This time last year, I was in the middle of a semester as an exchange student at AUT University in Auckland on New Zealand’s North Island. I’ve wanted to travel ever since I watched my aunt stuff rolled-up socks into her boots to make room in the suitcase she was taking to England. As cliché as it may sound, I wanted go everywhere and see as much as possible. I have cerebral palsy, and I’m physically unable to carry a backpack large enough to accommodate a trip longer than two weeks. So taking part in a school exchange program to New Zealand gave me the perfect opportunity to travel light within my host country.
My time in New Zealand was a turning point. I left some of the most challenging aspects of my life behind in Toronto, leaving me free to be a happier, more authentic version of myself. I don’t pretend to think that this is unique; who wouldn’t feel this way in a new place with new people and fewer responsibilities?
Despite the years I had previously spent living in student housing, it wasn’t until I was at AUT that I had a more conventional social student experience: bonding with roommates over food and TV, attending parties, dinners, movie nights and study sessions with friends in the building. Having a large support system of fellow exchange and international students around me at AUT was one of the best experiences I have ever had. For the first time in a long time, I didn’t feel misunderstood and alone.
Often, groups of us would get together on weekends and days off from classes to sightsee and travel around the fairly small country. As such, the two-week mid-semester break was our opportunity to take the bus to the South Island, particularly Queenstown: the adventure capital of New Zealand and the birthplace of bungee jumping.
Bungee jumping was a dream of mine. But after making inquires, I was told I would need a doctor’s note, saying it was safe for me to jump, even with a waist harness, given my cerebral palsy. But when the bus driver announced skydiving as one of the available activities, I thought, why not tick this off my bucket list and see the sights from the air?
All things considered, I gave jumping out of a plane the least amount of thought and preparation of all my New Zealand adventures. I figured that as long as I was strapped to an expert and landed on my butt, all would be well. They assured me when arrived that my disability was not a problem. In fact, they had a monthly repeat jumper who was a paraplegic, so someone as light and able as me would me a piece of cake.
The only seemingly intentional accommodation they made was to ensure that I was the last to get onto the plane, which meant I would be the first to jump out. A cameraman helped me get my legs over the edge of the plane before jumping himself to videotape my fall.
During the first 15 seconds of jump, I was a bit disoriented and had to remind myself to breathe. But in the moments after that, I realized I could do just about anything. If I could move to the other side of the world, travel around one of the most inaccessible countries alone and jump out of a plane, then everything else was at least manageable.
Canadian parenting expert Ann Douglas spoke with BLOOM about her new book Parenting Through the Storm—a collection of strategies for raising children with mental health, behaviour or learning challenges, and maintaining your own health and happiness in the process. It’s Ann’s most personal book to date (see above with her husband and four children). Each of Ann’s children has struggled with something, including bipolar disorder, depression, anorexia, Asperger syndrome and ADHD.
BLOOM: What made you want to write this book, particularly at this point in your career?
Ann Douglas: I remember thinking at the time, when my kids were going through such a difficult time, how it seemed like a lot of mainstream parenting books just didn’t really speak to me. I used to get infuriated by magazine articles that would say something like: ‘Better behaviour from your child in 30 days.’ That kind of article would make me crazy because it felt, to me, like the ‘Thinner in 30 days thing;’ it was unrealistic and didn’t apply to everyone. It reminded me of the kind of advice that sometimes you’d get from a well-meaning friend or relative who’d say ‘Well, tell them how to behave.’ It’s like ‘Well, honestly, you think we haven’t tried that? They’re having a really hard time. I think you’re not understanding the extent [to which] we’re struggling, and the fact that we’ve tried everything we can think of.’
I wanted to write a book that would help parents to feel a little less alone and a lot less judged. So that was sort of my goal. In terms of why I decided to write it now: back when we were struggling, I was going through such a hard time I could hardly write a grocery list. I was not in a position to be able to look at things analytically and to be able to go into the problem-solving mode, because I was feeling stressed and overwhelmed by the situation. I think I needed to have a bit of time so that I could see that my kids could come through the other side, they could make it through the storm, and that we could thrive as a family. Only then did I feel like I could sort of start to think through what was effective, what worked for us, and then do the research to find out what worked for other families, and what strategies research was identifying as helpful.
BLOOM: One of the key themes is that in order to support your child who is struggling, parents need to take care of themselves. Is this a new idea?
Ann Douglas: No, I don’t think it is. But I think that it’s a message that parents can’t hear often enough. Because you’ll say, ‘yeah, yeah, yeah, I know I really should be getting sleep or exercising or whatever, and I will once my child is doing this better, or my child gets past this milestone.’ Then you keep postponing that time of self-care and you can’t do that indefinitely or you become totally depleted and burned out. I say this from personal experience. One of the reasons I’m so passionate about this stuff now is because I really did sort of hit the wall: I wasn’t sleeping well. I wasn’t eating well. I gained about 100 pounds and I had to really work hard to lose that weight.
