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FrontRangeLiving.com -> Family/Health -> Rabbi Zalman
From
Age-ing to Sage-ing
Rabbi Zalman M. Schachter-Shalomi, 75, is the founder of the Jewish Renewal
movement and a professor of religious studies at Naropa University in Boulder,
Colorado. Reb Zalman, as he is called, is co-author with Ronald Miller of "From
Age-ing to Sage-ing," Warner, 1997. The elderly population should
reassert their sacred position as mentors and bearers of culture, he maintains,
in a book that investigates aging in time-honored traditions.
In this interview of May 3, for our series on “Caring For Aging Parents,”
we’ve asked him to address the changing relationship that evolves when aging
parents need help from their children.
FRL: SHOULD WE CONSIDER FORGING A NEW RELATIONSHIP WITH OUR PARENTS?
Schachter-Shalomi: I don’t know a quick and easy answer for that. When kids
grow up and go to college they feel emancipated. Then they go home for
Thanksgiving and get sucked into the games of their upbringing. One needs to do
their homework to become an adult. You’re all those roles: parent/adult/child.
We relate to our parents in a submissive role. Or, if I’m going to be your
caregiver, I may have to be your parent sometimes. But when we relate as adult
to adult, it feels good. If you manage to get into an adult-to-adult
relationship, that’s not easy. Often, parents don’t have the psychological
sophistication to see the games they are playing.
We don’t do role models when we come to our full consciousness. There is
the Hoffman Quadrinity Process.
It repairs the material of the first 14 years of life. I did this when I was 60.
I was able to unhook from being infantilized by my mother and we could talk like
colleagues. It’s making an important shift. We begin to honor the people who
can respond to us.
FRL: IF A PARENT HAS DEMENTIA, THE RELATIONSHIP CHANGES, BUT IT DOESN’T
DISAPPEAR…..
Schachter-Shalomi: It’s possible when we see people as souls from a
compassionate place--even when any manifestation of consciousness is not around
that would make for a respectful consciousness. Perhaps they’re asking the
same question over and over. It gets on our nerves. If you look at intellect as
a benchmark for who a person is, then we feel entitled to treat the other as a
non-person. We want to warehouse them. We assume that in some way, they’re
dead already.
But you can’t give what you haven’t got. Few people have the ethical or
spiritual ability to go it alone. We need to help children who are caregivers
and give them respite. Without respite you can’t make it. You need care
yourself to keep the spirituality. So we need support groups for caregivers.
There is another element. Sometimes with a parent, it’s like a computer
board where everyday one of the letters falls off. Soon you’re down to just a
phrase or two to communicate. Despite this fact, there is another person inside.
You may just want to sit and hold the hand of the parent with Alzheimer’s.
Communicate on the inside. Something is going to happen in the silence. There is
a being behind the brain.
FRL: WHAT IF WE FEEL AT ODDS WITH OUR PARENTS’ WISHES?
Schachter-Shalomi: I tried to get my dad to tell me what he wanted done to
his remains. He wouldn’t talk about it, as if I wanted him dead already.
Finally, I told him what plans I had made for myself. Then he was able to talk
about it. If you’ve started early enough you can talk about a durable power of
attorney. Perhaps no resuscitation, or no antibiotics for pneumonia because
that’s the most painless way to go. To argue with doctors, you have to have an
ombudsman. So it’s better to have done this early on. You can say that knowing
your parents, you know what they would want, although that might not be your own
choice for them.
Or perhaps you have better information. If your parents want you to move them
to a place that is not as good; maybe they want to leave more money for their
children for an inheritance. Then I would say you can go against their wishes,
if it’s your money they are trying to save.
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