Ep 257: From Grieving to Resilient Parent
Andy Earle
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Thanks for being a listener. And here's the show. You're listening to talking to teens where we speak with leading experts from a variety of disciplines about the art and science of parenting teenagers. I'm your host, Andy Earle. We're here today with Jarie Bolander, talking about how to deal with teenagers who are I'm grateful. Do you have a teenager who's unappreciative, you work so hard, all day long? At work, you manage their entire life, you do everything for them, and they don't really seem to appreciate any of it. In addition to taking care of everything in your own life, you also keep track of everything that is going on for your teenager, but are they grateful?
Do they tell you how much they appreciate you all the time? Maybe not. Jarie had a similar situation, when his wife was diagnosed with leukemia, of actually, he was running her business and his own business, communicating with everyone in the family, managing all of her medical procedures and medications. And one of the things that he found really difficult in the situation was that he was working so hard pouring out so much of himself and his wife was complaining she didn't really seem to be appreciative at all. As he worked through the situation, he developed a lot of insights that translate remarkably well to what he's going through now, in becoming a stepparent to a 14 year old. Girl. What can we do as parents, if our teens don't appreciate us? All of that, and more is coming up on the show today. Jerry, thank you so much for being here.
Jarie Bolander
Thank you for having me.
Andy Earle
I read through your book ride or die, loving through tragedy, a husband's memoir, it's really an emotional book. You're not your first book, I think so. I'm curious. What, uh, what is really personal? This one and what inspired you to write it and why you want to? Or you want to talk about this?
Jarie Bolander
Yeah, sure. So yeah, no, it's not my first rodeo. As I say, I normally write business books, which are not that emotional, and honestly, not that hard. I literally, this is what I do for a living as I'm adding growth agency for b2b companies. So I write all the time and help people tell better stories. So yeah, this one is my first memoir that comes out September 5 2023. On it's about my late wife, Jane and I's relationship and the challenges struggles, joys and sorrows of her terminal illness, which was leukemia. A lot of people asked me like, why would you write such a book that's so personal and emotional, one of the things that I just am always compelled to do is write to understand the world and to make me feel a little better. It's very cathartic. It just allows all this stuff rattling around in my head to like, be put on the page. And the other thing is, it's less, to me, it's less scary. Like, the more I talk about it, the more I write about it, the more people know about her and what happened, and the beauty and sorrow and joy and all the craziness, it's just makes it less scary. And I also really wanted those that are going through something like this to not feel so alone. I felt really alone, especially as a man trying to deal with this being a caregiver, full time, caregiver and a full time running her business. So it's just like, oh, my gosh, I have two full time jobs. I don't know where to begin to be honest. Right? Which I'm sure a lot of parents feel that way as well. Especially schools coming going back in if you've got kids that are going into like junior high or high school. It's just it's an how do you how do you get how do you even cope? Right?
Andy Earle
What Yeah, it was really, it really feels like a really honest book, and you talk a lot about kind of the or about your sort of struggles or feeling like yeah, like there's so much to do, and you're constantly kind of under appreciated. Really? Yeah, it was really it was refreshing to see that and it feels really, really human.
Jarie Bolander
That's what I tried to go for. partly the reason why it's so such as written so well, but with all that emotion and meaning is I had a lot of really good editors, one of which was a friend of mine, Leslie watts, who is actually the editor in chief over at the story grid, she was my first editor and she just helped me really refine the story and really like structurally go through the process right. And then I had this other great aunt and another editor friend Stacy, she was was really good as well, but the eventual publisher, the book, which is called spark press, the publisher is Brooke Warner, she's also an editor, she's the one that really focused in on, you need to put you in the book and not be so distant. And I struggled with that I bought her a little bit, to be honest, love you, Brooke, thank you so much for continuing to push me to do to be better. But that was I think the pivotal turning point, people told me, Hey, put a little more view into it. But it's really scary, as you can imagine, like really bare your soul and try to really capture the essence of the experience. And so many men especially come from a male perspective, obviously, sometimes struggled to communicate what they feel or they don't feel clean and sort of safety people to know what you're going through. If they could, if I wrote about it, it would be no excuse not to talk about it.
