My dad has Parkinson's disease. Taking a trip with him one weekend taught me a lot.

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Pakinson's disease causes unintended movements from a brain disorder affecting the nervous system.

"Watch him like a hawk. Take no excuses."

Those were some of my mom's last words to me as I set off with my dad for D.C. He hadn't been up north to see his own father, who is pushing 100, in over a year, and my dad's advanced Parkinson's disease made traveling alone impossible. So I was enlisted to go with him. For the first time, I'd be in charge of his medication, along with shepherding him through the airport, getting him in and out of bed — pretty much everything.

"You can't take him at his word," she'd tell me.

"Don't hand him his pills and walk away. He'll never take them. Don't leave him while he's brushing his teeth at night. He'll never make it to bed before the medicine knocks him out. Don't assume he's going to do what he says he's going to do."

"You have to watch him like a hawk," she said. "Take no excuses."

Maybe that's why it felt so good when I was finally able to text her, on our return trip, that we had made it through security and were almost at our gate.

My dad was in the bathroom while I leaned against the wall outside waiting for him. We were flying out of Reagan International, and in four days of travel, there were no emergencies. No crises. No disasters or catastrophes. There had been no medicine mix-ups, no missed doses, no falls, no accidents. Everything had been fine.

That's not to say it had gone easy, but at least it had gone. Though we weren't home yet.

Not quite anyway.

When my dad came out of the bathroom, we headed to the seating area in front of our gate. As we passed a small concession stand, awkwardly pitted in the middle of the room like a prize counter at an arcade, he mumbled something about being thirsty.

"A pink lemonade sounds good," he said. And he reached out and grabbed one from the cooler.

We had all of our bags on us. Him carrying one, me rolling the other with a duffel slung over its handle. I looked at the narrow, winding queue leading to the cashier and back down at our bulky bags as my dad slowly started to drift away from the concession stand, lemonade still in his grasp.

"Why don't we get settled over by the gate, put our bags down?" I said. "Then I'll come back over and get you something to drink."

With him, I had learned to think several steps ahead. I learned to scout obstacles and anticipate problems.

I learned enough to know that, with only one hand free, he'd have trouble getting his wallet out of his sweatpants, or he'd trip over his feet and tumble into the people in front of us, or he'd inadvertently shoplift this lemonade if I didn't take it and put it back.

But still, it felt awful to say something so patronizing to my own father.

He agreed that we should get settled and we made our way over to the gate, finally coming to a stop in front of a row of roomy handicapped seating.

"Dad, you want to sit here with the bags while I go get us a drink?"

"OK, sure."

He just stood there.

"Dad?"

He does this thing where he's always standing. He'll wander into a living room conversation where everyone's sitting, and he'll just stand in front of a seat and talk from there. You'll ask him if he wants to sit, and he'll bend his knees slightly but then pause, almost as if he's forgotten he was going to sit in the middle of doing it.

There's something unsettling about someone standing when you feel like they should be sitting.

"Dad, you want to just sit here for a minute while I get us a drink?"

On that, he plopped down and I positioned our bags so they'd be in his sight and reach.

"A muffin would be good, too," he added.

"OK. I'll see if they have muffins."

I turned and headed back to the concession stand. I couldn't have walked more than five or six steps before I glanced back over my shoulder at him. He was still sitting there. I don't know what I expected to see — like he was going to erupt in flames the moment he was out of my sight or something.

I got in line, and as I waited my turn, I kept looking back.

“Watch him like a hawk."

We hadn't come this far to have him fall down and break his wrist or have our bags stolen from under his nose.

We hadn't come this far without a disaster to have one now.

I paid for the lemonade and a blueberry muffin I spotted in the display case. And I looked back over at my dad again.

He was standing.

What is he doing? I wondered. Is he sifting through our bags? Is he going to wander off?

I hurried back over and found him contemplating our belongings. He was hoping to find a bag of sliced oranges we'd packed for the trip, trying to solve our luggage like it was some impossible puzzle.

I unzipped the outermost pocket of my suitcase and handed him the oranges, the lemonade, and the muffin.

We both sat down and he began to eat.

He attacked the muffin the way you might eat an apple — gripping it with the entire width of his hand and lifting it to his face for enormous bites. It crumbled as he mauled it, massive pieces tumbling over the wrapper and landing on him. All over his lap and his shirt and his seat and the seat between us.

