Stop, Pop, Stop!

[talktooloose]

Ow. My knee is sore today. I am grateful that my surgery is not next August.

The graphics supervisor started hurling massively yesterday morning and went home leaving me with more responsibility than I wish I had for the last couple of days. But I'm dealing and I'm not especially sorry to have a chance to look valuable around here when bonus season is coming up.

I have to have an impossible talk with my dad and I don't even know how to begin. His driving has become dangerous. He has a lot of pride and sense of power tied up in driving but at the same time, his concentration at 80 is not what it should be. He is, I believe, still very capable of driving if he could become the sane one on the road who is willing to wait instead of "win". But that's not him. He's the guy who goes crazy when stuck behind someone and has to jump into little spaces on the highway. He used to be able to do this kind of thing when he was more alert and able to filter all the inputs coming at him, but he is slower on the uptake now.

And what's worse is that he's been getting more aggressive lately. And the more we call him on it, the more determined he gets to prove that he is the baddest badass on the street. My mother is frightened to drive with him; Snake has dreams that he will be killed in a car by my father. I'm just about at the point of telling him I won't drive with him anymore.

He has announced that he will not be spoken to about this. I said in response, "I do not accept the terms as put on the table." He then got "jokingly" hostile and said, "All right, then I get to tell you all the ways I think you have screwed up your life." At which point I leaped out of the speeding car and died under the wheels of a passing Hummer.

When my dad's own father was 80, he had the last of many car accidents. Waiting in the car for the cops to come, he cried quietly knowing he'd never be allowed to drive again. Why don't we learn from the past?

Comments

[to-cry-about.livejournal.com]

We had similar issues with my father, particularly after his first stroke. It's such a loaded thing for older people to be able to drive, especially if you don't live in an urban area where public transport and walking are good options. We had a long, bitter struggle over it, my mom had to inform the province on him, he was furious, and he's now deeply depressed that he can't drive. But it wasn't just his life or our lives, but the lives of everyone on the road. My dad has always liked to drive a BIG car, so if he had ever been in an accident he would have certainly hurt the other driver as well as himself.

So, no useful advice, but man do I hear you.

[talktooloose.livejournal.com]

Thank you. Oh, that sounds like an awful resolution and I don't want it to come to that. But I totally understand how it happened that way with your dad. I'm sorry.

I don't know who that is in your OTP icon.

[waterstrider.livejournal.com]

I doubt you even could resolve it that way unless your dad has documented medical issues affecting his driving. When it's just age and the forces of entropy, it's a much longer and more drawn-out thing -- there almost has to be an accident before the authorities will forcibly do anything, so appealing to his reason and better nature is about all you can do.

The icon is Sister Mo (Ann Dowd) from the short-lived drama Nothing Sacred. Look back a couple of entries in to_cry_about and I explain the lame joke behind my OTP icons.

[waterstrider.livejournal.com]

Also, since you say he's an okay driver when he's not being aggressive, maybe you could use that to de-escalate the situation somehow, reassuring him that no one's trying to take his license away. (Yet. But don't say that part.)

It seems like there ought to be a way to negotiate, since he's not that far gone, but I can just imagine trying to tell my own dad something like that. Some men take any comment on their driving with the reaction of "I AM THE MAN HERE AND I WILL DRIVE AS I PLEASE, NOW GO AWAY, OFFSPRING."

Two Options

[scottybear.livejournal.com]

Report your father to the Department of Motor Vehicles (MTO here in Ontario). Tell them he is a dangerous driver and that his license should be revoked.

The other option would be if you know who his doctor is, you could talk to them about it. Doctors have the power to revoke licenses on medical grounds.

Re: Two Options

[talktooloose.livejournal.com]

What I want is for him to commit to driving responsibly. It is not really that his faculties are terribly reduced; it's that he's pushing the envelope with them a bit reduced. In other words, if he drove sensibly, he'd be a safe driver but he seems to be trying to prove something.

[quirkstreet.livejournal.com]

Ouch. Sorry it's coming to this.

[talktooloose.livejournal.com]

I find myself growing increasingly pissed off at this thread. I tell you because you know a thing or two about being pissed off not to mention a thing or two about dad/son relations. It seems so obvious to everyone that I should become suddenly patronizing and say, "time to hang up your adulthood, daddy and go gracefully into dotterage. Let's go pick out your diapers now." This is not where I thought the comments would go at all. I imagined help in how to bring it up with him and negotiate it.

First I'm pissed on his behalf. "How dare you, flist?! This isn't some gibbering ball of butter here; this is my father! "Second I'm pissed that I should have to be nominated as the betrayer of my father. Third, I'm pissed that there may be truth here and that I may be in denial.

Wow, just writing this down is bringing me to tears here. Sorry, I'm not sure what I'm asking for from you suddenly.

[quirkstreet.livejournal.com]

Oh, honey, it's difficult all the way around.

I don't know what you should do. I think what's clear is that everyone is very afraid of something. You worry about your Dad's safety, you also worry about infantilizing him. Your Mom is flat out scared. Snake is scared.

