LETTERS FROM HOME

Parents learn experience not necessary, just love

By Glenda Winders
Copley News Service
       Parents have always known - and Erma Bombeck once pointed out - that they reap their true reward when their children have children of their own. Finally there is payback for all those nights of sitting up and waiting past curfew, all those fights over territory in the back seat during a vacation, all the sassy retorts about nose rings and eye shadow. Now grandparents, they are free to sit back and listen as their own children embark on similar battles.
       I'm not quite to those stages yet, but as my daughter's pregnancy winds down and she gets ready to have her baby, she's already having some thoughts about the weighty responsibility of parenthood. When she's exhausted and vulnerable, her fears translate into "I'm not sure I can do this." When she is feeling more energetic and vocal, she bellows through the telephone, "I can't believe they let you do this without training and a license!"
       As a parent looking back on the experience, I have often expressed the same sentiment. I don't know how such a requirement could ever be enforced because fortunately our government doesn't make a habit of getting in the middle of couples and their reproductive rights. It does fascinate me, though, to get a fresh take from someone who hasn't even started down the path of parenthood but already knows it is going to be awesome.
       In a recent e-mail, for example, she listed every job she could think of for which a license is a requisite, ranging from doctor, lawyer and pilot to mortician and cabdriver. You have to have a license to get married or go hunting, but if you want to add a human being to the 6 billion-plus already walking the planet, you're free to strike out on your own.
       While she was composing the list, her dog was curled up beside her with his head in her lap. The dangling tag on his collar reminded her that she can have a child without permission, she just can't have a pet.
       During the past few months she has read a whole stack of books on how to feed, bathe, dress and educate a child. And every newspaper she reads and broadcast she watches warns against disasters she might not even have thought of. In the recent past other people's tragedies have taught her not to lock the child in a hot car, leave it alone in the bathtub or trust an unqualified sitter.
       As she looks into the future, she sees a life as fraught with danger as it is laced with joy. Giving birth seems like just the beginning of a long struggle in a world full of dangerous toys, unkind playmates, toxic chemicals and every variety of hazard from unguarded swimming pools to out-of-control automobiles.
       Sometimes I laugh as she reiterates worries that have plagued young mothers since the beginning of time. Most of the time I reassure her that babies have a way of coming into the world and surviving just fine in spite of the circumstances around them. Remember the African floods when a child was born while his mother clung for her life to a treetop?
       I also tell her that mothers over centuries have known instinctively what to do and that we live in an era of research, medicine and unprecedented surgical expertise so sophisticated that doctors can find and correct serious problems before a child is even born. Little kids are intrepid, and regardless of how humble their upbringing, they generally turn out fine.
       But then I tell her some things I've learned from children I know and from my husband's experiences as a middle- and high school teacher - that the best things parents can do for their children have more to do with intellectual and emotional nurturing than with their physical well-being. Yes, a child with a broken arm needs to be taken to the emergency room, but on a day-to-day basis it's in the spirit where parents can have the most influence.
       I tell her that the nice clothes and shiny toys she and her husband hope to provide are just frosting on a life that is enriched by affection, parental attention and lovingly enforced boundaries. My secret is that regardless of how much I tease her about her misery, it isn't actual revenge I want, but just a healthy, happy grandchild.

LETTERS FROM HOME

Time to give thanks for 'guardian angels'