He was not mortified, like I would have been if it were me.

He wasn't even affected.

Halfway through, he had clumps of muffin pinched precariously between his fingers. He was picking up stray blueberries off the seat and eating them.

People were staring. I wanted to help, to do something, but I didn't know what.

I had my phone to my ear now, working out the last minute details of our shuttle pickup. I had my other hand death-gripped around his pill case, which I was under strict orders to never let out of my sight.

As my dad gnawed his way further into the muffin's core, I noticed this older bald guy in a fleece jacket across from us stealing glances at the scene. I thought about telling him to mind his own business, but reconsidered given the absurdity of what was happening. I understood why he'd be compelled to look.

But I started to hate this random guy anyway.

There was nothing spectacular about him. He was bald with some prickly silver stubble covering his chin and an orange fleece pullover. He was just a guy, really.

But what stood out about this man, to me, was that he didn't have any food stains on his clothes.

He didn't have elastic shoelaces or drawstring pants. He didn't have hearing aids. He didn't have anyone with him to help him get on the plane without getting lost.

I started to hate him because I thought, this is who my dad was supposed to be.

My call finally ended and I hung up. At this point, I had seen enough of the muffin massacre and was ready to go get us a plate, some napkins, something. But I remembered I hadn't gotten us a preboarding pass yet and we'd be boarding any minute. My dad — not surprisingly — doesn't do well with people nipping at his heels, squeezing around him, crowding him, hurrying him. We needed to board before the rest of the passengers. It was one of the last obstacles between us and home.

At the ticketing desk, I kept glancing back as I talked to the agent.

“I'm traveling with my father who is, uh, he has… He's handicapped."

I never know how to describe it.

When it comes to Parkinson's, "handicapped" always seems to be both wildly conservative and entirely overly dramatic at the same time.

It doesn't come close to telling the whole story.

As we wrapped up the transaction at the counter, I caught my dad standing again from the corner of my eye.

Is he sifting through our bags? Is he going to wander off?"

As soon as I got our preboarding pass, I hurried back over to him.

He had, to my complete surprise, cleaned himself off pretty well with a stray napkin. He'd brushed the crumbs away from his shirt and pants. He'd wiped the seat clean, save for a few hangers-on in the crevice. And he had stuffed all the trash into the small white bag that the muffin came in.

In that moment, I got a glimpse of my dad. The real one.

The one who raised three kids and taught us how to throw a football, how to use a hammer, how to treat people. The one who, in another world, would have been leading me through the airport, reciting Civil War trivia as we walked. The one who, to an outsider, would have been just a guy.

The one who, to those who knew him, was far from just a guy.

He looked at me as I approached and said, "Are we ready to go home?"

For a second, it felt like we were already there.

We stood and waited to board, watching travelers deplane from the previous flight. We were mostly silent because no one ever wrote a handbook on how to ask your father if he's sure he doesn't need to use the restroom and then jump into shooting the shit about sports.

So it was easier to just say nothing.

But it was a comfortable silence. Maybe even a happy one. Because the catastrophe I had dreaded and been warned about and tried so hard to avoid, well, it ended up just being a particularly unwieldy muffin.

And all it took was a single napkin to wipe away any trace that anything had ever gone wrong.

If only for a second.

From Your Site Articles

Parenting

Man asks how to help his wife who works full-time with a baby at home and keeps getting the same answer

More and more families are trying to scrape by — by trying to do it all

Photo by Katie Emslie on Unsplash

There are times in parenting where you just feel kind of useless.

You can't carry the baby, take a late-night breastfeeding shift, or absorb any of the pain and discomfort of childbirth.

Sometimes the best you can do is to try to take care of your partner.

That's what brought user u/DietyBeta to the AskParents subreddit with a well-meaning question.

"My wife watches our 1yo, works, and is 12 week pregnant. How can I make her daily life easier while I'm away at work?"

He says that when he gets home from work, he takes over all parenting and homemaking duties.

But yeesh! That's still... a lot to handle. No wonder his wife is stressed out.

A few folks chimed in to pat the OP on the back. After all, it's great to see a dad who realizes how much is falling on mom's shoulders and actively looking for ways to lighten the load!