Your Dad probably feels some kind of fear at the bottom of this, too. Fear of losing his independence. Fear of losing his mind. Fear of dying.

What I am most sorry for is that you have to deal with it, and that it motivated YOU to write "I have to have an impossible conversation." That's what I was sorry it's coming to.

I'm not sure I would report him to the authorities; I don't know what the legalities are about whether someone's license can be taken away on say-so.

Here's one thing, though: your father *isn't* an infant, yet people who CARE about him are afraid of what may happen. A responsible adult will find a way to listen to those people around him. If he can't listen to those people, then he *is* becoming a child. It happens to the elderly, alas. I might even put it to him in those terms: that an adult will negotiate, a child will not, and if he can't negotiate about this, he's establishing a basis for treating him like an infant.

I doubt your father would want, in a moment of losing his temper with another driver, to get into an accident that would wipe out ... let's say ... an eleven year old girl riding her bike along the road in the same area. A father of three driving home from work to see his family. Your mother. You.

These, alas, may be the stakes. Angry drivers are never the safest people on the road. Angry drivers whose physical faculties are beginning to decline: so much the worse.

Alas, I can already feel my physical reactions declining at age 42.

We're never alone on the road. There are always others around us, or just around the bend. We drive safely and carefully because we are moving tons of metal around at high speeds. We are not in our rocking chairs or our couches out there. We are responsible for lives.

Is there a way to appeal to your father's sense of responsibility for others? As a man, as an adult man, he has been a provider and a defender of others for many years. Can you appeal to his desire to protect others from harm ... even if he himself is the potential harm?

And hugs.

[talktooloose.livejournal.com]

Heh. Did I emotionally blackmail you into giving me a fuller answer? I always feel guilty asking for help.

It is certain that my dad fears dying and is doing nothing to find any peace around the issue. It is easy for him to make a big, powerful car an extension of his power as a man and it seems he is compensating for other diminishing powers.

I hear all your suggestions for appealing to his sense of responsibility. What stands in the way of any positive outcome is his willingness to accept that his driving is not fine. I wonder if I'd have better luck saying, "Your making mom, me and others very nervous. You feel fine but for the sake of those who drive with you, you may have to adapt. Furthermore, as a former researcher, you must accept that statistically you will lessen the chances of harming yourself and others if you drive more defensively."

If I make any kinds of threat ("if you act like a child, you'll be treated like one") I will turn an irreversible corner in our relationship. And the room around that corner is not tastefully decorated, let me tell you.

Thank you for your support. You are a wise elder even if you are three months younger than me.

[quirkstreet.livejournal.com]

It didn't feel like emotional blackmail, so much as when I saw how upset you were getting at the prior reactions, I was motivated to think a little more and sift through what others had said and NOT said and what I could offer that was different. Is that blackmail or what friends are for? ;-)

And yes, I know about tricky father/son dynamics. I don't relish the thought of the day when I'll have to start doing these kinds of conversations with my father; his ambition is to retire to California so maybe my sibs will bear the brunt of it, but for now, he lives near ME, and when he starts to lose his independence, hoo boy.

So don't make threats with him, that definitely sounds a) like something he won't respond well to, and b) something not right for you to attempt anyway.

This is one of those tests of our adulthood that people forget to tell us about. We have to start parenting our own parents. Yikes. Big hugs to you, daddy-o. ;-)

[talktooloose.livejournal.com]

"Emotional blackmail" actually translates to "I have absolutely no right to waste anyone's time with my petty problems when they have important things to worry about." Yes sir, stopping that kind of thinking right now, sir!

Thanks again.

[painglass.livejournal.com]

Your dad's in NY state...right? Soo....far far away from anywhere I'm driving...hopefully! *is poking fun*

Really, it sounds like your whole family needs to have an intervention. Take the keys away for goodness sakes! I understand the freedom that driving allows your father, aned how loath he is to give that up, but eventually he needs to realize that he's putting everyone's lives in danger- strangers on the road, pedestrians, his family, and himself. I know you know this. I'm sorry your father hasn't realized it yet.

[talktooloose.livejournal.com]

Only my sister moved to New York State (or the US at all, for that matter). My dad lives here in Toronto.

It seems very easy for everyone to tell me to turn my father into a child. Not surprisingly, this isn't an obvious conclusion for me.

[kuriadalmatia.livejournal.com]

You brought up an excellent point at the end of your post when you wrote "last of many accidents". That's where you start. And you have your mother talk to him about being scared of being in the car with him. BTW, aggressive behavior may be an adverse reaction to medication he may be taking, especially for heart problems. Some of the new Rxs out there don't combine well. OTT, I don't know what to say except that your mom has to be strong on this front with you. Then again, you already know that.

[talktooloose.livejournal.com]

Hmm. That heart meds stuff is interesting. I'm not sure what he's on.

Yes, I should draw a comparison between him and his dad and say that I fear his current habits will lead him to being forced to give up drive before he should really have to.

Oy.

[allourapus.livejournal.com]

As your friend, I am most concerned about your health. Somy reaction as I read your post was, "Don't ride in the same car with him."