Learning from our parents doesn’t always mean listening to them
I grew up with a very overprotective mom. She’d admit as much. If she let me do something as a kid, it was the golden ticket for my friends to tell their parents that Aaron’s mom said it was ok. And the parents agreed, “if Debby said it’s ok, then we won’t say no.”
None of this is a negative thing. In fact, she’s my best friend. And, let me be clear, I was a clumsy, injury-prone kid with allergies and asthma that landed me in the emergency room from time to time. It made sense to want to put me in a bubble.
Part of that bubble included warnings like,
“Don’t run, you’re going to have an asthma attack.”
“Don’t lift heavy things, you’re going to hurt your back.”
“Don’t go to the gym, there are lots of germs there.”
“Don’t do that, it’s dangerous. You’re going to break your neck.”
Again, she wasn’t always wrong – except for when I outgrew my asthma and no longer needed allergy shots after high school. To this day, I still get the asthma comment. Dad goes along with these too, often based on the same fears, but sometimes as he says, “to insure domestic tranquility” (quoting the Constitution).
But the purpose of this post is not to complain about or blame my parents for anything. In fact, when the message comes from love (which it does), that’s all that’s needed for us to learn from it. But learning from it doesn’t always mean listening to it. So, now I run, lift weights, spend hours in the gym every week, and of course, mom’s favorite . . . rock climb – not to defy my parents, but to truly show that I’ve learned from them. I’ll explain . . .
Lesson 1: There’s a difference between fear and danger . . .
As I mentioned, growing up with asthma landed me in the emergency room from time to time. In fact, we first discovered my condition after a little league baseball game. As everyone left the game, I asked my mom to slow down. The field cleared out, and others were already at Baskin Robbins as we approached the hill that led to mom’s car – the only one left in the lot – when I passed out. We are alone, but she got me into the car. Instead of heading for ice cream, we went straight to the hospital where I received a shot of adrenaline. The moment was scary for both of us, and afterwards, we learned that I had severe asthma. When my doctor explained this, I responded that I was not going to let the disease change me. In some ways, that was true – I continued to play sports and have an active childhood – but in other ways, I let it limit me. I happily used mom’s warning to get out of activities that meant running long and far – which I hated anyway. I was often among the slowest runners, and now I had an excuse to get out of it. But it was an excuse driven more out of fear than danger.
First, I always had an inhaler, so I was not going to end up back on that abandoned hill alone with my mom gasping for air again. Second, using the pulmonary function test that I had, I knew how to recognize when I was primed for an attack versus when I was not affected. If my breathing function was low, then the risk of an attack naturally dictated what I could do. If my lungs were fine, then asthma was simply a fear, not a danger.
Over time, after years of allergy shots, I outgrew the worst of my asthma. I carried an inhaler in case it ever acted up, but I rarely pushed myself to the point where it might do so. I had that moment on the hill in the back of my head, perhaps because mom’s warnings often reminded me of it – or perhaps because it was my own fear.
Running was rarely my thing until this journey started, but when it was (including early in this journey), I always had my inhaler, and I was cautious about how far and how fast I ran. As running became a bigger part of my fitness, I noticed something that my years of being afraid of it had not prepared me for. The longer and farther I ran, the less I was affected by my asthma over time. The cardiovascular conditioning naturally improved my lungs!
I always heard my mom’s warning about asthma when she told me not to run. But as important as the words were about safety with asthma, it was just as important to not listen when she told me not to run. With running, I learned not to fear what might bring on an asthma attack, as I discovered it would also prevent future ones.
Lesson 2: Do dangerous things safely . . .
If you follow this blog, you know that rock climbing has recently become one of my biggest passions. And now that you know about my mom, you can imagine how she feels about it. While we are past the days where she tells me what to do, this one would definitely fall into the category of, “don’t do that, you are going to break your neck!” Even if she doesn’t say it anymore, I can feel her thinking it.
There’s no doubt that rock climbing is an inherently dangerous sport. I am reminded of that every time I sign the waiver that warns of “death” in the very first paragraph. If that’s all I knew about it, I wouldn’t climb. But along with signing that waiver, I’ve had lessons in the safety of climbing as well. I understand how the belay system works, and I know that when I climb with someone I can trust, I will safely stop during any fall. And let’s be clear – falling is a big part of climbing! It happens most of the time out. If it doesn’t, then it’s time to move on to something harder.
