one in twenty-five lived long enough to blow out sixty-five candles.1 Today, it seems six out of every four do. (Also, 73 percent of the people attending a Rolling Stones concert receive a senior’s discount.) To complicate things further, most of us have two parents and two parents-in-law, so the odds are pretty good that we will carry some responsibility for a dependent parent.

  We are also having children later in life. When I was born, my parents were old. So old that I was born in a nursing home. My father had his first heart attack playing peekaboo with me. They were paying for my diapers with pension checks. But this was not the norm. In 1970, the average age of a first-time American mother was 21.4 years.2 Today, that number has risen to almost twenty-five years3 (it is twenty-nine in Switzerland).4 Studies conducted in the United States and Canada conclude that close to 30 percent of women between forty-five and sixty-four are supporting unmarried children and elderly parents at the same time.5 In the UK 24 percent of adults aged between forty-five and sixty-four are caregivers.6 The “Me” generation suddenly has to think of others.

  One day Ramona asked me a question that I did not appreciate, one that annoyed me to no end: How will we want to be treated when we’re my parents’ age? She believed that we should do unto them as we would have our children do unto us. I asked her where she could possibly find that in the Bible.

  She mentioned, among other things, the Old and New Testaments, then suggested I read one of the Ten Commandments. I hate it when she does this. In reading the words again, I discovered that eight of the commandments begin with the words Do not. Or, if you read the latest translation, “Hey! Enough with…” Only two of the ten are Dos, and this is one: “Honor your father and your mother.” The command is not a sin to shun, but a virtue to shoot for. And as far as I can tell, the command does not end at high school graduation. It continues throughout life.

  But what does this honoring mean? When you’re barely out of diapers, honoring your parents includes obeying them and not smashing china. When you’re out of their home, this honor is a trickier thing, but surely it still includes not smashing their china when you visit and being the kind of person who makes a parent of any age say with an upturned grin, “Hey, that’s my kid.”

  Like it or not, we live in a culture that has, for the most part, managed to erase the elderly from our minds and consciences. They are an invisible lot, relegated to nursing homes and hospitals, their convenient disappearance seldom the topic of polite conversation. You may recall this bumper sticker: “Support bingo. Keep Grandma off the streets.” I smile when I see it, but I also wonder what we miss by stowing Grandma away.

  One day Ramona came to me with a suggestion that I couldn’t believe. “Where do you find that in the Bible?” I asked.

  “Just about everywhere,” she said.

  “But there’s no way it will work,” I protested.

  “I think it will,” she said.

  Blessed are the young,

  for they shall inherit the National Debt.

  HERBERT HOOVER

  My father’s addiction to ice cream started when he quit smoking cigarettes almost fifty years ago. It added years to his life, he claims, but has been just about as expensive. (I once joked with Dad that he should have kept all the money he saved by not smoking and drinking—we could have taken it to a casino and tried to win some more. I mentioned this once while speaking and received a very short letter WRITTEN IN ALL CAPS with lots of exclamation points. Sadly, the person for
got to sign it, so I couldn’t tell him I was kidding.)

  If you invited Dad to dinner and asked if he’d like a little ice cream, he would shake his head. “No,” he’d say. “I’d like a lot of ice cream.” And so we are meeting at an ice cream shop this windy autumn afternoon. It’s the ideal spot to speak of something that’s been on my mind for a while.

  Dad and Mom pull up in their hunter green Ford Tempo. Ramona and I watch as they labor to untangle themselves from the cramped front seat. They aren’t as spry as they were ten years ago—or six months ago, for that matter.

  My father orders a large vanilla cone roofed in chocolate and feigns reluctance as I pull out my wallet. Moms tastes are much simpler: hot water with milk and honey, something I’ve seen her drink a hundred times but never had the nerve to try myself. They are holding hands as she takes dainty sips from the cup, her smile almost concealing the worry wrinkles tugging at her brow.

