Not the flying doctor

Spring in Torino - not the reason I was there

Waking up to a text message that begins "Hi Mum, I'm fine, but I'm in hospital after being knocked down by a car" is guaranteed to get maternal anxiety going big time. Especially when the daughter who sent it is in a hospital over 13,000 kilometers away in Italy. 

We managed to talk by phone. She said that she'd been taken to the hospital by ambulance because she'd had a bump on the head. She sounded groggy, but it was, after all, the middle of the night there. She said her friends were looking after her well. "It's not that serious" she reassured us.

The time difference between Italy and Perth meant that we had to wait another 7 hours before we could speak to her again without disturbing her sleep. In the meantime I'd managed to contact one of her friends who told me that Zoe had a skull fracture and had been vomiting "but don't worry, she's doing fine". 

Not worrying is not easy if your medical training tells you all the possible disastrous complications of a head injury, and your imagination has nothing to stifle it except brief text messages and phone calls. I needed to SEE that she was fine. "Do you think I should go over there?" I asked my husband. "What's stopping you?" he said, without hesitating.

So about the time that I'd expected to be sharing morning tea with my bible study group in Perth, I found myself sitting in Dubai airport, waiting for my connection to Milan. The whole thing felt surreal. Usually I plan overseas trips months in advance. This time I'd bought the tickets and packed my bag just hours before I boarded the plane. How thankful I was that I had the resources and the freedom to just up and go like that, and thankful too that I knew where I was going and how to get there.

On the plane I worried that I might burst into tears when I saw Zoe. I was feeling pretty strung out emotionally. When I arrived she was sitting on a trolley in the emergency department, looking pale, with two black eyes, her hair unbrushed and standing on end. She looked like a Goth after a hard night of partying, but she was smiling with that typical broad smile of hers. No tears were needed.

To cut a long story short, after staying in hospital for a week, Zoe went home with no complications. I stayed with her for a few more days, happy when I left that she was functioning quite normally, except for tiring easily. Her friends did a fantastic job of looking after her, and me, and would continue to be there for her after I left. (You can read Zoe's account of her experiences in her blog.)

Now that I'm home, still trying to pick up my normal routine where I left off so unexpectedly, I find myself wondering, what was that all about? What did I hope to achieve, what urge did I satisfy, by travelling half way across the world at short notice? I'm sure Zoe appreciated me being there, but as an adult, did she really need my presence? Or was it me who needed her? What is it that ties a mother to her child even when that child is a fully independent adult?

All sorts of "what ifs" come to mind. Would I have travelled across the world to see her if she'd had a broken leg rather than a cracked skull? What if she was married and had a spouse by her side? What if I'd been working full  time, or couldn't afford the price of the ticket? Questions like these have no answers.

I remembered while I was travelling to and from the hospital how my own mother visited me every day when I was in hospital as a child with appendicitis. It took her two bus rides each way through the snow to get there. At the time I didn't understand or appreciate how much effort she put in to being there, or why she did it. I do now.

Yet I also recall mothers I've met who seemed detached from their children, or even hostile, too overwhelmed by their own problems to be interested in their welfare. This thing called mother love isn't simply a matter of instinct.

"No matter how old you are, to me you'll always be my baby" says the Facebook sentiment, complete with picture of baby bear or bunny or pup. Well, I don't think of my adult daughters as "my babies" any more. For a start, they wouldn't appreciate it if I did. And I really like the women they've become, and wouldn't have them any other way. But when they hurt, I still hurt. I want to be there, even if there's nothing I can do to make things better. I probably always will.

The empty nest - more than just a time to redecorate

Montezuma Castle, Arizona -
once a thriving settlement, now a very empty place

It was early 2010, and I was possibly the dampest spot in Arizona. My husband had taken 6 weeks long service leave, I'd persuaded my work to give me unpaid leave, and we'd flown to the United States to fulfill one of his long-held dreams - to tour the southern American states.

It should have been a great adventure, and eventually it became that. But for the first couple of weeks I would burst into tears at the least thing, or even for no reason at all. What was going on?