Some helpful suggestions rolled in, like taking over meal prep and making her easy lunches to heat up, hiring cleaners, or paying someone to walk the dogs.

woman in black shirt lying on couch Photo by Alexander Grey on Unsplash

But then even more people came in to the comments asking the same question over and over: If mom is working, why isn't the 1-year-old in daycare?

u/young-mommy wrote: "Is the one year old in daycare? If not, I would start there. Working from home with a child gets harder and harder as they enter toddlerhood"

u/min2themax said: "It’s nice of you to be asking how to help her but she really is getting the fuzzy end of the lollipop here. It sounds like she is literally always working or parenting. Sometimes both at the same time. Walking the dogs and making her lunches and prepping meals and doing laundry is all well and good but this is not at all sustainable."

u/alternative-box3260 said: "Have the one year old in daycare. I was in a similar situation and it’s impossible. I was able to breath after that, not before."

And u/sillychihuahua26 wrote: "She’s caring for your 1.year old while working? That’s a horrible plan. You guys need childcare like yesterday."

We have a legitimate childcare crisis in our country, and stories like this one really bring it to life.

Childcare in the United States isn't nearly accessible or affordable enough for most families. Period.

ChildCare Aware found that that average cost of childcare in 2022 was $10,853 per year, or roughly 10% of a median family income (in 2024, it's likely even more than that — yet the actual workers at childcare centers are somehow severely underpaid).

But even that eye-popping number is conservative. Anyone who lives anywhere close to a city (or in California or New York) knows the number will be way higher. It's just not feasible for most families to put their child, let alone multiple children, in full-time care while they're young.

And yet! The percentage of households with two parents working full-time has been rising for decades. Life is more expensive than ever, and the extra income from two working parents really helps, even if it's offset by those child care costs.

More and more families are trying to scrape by — by trying to do it all

woman in white shirt sitting on brown wooden armchair Photo by Keren Fedida on Unsplash

Now we don't know whether the OP's family can afford childcare for their 1-year-old or not, although in a later update to the post he wrote:

"As far as daycare, she doesn't want to because she feels like she would be missing out on the time"

So even if you can afford childcare, there's the still the crushing guilt of shipping your child off to be raised by strangers to deal with! Classic.

(Take one guess who shoulders most of the daycare guilt — dads or moms?)

The work-from-home revolution has been a Godsend for parents in certain ways — flexibility, balance, less commuting time — but its also saddled many of them with double duty.

'Hey how about you work full-time because we need the money AND keep an eye on the kids, since you're home anyway!'

But it doesn't work like that, and trying to do both is crushing modern parents.

In fact, the Surgeon General of the United States just put out an official advisory based on the plummeting mental state of today's parents.

We know parents are having a hard time and that it's getting picked up in the national conversation. But hearing about a mom working full-time with a 1-year-old on her hip while pregnant, and a dad stuck working out of the house who's at a total loss for how to make things better really paints a pretty bleak picture.

No one should have to work full-time and parent full-time, at the same time.

A fridge full of microwavable lunches and a fleet of dog walkers isn't going to make it any better until things start changing from the very top.

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Democracy

These before-and-afters will make you question everything about how our economy works

You'd think it was some sort of natural disaster. Nope. Totally man-made.

Yup. These images were taken only two years apart. And what you're seeing was not an accident.

When the economy crashed in 2008, it was because of shady financial practices like predatory lending and speculative investing, which is basically gambling, only the entire economy was at stake.

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When the recession hit, it literally hit home for millions of people. And Detroit was right in the middle of it.

I spoke with Alex Alsup, who works with a Detroit-based tech company that's mapping the city's foreclosed homes to help city officials see the bigger picture and find solutions. He also runs the Tumblr GooBingDetroit, where he uses Google Street View's time machine to document the transformation of Detroit's neighborhoods over the last few years.

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"There's a common sentiment that Detroit's looked the way it does for decades, but it's just not true," Alsup said.

It's astonishing to see how quickly so many homes went from seemingly delightful to wholly unlivable.

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When the recession went into full force, home values took a nosedive. But the city expected homeowners to pay property taxes as if they hadn't.

