Dear boys,
This is a bit of a follow up to my letter on privacy, in which I talked about the “cancer shaped elephant in the room”, and how it had challenged a lot of our expectations about and perspectives on privacy as a family.
At the moment it feels like every conversation, every meeting with a new person, the clock is ticking down till I’m going to have to mention cancer. Even when not currently dominating my life, every conversation that touches on my availability, plans, commitments, how my week has been, where I’m going… Every conversation has the potential to come round to cancer. So often, I’ll mention one thing vaguely, that then won’t make sense without disclosing, or there will be an awkward laugh at the impossibility of answering a question without disclosing that we are dealing with cancer. There have been times when I’ve cut someone off because I can see ahead of them that the conversation is leading to the big C, and then it’s awkward and rude so I need to explain, and then it’s out there anyway.
Sometimes I disclose because the mental energy of remembering who you’ve told is less than that needed to remember who you haven’t. Sometimes I disclose to save the disclosee the embarrassment if they find out later and think they should of known, or to say that it’s ok that that heard it from someone else, and it isn’t a bit of gossip they need to pretend not to know. Sometimes I use the word cancer to show the word itself isn’t scary, it doesn’t need to be whispered, and saying it won’t tempt non-existent fates.
But disclosing can be awkward. Not just for all the questioning and dealing with well wishes that I’ve mentioned it brings up. What’s normal to you can be shocking or upsetting for others. When discussing what to you is just an unfortunate fact of life can hurt others, you feel a little responsible for that hurt – another mental burden to take on.
Sometimes the disclosure can feel abrupt and difficult to understand for the disclosee. What they don’t understand is that I have had more of these conversations before. I can see the disclosure moment coming three exchanges ahead, so my getting ahead of it feels out of the blue.
Other downsides of openness can be really harmful. We have been targeted – unsuccessfully – by attempted scammers on our #TeddyAndTheBigC fundraiser. Any public post about cancer attracts woo spammers with affiliate links and unsolicited promotion to their alternative to medicine of their choice. Every mention of cancer on Facebook feeds into the marketing algorithm. Of course targeted ads for MacMillan and Young Lives Vs. Cancer can be useful. But as soon as I mentioned cancer I had a dramatic increase in ‘get rich quick’, dude bro pyramid, crypto finance scams.
Since diagnosis, I dealt with a bullying issue where the knowledge of you having cancer – including when you would be in hospital – was used as part of the harassment.
I write about parenting – and I hope that when you read these letters, cancer will be a distant memory – but I need to think about how and when cancer comes into that writing. I write as a humanist dad, but I’m also an oncology dad, a neurodiverse dad, a cishet dad, a boy dad etc. etc. etc. From screen time, to privacy, to health and physicality, cancer has impacted my views on every aspect of parenting, and how I would answer any parenting question, and always will, long after we have our last scan, leave our last clinic visit, remember our last milestone, or ring our last bell.
Photo information: “Cancer Sucks” scene from adult colouring book, by Alastair Lichten
Humanist Dad 👨👩👦👦 