Jet lag didn't help - whichever way you travel it's a long, long way between Perth and the USA. I've never dealt well with lack of sleep. But I was emotionally charged before we even set off. A few weeks earlier our eldest daughter left to go overseas for several months. She had been coming and going from home for quite a while, but this was a much bigger move.

Not long after she left, and only a few days before we flew, I waved goodbye to our other daughter as she took the train to Adelaide, knowing that she would be studying there for a couple of years. It all seemed to happen so quickly.

Whenever I felt tired of travelling and wished I could be tucked up at home, I'd suddenly remember that there was no-one at home. And then the tears would flow. As a couple we'd travelled on our own several times before, once the girls were old enough to be left to look after themselves. But they were always there, at home, or at least nearby. Suddenly I had to deal with the idea that 'home' was a different place now than it had been for the past 20 years or so.

Sonoran cactus, Tucson

I'd never imagined that I would suffer from 'empty nest syndrome'. I'd prided myself on bringing up my girls to be independent and self-reliant from an early age. At pre-school my eldest daughter, when asked to complete the statement "I love my Mum because…" on a Mother's Day card wrote "When I'm sick she tells me what to do." Callous mother! Neither of them had caused me any anxiety about their ability to cope with the real world.

I'd looked forward to the day when each of them would step out into the world on their own, and I could never understand mothers who bemoaned the fact that their 'babies' were growing up. Wasn't that what babies were supposed to do, with our help? I had enjoyed watching our daughters' gifts and personalities develop, and loved relating to them as adults rather than being responsible for them as children.

Road sign, San Diego

Before they came along we'd had 6 years living as a couple on our own, so it wasn't a strange situation to be in. Yet here I was, in tears at the thought of returning to an empty house. I felt anchorless, as if somehow the place I'd left had disappeared off the map. Fortunately, as I say, I soon recovered and enjoyed the rest of our trip. In the end, it turned out to be a wonderful way of reconnecting with each other as a couple.

The phrase "Empty nest syndrome" was first used in the 1970's to describe the common experience of parents, particularly mothers, when the last child leaves home. It's said to be more likely to occur if a parent draws a lot of their identity from their parenting role, if they generally find it difficult to deal with change, if they had a difficult time leaving home themselves, or if they lack emotional support. I could tick the box on some of those, though I'd found leaving home myself a rewarding experience. Not having time to adjust to our new situation before we went on a major holiday probably didn't help.

Empty nest syndrome isn't an illness or a medical condition, but a stage of life, and in most cases (like mine) it resolves quickly. But for some people it can be the precursor to depression, especially if the grief is not recognised or acknowledged.

Perhaps it will become less common now that most stay-at-home mothers or fathers return to work when their children reach school age. Technology such as skype makes separation easier (for parents, if not for children). Parents have to cope instead with the boomerang generation leaving and returning home several times before they settle.

But it's worth thinking ahead if you have children who will be leaving home for the first time soon, especially if it's the last child who is leaving. How will you deal with the emotional upheaval? It's easy to say jokingly that you'll be clapping your hands, and to start making plans for renovating their room as your office. And it is a time for celebration of a job well done. But it's also a time of readjustment, so be prepared for an unexpected sense of grief, and make sure you have some emotionally supportive people around you.

Facebook - Ten reasons why I gave in and joined up.

Seems I'm part of an elite group

Having written a post in 2013 titled "Ten reasons why I'm not joining Facebook (just yet)" I feel I need to comment on why ten reasons were not enough to prevent me finally giving in and joining up.

1. First, I discovered that reason number 10 is not actually correct. A lot of my friends are on Facebook. Along with a lot of my cousins, uncles, old school mates, friends who've moved interstate or overseas, and other lovely people who I've lost contact with somewhere along the way. It has been great fun catching up with them all. I enjoy seeing photos of their children and grandchildren, and having brief to-and-fro interactions, rather than those long "here's my news from the past twenty two and a half years" letters or emails (though there's still a place for those).

2. I got tired of hearing what my daughter in Italy is doing from people I barely know. If they can find out from Facebook, why can't I do the same? Thanks for friending me, Zoe.

3. As expected, my other daughter hasn't friended me on Facebook. But she hasn't refused to speak to me, as threatened. Yay!