By Glenda Winders
Copley News Service
       According to a recent article in Kiplinger's, 22 million Americans are currently caring for elderly parents and relatives. About a third of those - mostly women - are doing that job long-distance while they also manage their own families and careers.
       The point of the story was to provide information about services that help anxious adult children who can't get to their parents as often as they'd like to. Since I'm an only child who lives 2,000 miles from my 77-year-old widowed mother, I cut the article out and filed it away in case I ever need it.
       And that's the operative phrase here: in case I ever need it. Because the fact is that even though my mother does already require some help with managing her life, so far she does it all with the help of a handful of close relatives and friends.
       "I think my mother must have a guardian angel," I once remarked to my husband, marveling at how lucky she is to be able to maintain her independence with the assistance of these loyal people. Knowing how much I worry and fret over her well-being, he responded, "I think you do."
       And so as Thanksgiving once again rolls around and I do my annual taking stock of the people for whom I am most grateful, these are the ones who immediately come to mind.
       First comes Nancy, who serves as guardian angel to many people through her volunteer work with Hospice. We first met her four years ago when my dad was seriously ill and my mother was struggling to keep her promise to him that he wouldn't have to die in a hospital. Nancy was assigned to our case to help out with errands, allow my mother to rest and do a little housework. She didn't realize we would permanently adopt her.
       During the time my dad was ill and failing, she became as much like a sister to me as a helper. I often joked with my mother that Nancy was the good daughter she'd always wanted who stayed nearby instead of moving away.
       Of all the things she did for us then - and has done for us since - one Friday night comes to mind more than any other. My father was in and out of consciousness and we knew the end wasn't far away. We had hired overnight nursing care, but the person assigned by the service couldn't find the house and never showed up.
       Late in the evening a thunderstorm knocked out the power, and many states away at my house the phone rang. My mother, terrified for a variety of reasons, cried into the phone, "What am I going to do?"
       Sounding braver than I felt, I told her I'd handle it. Without hanging up the phone, I called the central Hospice number in her town, only to get a cheerful recorded message that invited me to call back on Monday. They probably couldn't have helped anyway since our problem was basically electrical. I felt very far away and helpless.
       The only solution I could come up with was to call Nancy. She drove through the storm and stayed with my parents for the rest of the night.
       In the time since then, she and her husband have come to my mother's rescue on several occasions. Their contributions range from programming her VCR and driving her to doctors' appointments to entertaining her on her birthday. During a recent medical scare that included a visit to the emergency room, Nancy again came to the rescue. This prompted an e-mail from my mother's sister that read simply, "Thank God for Nancy!"
       That same aunt also goes on my list of the people for who I am thankful. She's been my ideal for as long as I can remember, but now she and her family seem to turn up almost magically whenever my mother needs assistance.
       Cathy is the friend at my mother's bank who watches her account and keeps her from overspending. David is the neighbor who rakes leaves and shovels snow without being asked. My uncle services her car and makes repairs around her house. Chuck, a retired minister, drops by just to talk.
       This year, like every other Thanksgiving at our house, we'll go through the familiar ritual of expressing our gratitude before we tuck in to the holiday turkey. But this time I'll also say thanks for this handful of people who make my mother's life possible and - whether related or not - are members of an amazing family.

LETTERS FROM HOME

Election events have the nation mesmerized

By Glenda Winders
Copley News Service
       Regardless of the frustration level produced by the unresolved presidential election, it also has tremendous entertainment value. Never before has so much drama, comedy and tragedy come together in one national marathon. If Shakespeare had been in politics instead of theater and lived here in the 21st century, this is the spectacle he might have produced.
       Watching the returns the night of the election reminded me of that other ratings blockbuster when police chased O.J. Simpson down the Los Angeles freeway in his white Bronco. Just as we had been during that broadcast, my husband and I were riveted to the TV set, reluctant to leave for so much as a drink of water for fear that what we had been waiting for would happen and we would miss it.
       We stayed up much later than we ordinarily would before a workday, sure that the final results would be announced the moment we turned in. Our trip upstairs to bed carried with it all the anticipation of Christmas Eve since we foolishly believed at that point that when we awoke the next morning there would be resolution. We haven't seen a cliffhanger of this magnitude since the summer we wondered who shot J.R.
       This particular show and the spinoffs that have followed have offered a wide variety of subplots to keep us on the edges of our seats, too: A first lady became a senator, a man who had died three weeks earlier was elected to the Senate and in Florida a situation that at first seemed only to involve a few lost ballot boxes later exploded into a legal and bureaucratic nightmare.
       In addition to their projection foul-ups, the network news anchors have provided much-needed comic relief. I laughed right out loud when Dan Rather deadpanned into the camera that by the time the winning candidate was able to drink the champagne he had chilling, it would be frozen so solid he'd have to pry the cork out with a chisel. Tim Russert continues to figure and refigure the possible outcomes so many times on his erasable slate that viewers - albeit fascinated - are positively dizzy.
       This campaign began producing drama, however, long before the election returns started coming in. The very concept of two privileged men from political families vying for the throne about to be vacated by the colorful Bill Clinton was positively cinematic in itself. Even the most disenchanted voters rallied to participate.
       My new son-in-law, who had never voted in a presidential election before, did so this time. How could he not when he had married into a family that hashes out issues around the dinner table and pores over the sample ballot until it is the consistency of shredded tissue? My son, who usually calls me at 5 p.m. on Election Day to get my recommendations, instead called to reassure me that while he would be out of town on the day itself he had already cast his absentee ballot.
       Around water coolers across the country previously uninvolved citizens started talking about plans for saving Social Security and how many Supreme Court justices the next president might get to appoint. Numbers of electoral votes from each state were bandied about as casually as the dates of family birthdays.
       Like fair-weather football fans whose team is headed for the Super Bowl, voters turned out at the polling places in record numbers. Some people who had hoped to cast their ballots early in the morning found lines so long they decided to try again in the evening after work.
       During the subsequent course of bizarre events we have become the focal point of global speculation, and our own population has been galvanized by this compelling common dilemma. TV sets are being switched from soap operas to news broadcasts by people who feel as if they're living in the pages of a civics textbook.
       I don't underestimate the potential of this situation to throw our country into chaos or the agony it is causing the families and organizations whose futures hang in the balance, but it has been thrilling in that it has shaken us up, made us pay attention and proved that against overwhelming evidence to the contrary, we care.

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