Andy Earle
It really is true, though. I wonder how after, after kind of going through this experience, and now writing a book about it. Where are you are with that, in terms of kind of talking about this as it gotten easier? And what have you learned about just talking about being vulnerable? Or talking about the hard things?
Jarie Bolander
Yeah, I mean, every time I talk about it, it gets a little easier, and it gets a little less scary. And these are topics that not a lot of people have a lot of experience with. I mean, how often does your spouse die? How often does like a kid or your meet your parents? Typically the stage of events, right? Is my parents die? And then I die, right? And then then I don't have to worry about my kids or what happened? Right? I would say that. For me personally, every time I talk about it gets a little easier. I feel like it's a little bit less scary. I get a little better at understanding, like what the meaning is, but it seems to help a lot of people. I mean, I've gotten so many comments about like, Oh, you're so brave for writing this. And I'm just like brave. This isn't brave what what Jane did was brave. What I did was I just was dedicated and showed up, right? I like was in it to win it. I mean, the reason why the book is called writer die. Actually, I have to thank Brooke again, for the for the title that was not the original title was it was really a sort of what it meant when you said your wedding vows like in sickness and health till death, do you part, this is sort of what that that's the manifestation of that. Right? So it's like, how do you communicate that? You can say the words, it's when you put them into practice?
Andy Earle
When they're tested, when
Jarie Bolander
they're tested? Right, that testing part the what does it really mean? The dedication, the commitment, I mean, I'm not brave, I was committed. Jane was brave. That was her name. name is Jane. Jane was brave. She faced her demise with honor and grace, and with a loving kindness, especially to me. That is the reason why I could write this. It's the reason why I fell in love again, it's the reason why I'm not still drinking alcohol. It's like, I've been sober for the last five years. So it's like, I don't know, it's just a gift, right? And the gift is so powerful that why would I not want to share the gift and even if it's scary, and even if people are going to give me a hard time, which no one really has, but even if people are like, Oh, I don't know how you could do that. It's like I got a gift, a true loving gift. Selfish, selfless gift. And gosh, I got to share it. Why would I not
Andy Earle
as that like, right manifested in other areas of your life as well or being more open or sharing more of your struggles in other areas, too? Yeah,
Jarie Bolander
I would say I was generally pretty open book. Generally, like I say what I mean, sometimes to my detriment. I'm opinionated. I don't like I am not a fan of bullies in general. But I'm really like people that take advantage of situations and or I'm not a fan, right? So I've always been pretty open to challenge that and like, I think as men in general, I mean, all people but men in particular, we have to be more compassionate and show more compassion to others. Like we have certain strengths and weaknesses, weaknesses, but also some capabilities that require compassion, right? It's just, we just should that's I think we'd be better and then we have more compassion. But yeah, I mean, going through this, like, every day is a gift. Like I wake up. I'm like, I got another day. Like, it could be the worst day. At least I have another day. And honestly, it's up to me to use that day wisely. And yeah, I have all the same problems. Like I got a job works frustrating. There's all sorts of like cash. We really have to go through this BS right? At the end of the day. It's like, well, I had another day to do something Jane never had another day, right? She She died when she was 36. As has no more days, so I think it's up to me to not only realize that every day is a gift, because it is time is precious, it's the only thing we can't print, you can print money, but you can't. We don't have enough time, right? And live live every day. It seems cliche, right? Because everyone says says that, but when you when you sort of see someone run out of days in front of you, it becomes crystal clear. Like, I need to spend my time on worthwhile endeavors that hopefully improve the world. I mean, that's the other thing I realized, it's like, there's a lot of strife in the world. And there's a lot of challenges and struggles. And I think, instead of complaining about it, I think we just have to do something. And I think especially as men, we should own what it is to be a man and like, be be better, like build better men, like, just lead by example. Again, another reason I wrote the book, it's like, a lot of times people will struggle with trying to control their emotion, or we come from really hard times, or they're like, deal with our time. It's like, look at someone like me, who generally biases negative and has a halfway decent attitude. I'm pretty sure you could get through to you may not think you can, and it may feel bad. But again, like I think you just really have to just just take it a day at a time and just be thankful. Gosh, you got another day on this planet. There's not very many of