4. When I was toying with the idea of joining up, I asked my husband if he'd be my friend. He shrugged his shoulders and said "I suppose I'd have to." So I joined without friending him, just to prove that he didn't have to. Nah nah!

5. Besides which, as I mentioned in my previous post, I do actually want to communicate with him face to face, rather than Facebook to Facebook. So now we sit in the same room, commenting on what we're reading on our FB newsfeed. It has opened up a whole new realm of conversation. "Have you seen that picture of Joe in Widgiemooltha?" "Joe who?" "I'll send it to you."

6. I get to post out-of-focus shots of things that no-one else would ever bother to take photos of, and people 'like' them. "Like" on Facebook means many things, most of which are unrelated to the English word "like", but never mind.

7. I discovered Facebook does have some privacy settings. They're not great, they sometimes don't work, they keep changing, but they exist. And I've learned not to post anything I don't want the world to see.

8. I decided that maybe it's time I overcame my snobbish introversion and joined the crowd. I now have over 50 Facebook friends. That almost qualifies me to be an extrovert, doesn't it?

9. Mark Zuckerberg likes books, even if he hasn't read any. I knew he was a nice man really.

10. Google + may be a social network but in Australia at least, it's a Clayton's network.

I still have some misgivings. As predicted, FB is a huge time sucker, though I'm getting better at rationing the time I spend there. Reason 4 still bothers me ("When something online is free, you're not the customer, you're the product"). Some of my closest friends aren't on FB. But overall, it's not as scary or as useless as I thought it would be. 

Image: By Tatiraju.rishabh at en.wikipedia [CC BY-SA 3.0 ], via Wikimedia Commons

Teach what you know

The School Master 
by Adriaen van Ostade

In my final year at high school, the local teacher training college provided an information session for those interested in becoming teachers. It coincided with the time usually scheduled for a maths class. Only I and a painfully shy boy turned up for the maths lesson.

Maybe most of my fellow students were more interested in avoiding maths classes than teaching children. I was quite certain, adamantly certain, that I would never, ever, be a teacher. I couldn't think of anything worse than standing in front of a class full of squirming infants or snarky teenagers. Nor did I have any desire to share what I knew about any particular topic. I wasn't sure what I wanted to be, but I knew that I didn't want to be a teacher.

Teaching as crowd control

When my own children were in primary school, I was persuaded to help with an after-school children's club by someone from the local church. She was an experienced teacher and did all the instructing and "crowd control". My role was just to lend a hand with getting things ready and help with games and handcraft activities. I was happy to help.

Then the teacher left, and I found myself running the whole thing.

The hour or so that I spent with those kids was the longest hour of the week. Preparing the lesson and putting together craft activities beforehand was time-consuming, but quite enjoyable. Trying to convey any sort of information while keeping the kids involved, or even localised, was exhausting. Although I have fond memories of the children who attended, I was left in wondering admiration of anyone who could choose to teach as a profession.

Teaching as sharing

It was only when I was in my mid forties that I discovered what many middle aged people discover - I really want to share what I know. Given the opportunity, I actually enjoy teaching others. Not wriggling children, but the younger adults I encounter through church and work, whether informally one-to-one or as part of a group. It  requires an effort to overcome my natural shyness when speaking to a group, but it's very satisfying. Even standing in front of a crowd is not so scary, I've discovered, if I concentrate on the message and the listeners and not on myself.

And then there's the written word. It seems obvious, but I began writing when I found I had something I wanted to say, something to share. What is writing, if not a passing on of experience? What is a blog, if not a way of sharing information and ideas with others?

What brought about this change? As I said, it seems to be a common experience of people in mid life. Perhaps it was the sense that time is passing and all the knowledge accumulated over the years will soon pass too if it's not shared. Perhaps it was the experience acquired in handing on skills and knowledge and (hopefully) wisdom to my own children. Or perhaps it was born out of gratitude for all that I have received from others. Whatever it was, given the opportunity and the invitation, I found that teaching others can be greatly rewarding.

What about you? Has your desire to share what you know changed or increased as you get older? Do you have as many opportunities to teach or mentor as you would like? Share your comments in the box below. (Click on "0 comments" if you don't see a box.)

