Dementia and child-rearing

A lot of what I know about dealing with a small child I learned by dealing with stepfather, who had dementia. I wouldn't recommend this method of self-education, but it does occasionally have its advantages.

One of them has to do with societal attitudes. If you are out in public with a demented adult, and they are troublesome, this is embarassing and difficult. In my experience, it's actually much worse than a similar event with a small child, partly because small children are smaller and quieter, and partly because people expect them to behave badly.

Nonetheless, the basic attitude that people have is clear; why is a demented elderly person behaving badly? Because that's what they do, end of story. Whose fault is it? Theirs.

And if it's your toddler behaving badly? Well, then, that's because you, the parent did something wrong. And whose fault is it? Yours.

Now, not everyone you deal with has these attitudes. Some people expect you to be able to control everybody in your vicinity, or never to go out with them (and, inevitably, some of these are people who ought to realize that your dealings with them are not entirely voluntary, like medical personnel). Some people understand that toddlers throw fits for any number of reasons, some of which are expectable and preventable, and some of which aren't. But the basic societal expectations are clear. You are expected to be able to make your child behave, and if you can't, either you are defective or the child is. Either way, your fault.

You are not expected to be able to make your elderly demented relatives behave. It is not your fault. Admittedly this is partly because they are inarguably defective, but still, nobody goes around worrying that if they just did everything right, their demented relative wouldn't be demented. It is in fact one of the few great reliefs of having someone in your life diagnosed with dementia; you now know that YOU are not crazy and YOU are not making them act this way.

Sadly, there are lots of people out there who believe that if they just got the whole parenting thing right, their toddlers would not be toddlers. I am not immune to societal pressure; I spend plenty of time worrying that I broke the baby. But fundamentally, my time with dementia has taught me that crazy people will be crazy, no matter what I do. If I carefully work around it, I can make life run more smoothly, but no force on earth can make it perfect.

And I believe that my toddler is by any reasonable definition crazy. Her feelings and her body aren't fully under her control. She does the best she can, but sometimes there's more in the world than she can cope with, and then she's mad and sad. That's not because I'm doing something wrong. That's what being a small child is like. It's not all flowers and hearts and the delight in small epiphanies; it's also screaming and biting and the despair in small miseries.

The delightful thing is that she will grow out of this. If we keep on working on it, slowly but surely she will become less crazy. That's a novelty for me, and a very pleasant one.