Andy Earle
those, can we sell off and just throw them away? Yeah, I mean,
Jarie Bolander
you can't or not everything is rainbows and unicorns, right? Not everything is always going to be perfect. But gosh, every day I live, I'm just like, man, like, I just got to get better at this. And then also, I think we need to have more compassionate to those that are less fortunate. Those that through nope, no fault of their own of circumstance. And their element. Look at Jane's example. I mean, she got leukemia, like not her fault. Like just literally just happened, they say right, but still, it's like, I think the other thing is it also puts life in perspective. I mean, the 15 months that she was sick, we lived a lot of life. Because I think she realized, I may not have much more time, but we didn't know, we didn't know if she was going to die or not. But I think that was the other thing. It's like, what's the point? What's really the point so?
Andy Earle
But what do you think that we could do as parents to raise kids who really have that that value of every day, or really appreciate every every opportunity that they get to just sit and be alive and experience this, this life out? It seems like so easy to kind of get just stressed out about the high school or whatever and daily stuff and drama and everything like that, or as a teenager, you might not necessarily have something like like your experience to put everything in perspective for you. But I wonder what you think parents could do to try to sort of instill some of that.
Jarie Bolander
I don't know if I mentioned that I have a fiance now. Um, so found love again, which I think is also the message like, you can be happy. You don't need to be miserable. You went through some hard stuff, process it, be respectful of it, but your spouse, your loved one wants you to be happy, believe me, and I want you to sit around be miserable. Like and if they do, then they probably didn't love you. And I'm sorry if that's seems harsh, but why would why would they want you to be miserable, right. And part of having a fiancee is she has a 14 year old daughter. So I am stepfather and training. So happy I found you. We found each other because I'm going to be reading through all this though. What I mean, so she is literally starting high school this week. Right? She's freshman. So the thing I've been learning right along the way, right? Is it seems to me that there is a general lack of discipline and sort of standards of behavior. And, and I don't I'm not talking about like Corporal discipline, not about like, all the all the stuff like I'm a Gen X or so in the 70s and 80s. All the shenanigans that happened there were pretty like we got spans. Like, I'm not advocating that I'm not that's not what I'm talking about what I'm what I'm talking about. And again, what I've seen is that there's no like, what is the standard in which I should aspire to? And it's an aspirational goal, like what are the rules of the game? How do I interact with people, I saw an article the other day about Gen Z and like, new in the workforce and like can't figure out how to interact with people. Like that's, that's a problem, right? So I would say that, as parents and teens, you're going through a lot of changes. You're going through a lot of anxiety, there's a lot of new stuff and I think as parents we just have to set the standard of proper behavior and you model that I think that's the best way I can put it my step future stepdaughter tell her all these things and she says I I just cringe and look, and she's 14, she knows everything, obviously. And it's like, but I modeling what I think is the appropriate behavior in it, guiding her and of course, talking with her mother about that and everything. But it's, I think, the the message, I would say, going through what I went through, and if you are a parent that's going through this right now, which is even more horrible, like I didn't have kids at the time, when Jane and I were going through this, I think it's the setting