Not only does the situation defy logic, but it's like a brass-knuckled face punch to the people the city is supposed to be looking out for. Alsup explains:

"You had houses — tens of thousands of them — that were worth only $20,000 or so, yet owed $4,000 a year in taxes, for which very few city services were delivered (e.g. police, fire, roads, schools). Who would pay that?"

Indeed.

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A local group calls what happened to Detroit a "hurricane without water."

And like a real hurricane, homeowners aren't the ones to blame. They're even calling for what is essentially a federal disaster response.

Here are the three strategies they want to see in action — and they can work for basically anywhere in the country that's struggling with a housing crisis.

1. Stop kicking people out of their homes.

They want the city to end foreclosures and evictions from owner-occupied homes. Many people aren't just losing their homes — they've lost jobs, pensions, and services because of budget cuts. Putting them on the street is like a kick in the teeth when they're down.

2. If a home is worth less on the market than what the homeowner owes on their loan, reduce what they owe.

Those are called underwater mortgages. Banks caused this mess, and governments ignored it. It's only fair that people's mortgages be adjusted based the current value of their home.

3. Sell repossessed homes at fair prices to people who actually want to live in them.

Selling to banks and investors only encourages what led to the financial crisis in the first place. Wouldn't it make more sense to sell to people who are going to live in them and have a genuine interest in rebuilding the community?

Housing is a human right. And an economy based on financial markets doesn't care about human rights. Maybe it's time for a new economy?

Click play below for a silent cruise down a once lovely residential block in Detroit.

This article originally appeared on 12.15.14

Education & Information

A boy with dwarfism struggled to get his lunch. So a cafeteria worker made him a souped-up cart.

He went from struggling to stylish.

via Beaverton School District

Julian Worsham gets a new cart.

Six-year-old Julian Worsham of Beaverton, Oregon is like a lot of other first-graders: he loves Super Mario and Taekwondo. But he has achondroplasia, the most common form of dwarfism, and goes to a school that wasn't built for kids his height.

"He's born into a world that just, in some ways, is not built for him," Julian's father, Brett, told WHAS11.

His mother did a walk-through before his first day at school to make sure he wouldn't run into any problems because of his height but forgot to check the cafeteria. [We] "noticed that where the food was, was right at his head," Heather told the Beaverton School District. Then, to make things more of a struggle, he had to carry his tray outside to the lunch benches.

The school made him a makeshift cart out of an upside-down milk crate on wheels to help him transport his lunch from the cafeteria to the benches.

"When I saw it I thought, 'Wow,'" said Enedelia Mottram, who's served lunch for the school district for 18 years. "I just wanted to help Julian, because I mean his head barely reaches the lunch line. He can't see anything."

Julian's first cart wasn't cutting the mustard.

via Beaverton School District

That night, she talked to her husband, James, a metalworker, to see if he could come up with something better. He got his team together at Wright Manufacturing in Portland to create a new cart that allowed Julian to transport his lunch tray and see over the counter.

James told the Beaverton School District that he wanted to make something that Julian would be "proud to push around."

James and his team put together a badass cart with adjustable, handlebar grips just like a motorcycle that has a stool inside so he can reach the countertop. It is adorned with flames and a personalized license plate that says, "JULIAN."

Julian's parents were blown away by the care and creativity that was put into creating his cart.

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"They took the time to get those license plates with his name, which is just like, they just really put a lot of heart into it. So when I saw it, the first thing I saw was actually a picture of James and his team who made the cart and I cried. It's just such a sweet thing," Heather said.

Julian loves the license plate and the flames and is now able to grab his lunch and get out to the benches in style.

"He's independent now," said Mottram. "Before, a staff member [would] have to be there to help him," she said.

Heather hopes that the story will inspire others to reach out and help other people in need.

"There's just wonderful people in this world that, you know, they have their eyes open. They're seeing needs that need to be met and they're meeting them. So I hope that other kids can get their needs met through this," she said.

This article originally appeared on 11.3.21

From Your Site Articles

Heroic sanitation workers save abducted, 10-year-old girl while on their trash route

"I was just doing my job man. I was just doing my job and actually came across somebody who needed help."

via Dion Merrick / Facebook

At 1:30 am on a Monday morning in February, an AMBER Alert went out in southern Louisiana about a missing 10-year-old girl from New Iberia. It was believed she had been kidnapped and driven away in a 2012 silver Nissan Altima.