  Conversation comes easily. The fall colors are particularly vibrant this year, says Dad. It reminds them both of their hometown. The laughter comes too. Something a grandchild said. Dad has always loved making us laugh, so he puts his nose in the ice cream like a little kid.

  Finally there is a lull in the conversation, and I clear my throat, wondering how they’ll take to our idea. “Would you like to be in on our little building project?” I ask.

  Dad wipes the ice cream from his nose. “What are you building?”

  “A house. We plan to start in the spring. We’d like to include a small suite in it for you.”

  Their eyes grow wide. Dad squeezes Mom’s hand. Bright smiles, long on vacation, quickly return. I haven’t seen them this excited since they last had their corns removed.

  Mom asks Ramona, “What do you think?”

  She smiles. “It was my idea,” she says.

  “We’ll only need one bedroom,” Dad promises, his eyes dancing.

  “I’ll have to see a marriage license before you move in,” I tell him.

  We all lean forward as I pull out some drawings. The suite will be small but comfortable. Outside the bedroom is a bathroom and laundry. The kitchen is adequate, the dining room is small, and the living room is large enough for some furniture, a fireplace, and a sofa bed. “You can use it for company,” I suggest.

  “Or arguments,” says Mom.

  The two are arm in arm now. Uncomfortable with the tears running down their cheeks, I try to joke. “We’re putting big padlocks on all the doors and extra soundproofing in the walls,” I say. “Go ahead and argue.”

  “Can we play loud music?” asks Dad.

  “You can take up the bagpipes if you like.”

  A few people thought we had lost our minds, but our friends were unanimously supportive. Their responses ranged from envy to incredulity. “My parents wouldn’t live with us if a tornado leveled their place,” joked one. “Maybe during the millennial kingdom when the lion lies down with the lamb.”

  I was telling another friend that my parents would be living thirty feet from us, and he looked at me like I’d just ordered him off a cliff. “I took my parents to the airport this morning,” he said. “Their flight leaves tomorrow.”

  Others asked how it would work. We didn’t know.

  One said, “I hope we can do the same one day. Congratulations!”

  I told him, “Don’t congratulate me. I have a doctorate in selfishness, but every once in a while I experience a momentary lapse.”

  Eleven months later the house was complete, and we set about making it a home. It took a three-hour yard sale one Saturday to sell the stuff my parents had spent a lifetime gathering. “Junk,” Dad insisted, but I could tell he had trouble letting some of it go.

  Those were golden times. Every week or two we joined them on their patio, sipping iced tea and gazing west across fields finally unlocked from the frosts of winter. In the distance, mountain peaks poked above the horizon. A row of gnarled pines cast long shadows where Mom helped us plant a garden and Dad helped us paint a fence. They assisted with our fledgling book business, with proofreading and mailing, offering topical advice, busy with things they loved.

  And every night without fail, Jeff would tap on their door and go in for a good-night hug. Rachael loved reading to them. Steve opted to watch hockey with his grandpa on Saturday nights. I snapped pictures of the two of them eating ice cream and pizza—usually in that order. Sometimes Ramona and I would eavesdrop, but mostly we’d slip out, leaving the five of them together. We talked of never returning, and wondered if they’d really miss us at all.

  We had no idea what lay ahead, so we did the only thing we knew to do: took that next step, believing it to be the right one.

  Never lend your car to anyone

  to whom you have given birth.

  ERMA BOMBECK

  A long about the time we took on boarders, Ramona and I awakened to the fact that our children had become teenagers. Not that they were always easy to have around before, but they were now showing more of a penchant for the irrational, which was summed up well years ago in a book title: Get Out of My Life, but First Could You Drive Me and Cheryl to the Mall?

  It seemed hardly a week ago that they were in the springtime of life. Now it was more like summer—too much heat and late nights, too much energy and growth. I said to my wife one morning, “Isn’t God wise and good? He gave us twelve years to develop a love for our dear little children so we wouldn’t lock them in the trunk and swallow the keys when they became teenagers.”