the standard, having a high standard of behavior, performance, really, like I expect you to be a good person, and I expect you to do things that are appropriate for society. And that I think is very powerful. Because what I learned going through this is like when you have a catastrophic event in your life, like this disrupted our lives pretty severely, you never rise to the occasion, you fall to your training, like constantly, I'm stressed, I can't sleep, I'm eating too much. I'm drinking too much. I'm like, not in a good position. So all of my actions would I just regress down to what I how I was trained. And thankfully, even though I grew up in the 70s, with wooden spoons, and lick and lick and lead paint, there was a, my parents held the standard of which to adhere. And they taught me and they weren't the most compassionate people to be honest. But I think nowadays, we just have to, it's really important to model the right behavior. One of the reasons I wrote the book is like, if you are a married couple, and you took your wedding vows, and one of you get sick, this is what I think that means. sickness and health of death. Do you part, like it's a pretty thing. So and I think getting back to the whole compassion thing I talked about before, I don't think a lot of people have I mean, especially for teens. I mean, you're stressed out as a parent, you don't really have the perspective sometimes where you just want to get through the day, oh, gosh, we're running late. I've got my work. I mean, especially like working parents, like just Oh, wow, single parent, like, you guys are just Rockstar, how are you even going to deal with the world having some compassion and some actual dialogue? I think I think the best thing that I've done is like, I'm just gonna treat like, I'm gonna treat you as an adult. This is how adults act. This is the standard, and we're going to talk about it in a rational, reasonable way. And there's consequences to your poor behavior. You're making a choice. I mean, my fiance, Minerva says this all the time. It's like you're making the choice, not me. It's like, choices are yours, you have this choice or that choice, please make the wise choice. And I just think that's just so powerful compared to how I grew up, just do as I say, because I'm your dad, really, was it makes no sense. I think it's more of a dialogue. I mean, this is dealing with a terminal illness, and you have to make life and death decisions, you tend to really want to ask the experts and really take the information in and synthesize it in a very non biased way as best you can. It's hard to because you have a vested interest, but I think it's the practicality of okay, we've got two choices, what's the best choice.
Andy Earle
Also, something that I've been thinking a lot about with respect to your book is just yeah, how sort of, you're having your own life and everything to deal with. Now, you're also kind of concerned with all of Jane's medical care and everything that's going on with her and managing that is a whole job in its own and said, you know, being the up like correspondence with everybody and family and friends and everything is a whole thing. And then now trying to keep her business above water and keep everything running, and you're just like, have so much going on. And then also at the same time, she's sick and really needs you and feels like you're not being there for her. It really felt just how so many parents of teenagers, one of the most common things. People tell me how do I how do I get my teenager to be more appreciative, they're just so appreciative. And I just do so much. But it really struck me that it made it's not necessarily just a teenager thing. It's like this, your your wife is in this situation where she really needs support from you too. And those same feelings are happening for you in this book. It's really just got me thinking about that a lot, because it's just such a common sentiment from parents. And I wonder just kind of Yeah, how you kind of ended up dealing with that or coping with that and how you think that translates?
Jarie Bolander
Yeah, and that's actually a really astute question, because it's the caregiver relationship between who you're caring for and you as the caregiver and when that dynamic switched between Jane and I, but she was no longer my wife. I mean, she was but yeah,
Andy Earle
that there's a passage that really stuck with me where you were talking about how it kind of before this, we're this like power couple kind of conquering the world together. And then after this diagnosis came through now it's sort of flipped and now you're taking care of her and everything is kind of turned on its head a little bit.