Photo credit: Foter.com / Public domain

Whispers from the past

I’ve been spending a lot of time (a LOT of time) in the past year researching my Dad’s side of the family tree. It’s quite addictive. Even when I’ve decided to do something else, I’ll sit down and start looking through the online records of births deaths and marriages, or census transcripts, trying to trace a particular person. Two hours later I’m still at it.

I’ve now moved from the main ‘trunk’ of the tree to some of the twiggier side branches, looking for information about people who are so distantly related that they’re really of no personal interest. Yet still I want to answer the questions that keep coming up - why did this person move from A to B, why do they appear in one census but not in the previous one, how did they ever meet and marry someone from another county when neither family seems to have left their own village?

At times I ask myself “why am I doing this?” Part of the addictiveness is that it's totally absorbing. It takes my mind off other things. It’s intellectually challenging - if the information I need isn’t available in the obvious places, it takes imagination and ingenuity to work out another way of finding it. It seems more creative and constructive than, say, doing sudoku or crossword puzzles. It also meets all the criteria for reinforcing behaviour. Like a rat pressing a bar, the rewards come just often enough, just irregularly enough, to keep me from giving up in frustration or getting bored with success.

And it can be frustrating. My grandfather’s family were predominantly workers in the cotton mills of Lancashire. Most of my grandmother’s family were farm labourers in Essex. They had names like John and Mary Ann, Thomas and Fanny, along with thousands of others. They didn’t leave much record of themselves, apart from the scant details recorded in the parish registers of baptisms and marriages. They didn’t do anything newsworthy or noble or notorious.

It’s difficult to imagine their lives really. They went to work in the mill or on the farm at the age of eleven or twelve, and continued working there until they died, if they were male, or until they married, if they were female. They often had eight or more children, half of who died in infancy. They lived in overcrowded conditions, had little education, and few opportunities to express whatever gifts they might have had. None of them had a profession, or held an office, or published a book or led a revolt (as far as I’m aware.)

I was thinking about this as I was reading a biography of someone who came from a long line of artists and musicians on his mother’s side of the family, political leaders and professionals on his fathers side. He went on to achieve great things of lasting worth. He had many gifts and a fine character. But how much, I wonder, do the collective memories of a family influence a child’s expectations of life and of what they can achieve in the world?

Obviously there are people who come from very impoverished backgrounds who still do remarkable things, either good or bad. But more often it seems that biographers can point to links between a person’s family history and that person's own life story.

In my generation we’ve had educational opportunities that the Mary Ann’s and Thomas’s of the past could not have imagined as they signed the parish register with an X. My own parents worked hard to help me grasp those opportunities. We’ve been told by the world repeatedly that we can achieve anything we want to achieve. Sometimes I believe it.

But when I set out to do something, then find a lack of confidence seeping in to my thinking, is it just a matter of personality? When I see a need for change, but don’t have a clue about how to initiate it or how to influence others, is it just a lack of imagination and will on my part? Or does the effect of generations of constricted life expectations take more than one generation to pass?

Super heroes and their mothers

Sci-fi and adventure movies are not usually my cup of tea. But yesterday we went to see StarTrek XI at a cinema in town. I had vague recollections of watching StarTrek on TV as a child, and thought it would be interesting and fun to see what the 21st century producer did with a 20th century classic. It was lots of fun, if a little violent, and as far fetched as a cup of tea from Pluto. Well, I suppose that's what sci-fi is all about.

Have you ever noticed that the villains in sci-fi movies almost always have dark-coloured space ships with all sorts of grotesque-looking projections all over them? Aero-dynamic principles don't seem to apply to villains. The inside of the ship is equally dark and grotesque.

Villains seem to feel the cold a lot. They get around in heavy overcoats or capes when the heroes are dressed in thin, body-hugging lycra. Even Dr Who has shed his coat and scarf in recent years in favour of a well-fitted suit.

For some reason, villains and aliens are always intent on destroying the earth, and they always land in London or some large American city to do so. Perhaps it's because aliens throughout the universe speak perfect English, whereas they might have trouble with Chinese or Swahili. It's convenient for the heroes who always just happen to be in London or New York at the right moment.