  My first introduction to teens—apart from being one myself—was when a teenage girl began baby-sitting our kids. We paid her to act like an adult so we could go out and act like teenagers. We also paid her five bucks an hour to eat twenty bucks’ worth of our food and watch our movies while she did her homework.

  From the day they are born, children have one thing in mind: becoming teenagers and taking over the planet. They want us grownups out of the way. They make fun of our hairstyle (if we are lucky enough to have one), spend our money, crash our car, and eat our lunch. They even stop laughing at our jokes.

  Someone asked me the other day what I do. “I’ll tell you what I do,” I said. “I follow teenagers around the house. I shut lights off. I close fridge doors.” It’s a full-time job.

  Here are a few things I am waiting to hear my teenagers say. I believe I would die of heart failure if they made any two of these statements in the same evening:

  Who needs to eat out? Let me make something.

  Dad, I sure could use a little advice.

  We won’t need the car—we’re walking.

  There’s nothing to eat around here. I’ll go buy something.

  We don’t do anything as a family anymore.

  You relax, I’ll do the dishes.

  New movies aren’t cool. Let’s watch something old.

  Hey, I’ve been on the phone a lot. Why don’t I pay the phone bill this month?

  Is my music bothering you?

  This is my room, but it’s your house.

  Well, lookie there! It’s 10 p.m.! I’d better go to bed!

  If you are the parent of a teenager, here is something you need to tell yourself each and every day. Apart from selling mittens to South Africans, parenting teenagers is the world’s toughest job, so go easy on yourself. Do not compare yourself with other parents who sit in church looking happy and well organized. Chances are they are heavily medicated and may be hours from being institutionalized.

  Someone mailed me a plaque recently. It says:

  TEENAGERS! Tired of being harassed by your parents?

  Act now. Move out. Get a job and pay your own

  bills while you still know everything.

  I hung it up in my study.

  It went missing the very next day.

  Teenagers want to be in charge. I say we let them…just not quite yet. First, we let the air out of their tires and put sugar cubes in their gas tanks. Wait—I guess that would be our gas tanks. Scratch that idea.


  Squinty-Eyed Prophets

  It’s time to be honest. Contrary to everything I’ve just written, the strangest thing happened when our children turned into adolescents: I discovered that—stay with me here—I absolutely loved the teenage years. You may think I’m crazy (and you may have a point), but I will not apologize for a second.

  Yes, these almost-adults are moody, sometimes obnoxious, and relationally challenged. Yes, they listen to music that sounds like someone is throwing lawn darts through a jet engine. True, the teenage years are like a game of golf: terrible and fabulous and heartbreaking and wonderful, all in the space of a few hours. But I wouldn’t trade these days for anything, not even a peaceful night’s sleep.

  When our children were young, I squeezed them into a grocery cart and pushed them around supermarkets seeing if I could find products that would line up with the coupons I’d clipped. Sometimes I’d try to swap my cart with other people, but they never accepted my offer.

  Older folks would trundle over to us wearing foreboding frowns. Squinty-eyed, they would peer over their bifocals and offer advice that went something like this: “You think things are bad now. You just wait. Soon they’re gonna wanna date and drive your car.” Then they’d shuffle off to the Prune/Bran Flake aisle.

  Well, I’d like to tell you that they were wrong. Contrary to the fears and paranoia programmed into us by television and the squinty-eyed prophets of doom, my favorite parenting years so far have been the teenage years. Lest you think I am delusional right now, allow me first to agree with you.

  Yes, teenagers are crazy.

  The Trouble with Teens

  I remember a particularly wild-eyed and frantic woman who said to me, “My teenagers remind me why certain animals eat their young.” In Old Testament times they used to stone the odd teenager, which helped keep the others alert and home by 10 p.m. I wonder sometimes if the parents weren’t the ones down front with the biggest rocks.