Over the last few months, I have thought a lot about the relationship between a parent and a child. That relationship tends to be focused downward, meaning a father’s or a mother’s feelings toward their child are stronger than the child’s feelings toward the parent. I suppose that is how it should be, as it is natural for a parent to do whatever they must to protect their young.

My wife and I have five wonderful children that we love and adore. Over the years, we have tried to follow a principle I learned from my father-in-law. He often told us that he showed his children that he loved them equally by treating them differently. But, having six kids, he also frequently quoted John Wilmot, who said, “Before I got married, I had six theories about raising children; now I have six children and no theories.”We have struggled through the years to determine how best to help our children live productively. At times, we have just tried to keep them alive.

When our kids were little, it was much more manageable. We mostly had to provide for their physical needs and keep them safe. But we also tried to teach them honesty, fairness, hard work, obedience, and other values. However, learning about a value and putting that value into practice were two different things.

As many of you know, we recently lost one of our sons to bipolar disorder. Scott was very productive, with a successful pediatric practice and a beautiful family. But in the last six months of his life, we saw him change, and by the end, he was not the same person. And even though we loved him with all our hearts, minds, and strength, that love alone could not save him. His mental illness, like cancer, slowly destroyed his brain. We would have done anything to save him from that disease, and we tried. But all of our efforts were in vain.

I have played the “what if” game many times since his untimely death. Could we have done more to help him? We thought he was improving, but I have learned that those with bipolar disorder are often more intelligent than most and are great at hiding their true feelings and intentions.

Scott focused on some debt he had accumulated due to some impulsive decisions. But that debt was not insurmountable. And we told him that over and over. Could I, or worse, should I, have done more to change his thinking that he was more valuable dead (read life insurance) than alive? I will never know, but I know the “what if” game after the fact isn’t helpful. All we can do now is honor the life he lived and help educate others about the perils of mental illness.

Fortunately, Scott avoided the justice system. As a lawyer and from personal experience, I learned more about the justice system than I ever wanted to. And our justice system is anything but just when it comes to those with mental illness. The system is stacked against them, and it is hard to find a way out once in the system. The last place a person with bipolar disorder needs to be is in jail. Several years ago, I visited a person in jail who struggled with bipolar disorder. While waiting for him to be brought to the visiting room, I remarked to the jailer that the inmate had bipolar disorder and should be in a hospital, not a jail cell. The jailer remarked, in all seriousness, “Probably more than 90 percent of the inmates here have bipolar disorder.” There has to be a better way.

I saw two movies recently where a family member pushed back against the justice system. Ezra[i] tells the story of a divorced father who kidnaps his son from his mother and takes him on a road trip across the country. He wants to be with his son and strengthen their relationship. Even his ex-wife, after she learns what has happened, tries to “call off the dogs” of the justice system, but to no avail. Here is the trailer:

I love Robert DeNiro’s character, who tells the father, “You’re fighting for something. You might have to suffer consequences, but it’s worth it because you did it because you love your kid.” I wonder what consequences I would be willing to face simply because I have my children, especially now that they are all adults.

In Fancy Dance,[ii] the aunt of a young teenager tries to protect her niece from the foster care system. Here is one of the more gut-wrenching scenes from the film:

The film notes that the word for “aunt” in the Native American tongue means “little mother.” In their culture, it becomes the aunt’s responsibility to protect the child if the mother is unavailable. The film also highlights the perils of indigenous people, particularly Native American women, but that is a subject for another blog post.

So, what should a parent do to protect a child before the eyes of the law? Do we protect them from arrest by lying about their whereabouts? Do we confess to our child’s crime so we, not them, face the consequences? They do that in the movies and TV crime shows. Should a parent do so in real life? How far, as parents, should we go to protect our children? There are no easy answers.

I am currently reading Jodi Picoult’s My Sister’s Keeper. It tells the story of a family’s struggle to keep their second child alive as she battles leukemia. At one point, the mom asks questions similar to those I am asking here and concludes, “I’d give her half my heart, for God’s sake, if it helped. You do whatever you have to when it comes to people you love, right?” But does that mean you mostly ignore the suffering child’s older brother and have another child solely intending to use her as a donor of stem cells, bone marrow, and even a kidney to keep their suffering child alive? Fifteen years ago, Hollywood turned the book into a movie. Here is a scene from My Sister’s Keeper:[iii]

Should we love our children so much that we are willing to let them go? Sometimes, life gets so complicated that our children would rather die than live in misery. Should we let them? Or, as the 1969 movie points out, “They shoot horses, don’t they?” As parents, we have concluded that we would rather have a suffering child with us than not have them here at all. But at the same time, I wonder if that makes us similar to the parents in My Sister’s Keeper. Being willing to do whatever you have to is easy to say but not so easy to do.

If you or someone you love has a mental illness, please get (or help them get) the help they need. Life is hard and often unfair, but I still believe it is better than the alternative.  

Parenting is hard—extremely hard. The most important thing we can do as parents is love our children. But what does that mean? My wife and I are doing our best to follow my father-in-law’s principle of showing our children that we love them equally by treating them differently. The principle is beautiful, but the implementation is sometimes next to impossible.

But sometimes we, as parents, can do impossible things.

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[i] Ezra:

• Production Companies: Closer Media, Wayfarer Studios, and Bleeker Street Media
• Director: Tony Goldwyn
• Screenwriter: Tony Spiridakis
• Starring: Bobby Cannavale, Rose Byrne, and Vera Farmiga
• Release Date: May 30, 2024

[ii] Fancy Dance:

• Production Companies: Confluential Films, Significant Productions, and AUM Group
• Director: Erica Tremblay
• Screenwriters: Erica Tremblay and Miciana Alise
• Starring: Lily Gladstone, Isabel Deroy-Olson, and Michael Rowe
• Release Date: June 28, 2024

[iii] My Sister’s Keeper:

• Production Companies: Curmudgeon Films, Gran Via Productions, and Mark Johnson Productions
• Director: Nick Cassavetes
• Screenwriters: Jeremy Levens, Nick Cassavetes, and Jodi Picoult
• Starring: Cameron Diaz, Abigail Breslin, and Alec Baldwin
• Release Date: June 26, 2009