The heroes' spaceship is smooth and clean and shiny. Even when it's breaking up under attack, its computer systems continue to operate, and you never see oxygen masks descend from the ceiling. It has the power to fly away from black holes and the speed to dodge a barrage of missiles. It has no kitchens, bathrooms or laundries, since heroes never need to eat, wash, or take a leak.

The heroes are as tough as their ship. After being beaten up by the villain several times in one day, they don't even have a headache, and never suffer from brain injuries, internal bleeding or broken knuckles.

Since the heroes are always so healthy, the doctor on the heroes' spaceship has nothing to do apart from deliver babies and give vaccinations. Since the women on the space ship all look like supermodels as well as being highly intelligent, it's not surprising that babies happen. Even young Mr Spock has a romantic streak to him, it seems.

And since it's Mother's Day today, note that the toughest space heroes can be brought to their knees by talking to them about their mother. Who would have guessed?

Pre-natal screening in the news

According to a recent article in The Age.com.au, "more Down testing would halve the number of births".
It begins:
"EVERY pregnant woman should be offered screening for Down syndrome regardless of age, and screening should be co-ordinated by a national policy, according to experts."
As the article later points out, pre-natal screening for Down Syndrome in Australia varies from state to state. Two simple and non-invasive tests -ultrasound coupled with a blood sample from the mother - can help lift the detection rate to 90% (ie 90 out of 100 babies with Down syndrome will be diagnosed before birth.) Those are simply the facts and there's nothing controversial there.
The article goes on:
"International research and local obstetricians claim the move would halve the number of babies born with the genetic condition."
And that, apparently, would be a good thing. Not, I hasten to add, according to the writers of the article, who are simply reporting what others have said. But sadly, some in the medical profession still believe that detecting and killing babies with genetic conditions before they are born is somehow a way of 'preventing' those conditions. Some (though not in this article) even argue that it is irresponsible to burden the health system with the cost of looking after such children.
Would increasing the detection rate of children with Down syndrome really reduce the number of births? Yes, if a study from Denmark cited in the article is applicable to other countries. The study found the number of children born with Down syndrome decreased by 50% when mothers in that country were universally screened.
But look at that another way. If universal screening allows up to 90% of babies with the syndrome to be detected, yet the number born with the syndrome is reduced by only 50%, some mothers are obviously still electing not to abort their unborn child despite knowing that it has a high chance of having Down syndrome.
This was borne out by another article which appeared on the BBC on November 24, headed "Society more positive on Down's". Over the last decade in Britain, the number of children being born with Down syndrome has increased as a proportion of all live births, despite the availability of testing. The article reported on a survey conducted by the Down Syndrome Association in Britain amongst 1000 parents who chose to continue with their pregnancy, even though testing showed a high risk of Down syndrome.
Surprisingly, perhaps, only 33% of those who refused an abortion did so for religious reasons. Some simply didn't believe the test result. The majority, however, said either that life for those with Down syndrome had improved and society had a more positive attitude, or that they knew someone with Down syndrome and felt that their quality of life had been an influence on their decision. Most had the support of their families and friends in their decision to keep the baby.
One of the parents interviewed said:
"Things have moved on and babies with Down's syndrome can have a great quality of life.
"At the back of our minds we did keep alive the possibility that she might not have Down's syndrome but we knew that we would be able to cope if she did - there's so much out there for her.
"Schools are integrated and there are even actors with Down's syndrome.
"There's a worker at our local supermarket who has Down's syndrome and we think that it doesn't need to hold you back."
Three cheers for those who have worked hard to integrate those with Down syndrome into normal society.
Prenatal screening, whether for Down syndrome or any other condition, is not in itself a bad thing, provided it doesn't involve any risk to the baby or the mother. It can allow parents to prepare themselves and their environment for the birth of a baby with special needs.
It becomes problematic when it's promoted as a way of 'reducing the risk' of having a child with a genetic condition. It becomes evil when it is seen as a means of ridding society of a cost to the health system or of pursuing eugenic and consumerist goals.
Most parents who choose to abort their 'abnormal' baby do so with great sadness. How many are given the opportunity and means to find out what help is available before they are booked in to have their baby 'terminated'? How many really provide 'informed consent'?