A few hours later at 7 am, Dion Merrick and Brandon Antoine, sanitation workers for Pelican Waste, were on their daily route when they noticed a vehicle that fit the description in the alert.

The sanitation workers thought it was suspicious that a silver sedan was parked alone in a field in St. Martin Parish.

"Something told me, like just look, I said what is that car doing in that field like that? What the car doing? Guess what, that's the dude with the little girl," Merrick said in a Facebook Live video. "That's God."

The video has been seen over 1.5 million times since it was posted on Monday morning.

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To prevent the possible kidnapper from escaping, they parked the large sanitation truck the wrong way on the highway to "Make sure they couldn't get out," Merrick said. Then, they called 911.

When police arrived they arrested Michael R. Sereal, the man whose car was mentioned in the AMBER Alert. The police were also able to safely recover the girl who appeared unharmed. She was later taken to the hospital to be evaluated by medical personnel.

The Iberia Parish Sheriff's Department's online sex offender registry has a Michael Roy Sereal but authorities wouldn't confirm it's the same man.

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The young girls' family got in touch with the two men who saved her and have shown amazing gratitude. "I'm just so happy and blessed that I have actually seen the car and we actually responded like we were supposed to respond," Merrick told KHOU.

Merrick hopes that his actions will inspire others to be proactive as well.

"Don't be scared if you see something. If you know something is wrong, report it," Merrick said. "Call authorities because it could save someone's life."

via Office of the Louisiana Attorney general

The two men were applauded by the St. John Parish's Sheriff, who offered to buy them lunch.

"I was just doing my job man. I was just doing my job and actually came across somebody who needed help," Merrick said. "Got me tearing up."

The AMBER Alert system was created in 1996 after nine-year-old Amber Hagerman was abducted and murdered while riding her bike in Texas. Since its inception, nearly seven in 10 AMBER alert cases have resulted in children being successfully reunited with their parents.

In 17% of the cases, the child's recovery is a direct result of the alert.

As of December 2020, 1,029 children rescued specifically because of the system.

This article originally appeared on 02.09.21

From Your Site Articles

heroes

Joy

Video of cats punching above their weight gives us a new appreciation for our feline friends

Maybe they're actually as superior as they think they are.

Photo by 傅甬华 on Unsplash

Cats are far more badass than we give them credit for.

Cats have a reputation for being aloof and standoffish, like they're better than everyone and simply can't be bothered. Those of us who have cats know they're not always like that … but yes, they're sometimes like that. They can be sweet and affectionate, but they want affection on their terms, they want to eat and play and sleep on their own clock, and we puny, inferior humans have little say in the matter.

There's a reason why we have obedience schools for dogs and not for cats. Maine coon or Bengal, Savannah or Siamese, ragdoll or sphynx, domestic cats of all breeds are largely untrainable little punks who lure us into loving them by blessing us with the honor of stroking their fur and hearing them purr.

But perhaps we assume too much when we think cats are full of themselves for no good reason. Maybe they are actually somewhat justified in their snootiness. Maybe they really, truly are superior to pretty much every other creature on Earth and that's why they act like it.

Cats, if they could talk, would be nodding and prodding us along at this point: "Yes, yes, you're so close. Just a little further now, keep going."

Think about it. They're beautiful and graceful, but also quick and powerful. They groom constantly so they're almost always clean and their fur even smells good. They can fall from ridiculous heights, land on their feet and walk away unscathed. They're wicked good ambush hunters. They can walk completely silently, like ninjas, then pull out the razor blades on their feet at will and do serious damage in an instant.

All of that makes them impressive specimens, but ironically it's their total hubris that makes them truly superior. When they feel like it (because cats only do things they feel like doing) they will take on anyone and anything. Big, small, dangerous, fierce—doesn't matter. That unbridled confidence—earned or not—combined with their physique and skill makes them the badasses of the animal world.

Want proof? Here ya go:

The snakes, man. I can't get over the snakes.

Cats really are better than us and every other living thing, basically. And even if they aren't, they believe they are, which counts just as much. They're either the ultimate creatures or the ultimate conmen. Either way, you just don't mess with them.

This article originally appeared on 08.17.22

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