Jarie Bolander
I think the reason why, well what I've learned about it is as the caregiver I have all the power and she was basically powerless. So that was super annoying for her being a person that is very type a person. So I think it's the caregiver has has the power and the relationship and the person is being cared for the dynamic is more of frustration that I don't have autonomy, there's frustration that I can't make my own choices. There's frustration that why they don't know what they don't know. Some of it is manifests as, oh, I know everything you're like, you don't know anything. Right. But it's because they have lack control. I think I think it's the lack of control from the person being cared for. And
Andy Earle
I think you're right. And it's kind of one one way to sort of, I guess, I don't know, feel like you have a little bit of control or something. Yeah,
Jarie Bolander
a little me the reaction is I need control of my own life. And I have no control. I think the best way this was put to me one day was walking back into her, her hospital room, she's in chemo, she's been in it for like four weeks. I mean, it's just miserable chemo like it's a whole other level of hell. It's like torture, but you have to do it right. Because you're you die like, so you have a best best choice. I remember walking in and she just lit into me about you get to go outside, you get to drink coffee, you get to do this and do that. And I'm like, I'm working to like, she had no appreciation for it. But then as I realized, oh, that's what she wanted to she wanted to control. She wanted to be able to leave the room and she couldn't, or she was just taking it out on me. You have the control. And I don't. And I think I'm not a psychologist or anything. But I think the team parent dynamic is I have no control, or I have little control. I'm starting to realize that there's a world out there and I need to sort of like expand my horizons, and I'm bumping up against this control thing. Yeah, like exactly. And, and that dynamic is very powerful. It's all a question of as the caregiver or as the parent, like, how do I handle this, who's developing into an adult giving them the autonomy and the ability to make some decisions that's going to give them a sense of their own autonomy. Like, generally people want to be good at stuff, like they want to be like, proud of what they've done. But when it's so constrained, they're like, I don't know, how am I going to be my true authentic self, other than just like, like it, you see this, like adolescent boys, as opposed to adolescent girls, right? adolescent boys, generally, like can't stop moving? Like they're just fidgety? And why is that everyone's like, well, there's just boys will be boys like, Well, boys, at that point, have have a performance enhancing drug called testosterone, which is literally banned from Olympic events, because it's a performance enhancing drug, that you've got all these kids like you've got these young boys who've never felt this performance enhancing drug called testosterone again, it's banned. You cannot juice up on it. And all of a sudden, they're like, I don't know what to do with myself. Right? I mean, you you're a young young boy, even as a man, it's just like, it's just like, this is a this is a power that you have to harness. You literally have to learn how to control it, you just bounce it off. I don't know what this is right?
Andy Earle
We're here with Jarie Bolander, talking about how to handle and ungrateful teenager and we're not done yet. Here's a look at what's coming up in the second half of the show.
Jarie Bolander
Like a mutual respect, like I understand the situation is different than you may have liked it. I understand that I'm not your biological father, I understand that. There could be conflicts in that. But look, I'm I'm gonna be here we can either deal with that we can fight about it. I think I just got to earn it every day i It's on me. I mean, just imagine if you're in a relationship and dominant, right, like, You have no say you must feel really bad. Well, your kids probably feel the same way. Put in enough of the guardrails so that you can bounce off of them and kind of find her own way, because part of it is like, I can't just tell her I mean, I can I can be like, Look, this is the world. But sometimes you have to experience that in a sort of a safe way. So put the guardrails up and have her just bounce. I want to be the model of what a good man is. Yeah, social worker came into Jane's hospital room when she was having chemo and she literally knocked on the door when we were mid fight about her baby dying, and I'm like, I don't want to hear it. I don't want to hear it. It's bullshit. NACA nope, nope, sorry. I just don't want to stop being so negative. And she's like, You got to make sure that you understand that you have to have reality, which is I mean, we're screaming at each other right? And this social worker came in and for an hour and a half. She just walked us through and she literally made us come to the conclusion that is okay that Jane is talking about her demise like she may die because she loves you so much. She wants you to be happy. And it's okay for Jari to be upset about that because he loves you so much. He doesn't want you to die when you were in the mix and you're emotional and you cannot convey your feelings. In a really like clear, concise way, you just struggle to screen you cry because it's hard to say to someone, I don't want you to die and to the person dying. It's hard for them to say, well, if I die, I actually want you to be happy.
Andy Earle
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