Life Meets Faith: The joy of spoon-feeding your mom
You may have heard stories of families
with a dozen children. Many immigrants to
Canada come as large families. Some arrive,
perhaps not with 12 children in tow, but with
a disposition to have many.
Those of us whose ancestry is Western European are, by historical standards, often members of very small families. Those stories of families crowded with children are about a way of being family that has evaporated since World War II.
Is that a problem? It depends on what your concerns are. For those who are concerned about overpopulation — which should be all of us as far as I can tell — the end of the dozen-children family is welcome.
For others, concerned with keeping the modern economy humming, very low birth rates are troubling. “It's all about demographics.” People - growing numbers of healthy, working, acquisitive people - drive the modern economy. That is why Canada brings in immigrants. Immigrants (besides being willing to do work that others aren't) create demand and supply for everything.
This month I was reminded of another perspective. My mother has had a very serious downturn. My siblings and I have spent a lot of time these past few weeks with both my parents who are in a (very good) seniors home. My mother has become incapable of lifting food to her mouth.
Growing up, I always imagined that having to feed my mother or clean her if she grew very weak would be very tough to do. But these past few weeks, my sisters, brothers and I have learned to, among other things, spoon-feed her.
This has resulted in some good things. For one, my mother has regained some strength, and although she can barely utter any words (and those she does speak are very difficult to understand), she has regained her sense of humour. Second, as siblings we have discovered that things that may have seemed impossible when we were growing up are, in fact, possible to do. And finally, in having to rally around my parents, we are discovering another level of what it means to be family and to journey through difficulty.
There are a lot of dynamics in our planet that are undermining the chances that most of us will have moments like this. Living as a single person your whole life is seen by more and more people as desirable. Marriage and family are frequently considered a chore best left to others.
Second, many today are worried about the cost of having children. Having children is costly. Actually, it's not the having but the raising. During a recent CBC call-in show, callers lamented the expense of having children. If children are essentially seen as an expensive proposition, then why have any? Actually, why not follow this kind of thinking to its logical end? Life is expensive. We can save a lot of money by just ending ours.
Related to this is the price of housing. Many houses are priced on the assumption that there are two full-time large incomes to support the mortgage payments. If both parents are forced to work to pay for an oversized expensive home, what couple can manage more than one or two children? Many of us have answered this question, and the answer is, “Not us.” Understandable.
We have a lot of gadgets at our fingertips. We have the opportunity to narrow our expectations and desires regarding children and family while we raise our expectations for expensive goods and services. We know how to build exotic machines and elaborate economies. We have learned how to create businesses that give professional care to our children and our aging parents.
But if we are not creating caring families, what will the future bring? At the risk of sounding simplistic: You can have a ton of material goods or you can have several children. You can be fed intravenously on your deathbed or you can be spoon fed by a son or daughter. We can build a society of hope and care if we value family and children. If we don't, I don't believe that whatever else we may have, our future will be all that desirable. If we do, the chances are much better that it will be.
Editorial opinions or comments expressed in this online edition of Interrobang newspaper reflect the views of the writer and are not those of the Interrobang or the Fanshawe Student Union. The Interrobang is published weekly by the Fanshawe Student Union at 1001 Fanshawe College Blvd., P.O. Box 7005, London, Ontario, N5Y 5R6 and distributed through the Fanshawe College community. Letters to the editor are welcome. All letters are subject to editing and should be emailed. All letters must be accompanied by contact information. Letters can also be submitted online by clicking here.
Those of us whose ancestry is Western European are, by historical standards, often members of very small families. Those stories of families crowded with children are about a way of being family that has evaporated since World War II.
Is that a problem? It depends on what your concerns are. For those who are concerned about overpopulation — which should be all of us as far as I can tell — the end of the dozen-children family is welcome.
For others, concerned with keeping the modern economy humming, very low birth rates are troubling. “It's all about demographics.” People - growing numbers of healthy, working, acquisitive people - drive the modern economy. That is why Canada brings in immigrants. Immigrants (besides being willing to do work that others aren't) create demand and supply for everything.
This month I was reminded of another perspective. My mother has had a very serious downturn. My siblings and I have spent a lot of time these past few weeks with both my parents who are in a (very good) seniors home. My mother has become incapable of lifting food to her mouth.
Growing up, I always imagined that having to feed my mother or clean her if she grew very weak would be very tough to do. But these past few weeks, my sisters, brothers and I have learned to, among other things, spoon-feed her.
This has resulted in some good things. For one, my mother has regained some strength, and although she can barely utter any words (and those she does speak are very difficult to understand), she has regained her sense of humour. Second, as siblings we have discovered that things that may have seemed impossible when we were growing up are, in fact, possible to do. And finally, in having to rally around my parents, we are discovering another level of what it means to be family and to journey through difficulty.
There are a lot of dynamics in our planet that are undermining the chances that most of us will have moments like this. Living as a single person your whole life is seen by more and more people as desirable. Marriage and family are frequently considered a chore best left to others.
Second, many today are worried about the cost of having children. Having children is costly. Actually, it's not the having but the raising. During a recent CBC call-in show, callers lamented the expense of having children. If children are essentially seen as an expensive proposition, then why have any? Actually, why not follow this kind of thinking to its logical end? Life is expensive. We can save a lot of money by just ending ours.
Related to this is the price of housing. Many houses are priced on the assumption that there are two full-time large incomes to support the mortgage payments. If both parents are forced to work to pay for an oversized expensive home, what couple can manage more than one or two children? Many of us have answered this question, and the answer is, “Not us.” Understandable.
We have a lot of gadgets at our fingertips. We have the opportunity to narrow our expectations and desires regarding children and family while we raise our expectations for expensive goods and services. We know how to build exotic machines and elaborate economies. We have learned how to create businesses that give professional care to our children and our aging parents.
But if we are not creating caring families, what will the future bring? At the risk of sounding simplistic: You can have a ton of material goods or you can have several children. You can be fed intravenously on your deathbed or you can be spoon fed by a son or daughter. We can build a society of hope and care if we value family and children. If we don't, I don't believe that whatever else we may have, our future will be all that desirable. If we do, the chances are much better that it will be.
Editorial opinions or comments expressed in this online edition of Interrobang newspaper reflect the views of the writer and are not those of the Interrobang or the Fanshawe Student Union. The Interrobang is published weekly by the Fanshawe Student Union at 1001 Fanshawe College Blvd., P.O. Box 7005, London, Ontario, N5Y 5R6 and distributed through the Fanshawe College community. Letters to the editor are welcome. All letters are subject to editing and should be emailed. All letters must be accompanied by contact information. Letters can also be submitted online by clicking here.