But there’s something more to climbing than adventure and adrenaline. While it is surely a thrill for 20-somethings to show off their skills, the benefits it brings as we age can be significant. Climbing increases the balance, focus, and strength of aging bodies, and it has even been shown to improve symptoms of Parkinson’s Disease. Watch this amazing video from a recent episode of CBS Sunday Morning . . .
Two things that stand out to me here apply not just to someone with Parkinson’s, but to anyone who enjoys climbing. First, is the lesson about safety. As Lesley Stall said, “they never really fall because they wear a harness that provides a layer of safety.” Second, is the sense of accomplishment. You don’t have to suffer from Parkinson’s to feel what Jon Lessin (a retired anesthesioligst with the disease) said about climbing . . . “This makes you feel like you can accomplish the world.” In the moment, when I am on the rock, I feel a sharp sense of focus that tunes everything else out beyond that next move I need to make. Beyond climbing, I’ve learned to apply that focus to whatever I am doing. It makes me better at work, at the gym, and in my everyday world. While there is nothing that makes you feel more present than having to get that next handhold or foothold right on the rock, when faced with that next hold on life I need to get, climbing makes me more prepared for it.
As I reflect on the lessons learned from mom’s warnings here, the first thing to understand is that I did hear everything she has to say. She’s right that climbing can be dangerous, and that one could break their neck. But that doesn’t mean, don’t do it. Her fear limits her understanding that this can be done safely. Before every climb up the rock, my climbing partner and I go through the list of safety checks. I climb only with someone I trust, and I make sure to be someone that my climbing partner can equally believe in. Safety comes first in everything I do out there. So, while I don’t listen when mom says, “don’t climb” or “don’t do anything dangerous,” I do make sure that I do dangerous things safely (whether climbing, skydiving, or anything else).
Lesson 3: Get stronger now for later . . .
If we’re lucky, we get to a point in life where we watch our parents age. Mine, like many, can’t move the way they did when they were younger. In fact, lately it’s clear they can’t move like they did five years ago, or even one year ago. Some of this is due to medical issues beyond their control that would set anyone back. What I’ve learned from this is that things will happen as I get older that might weaken or limit my abilities, but the fitter I am going into it, the better I will be coming out of it.
Ten years into this journey, I’ve had a profound realization about its purpose. From the beginning, where the purpose was simply to make it through an ambitious golf trip, I always thought about my fitness in terms of my present goals. I found something to train for in the moment – even if it was just to be as fit as I could right now. But perhaps because I turned 50 this year – feeling much better than I did at 40 – I realized that from day one of this journey, I wasn’t just training for the moment, I was training for the next decade or the one after that.
Recently, I took the hardest fall I’ve had at the gym when doing a bouldering problem. Unlike rock climbing, where you climb to great heights with a rope and harness, bouldering is a climb without protection only going to about 10-15 feet. There’s some level of padding on a landing but falling requires proper technique to avoid injury. Mine was not perfect on this fall . . .
If you look closely, you see that I fell with my arms down ready to support my landing. I did not intend to do that, nor is it what I should have done. That’s a recipe for breaking my wrist, and I got lucky that it didn’t happen. But there’s a bigger lesson I learned from this fall. Whether I had my arms up or down, it was a hard landing that I walked away from without getting hurt. A fall off the wall that would have broken me like Humpty Dumpty ten years ago. My fitness – especially the strong core I’ve developed – is the reason I didn’t shatter. It turns out that doing the things that mom tried to stop me from doing so that I wouldn’t get hurt, are what actually stopped me from getting hurt!
What this all means . . .
As I mentioned, my parents’ advice always comes from love. I know that with each warning, they want what’s best for me. And knowing that makes not listening to them easy. When I show them that running improves my asthma, lifting weights reduces my risk of injury, and climbing helps my longevity, I know that I am living up to what they really want for me (and what I want for myself) – a healthy life. I want to be better at 70 than they are – not because they did anything wrong, but because the lessons of watching one’s parents age show me what I need to do now to be better at it. So, while I may be training today for my next big climb or the marathon in November, what I’m really training for are those days when I am 70, 80, or whenever that I will need it most to endure what inevitably comes with age.
Aaron