BLOOM: For parents who feel overwhelmed with the demands of their child, how can they start to care for their own mental and physical health?
Ann Douglas: Sometimes it’s just little wee tiny things, like if somebody offers to help in some way letting that person help as opposed to going ‘no, no, no, we’re okay. Don’t worry about it.’ People want to help, so accept those offers because they can only help to make your life easier. As long as it’s not a high-maintenance person that’s going to come in and start making your life miserable. We’re talking about lovely friends and family who do everything from fold laundry, run errands for you, or stay at your house with your child while you go for a walk around the block if that’s all you feel you can manage at first. Because it really is very, very stressful and, I think, it’s the emotional toll: the fact that your brain is still working away at solving the problems and worrying about your child 24/7. [For example], if you wake up in the middle of the night it can be hard to get back to sleep because you’re feeling so worried and overwhelmed.
Looking for little ways to inject some self-nurturing or some fun into your day [is also important]. Even if it’s just, when you get a momentary lull, to flip through the pages of your favourite magazine, or having a cup of your favourite tea, and connecting with people who support you. Whether it’s firing off a quick text message to your best friend saying this wonderful thing happened today, or this incredibly frustrating thing happened today. Just having an outside connection that can say, ‘you know what, you’re doing a great job and you just keep doing that.’
BLOOM: Why is it so hard for parents to take care of themselves?
Ann Douglas: I think a large piece of it is that you know your child so well, and you’re into such a groove or routine with your child, that you worry: if I have a child who has autism, for example, [who] doesn’t respond well to changes in routines, if I go down the street to have coffee or lunch with my friend and somebody else is here they’re going to do things a different way and my child is going to find that challenging. And yes, this is true, but if you look at the cost-benefit analysis, maybe having a parent who feels refreshed and can take on the day is worth a little bit of upset. Plus you want to encourage your child, over time, to work on flexibility, so that can be one way to do it.
I think to realize that it is hard; it’s not as easy as just walking out the door. There’s so much more planning and worrying and thinking involved. But I know [that] so many parents, once they take that step, they say, ‘Why didn’t I do this years ago?’ Because they really feel that it has made that much of a difference in their ability to cope and not to feel flattened and depleted all the time.
BLOOM: What do you think happens if parents don’t make themselves or self-care a priority?
Ann Douglas: They get really burnt out and really depleted and their physical health can suffer. Their mental health can suffer. They can’t be the kind of strong advocate for their child that they want to be. They could be really grumpy and unable to focus on big-picture parenting goals, but get caught up in the emotion of the moment because they [don’t] have any self-control resources left.
BLOOM: In the writing of this book you interviewed other parents and experts at length. How did you decide what to include?
Ann Douglas: Well first of all, whenever I write a book I tend to get a lot of input from parents. So I put out a call through all my usual channels asking if people would be willing to be interviewed over a period of months about their family’s experiences. I had about 50 families step forward. I interviewed them via a series of eight questionnaires that were sent out over about two to three months. It was probably about eight hours’ worth of work per family answering my questionnaires. I’m hugely grateful for the time and effort they put into that because what I walked them through [was] all the different stages: What was it like for you when you didn’t know what your child was dealing with? What was it like going through diagnosis and treatment? What are your hopes and dreams for your child? What is your child’s life like now? So that I could write a book that would cover those different chapters in the family’s journey.
In terms of the researchers and the experts, I did a huge amount of research. I read about a thousand different journal articles, about 40 books, and an awful lot of online research to find top Canadian researchers who would have something helpful to say to families. Luckily, almost everyone I asked for an interview managed to fit it in, including very, very busy people who were flying across the country to speak at conferences. I’d get them booked eight weeks in advance for 15 minutes on a Friday morning. But I managed to get a lot of really good information and to get them to sort of boil down in practical ways what this could mean to make life better for parents who have a child who’s struggling.
BLOOM: Were you surprised about how many families were willing to share their stories?
Ann Douglas: I was surprised at the depth and how much they trusted me. They told me very intimate and personal and painful times in their lives and they trusted me to portray their stories in a way that honoured themselves and their children and their struggles as opposed to judged. They made themselves vulnerable and that takes a lot of courage.
BLOOM: What do you hope parents take away from the book?
Ann Douglas: I hope that parents emerge with the feeling that they’re not alone and that they’re doing the best they can in a really difficult situation. I think it’s so important to remind parents to treat themselves with the same kindness they would extend to a friend who’s struggling. So in other words, we’re talking about self-compassion. Because self-compassion is life changing and if I can just spark that idea in people’s minds, of being a little kinder to themselves, they’ll find it so much easier to deal with the day-to-day challenges of what they’re facing in their families.
BLOOM: And professionals, what do you hope that they take away?
Ann Douglas: I hope professionals who read the book get a sense of how hard it is for parents and the fact that parents really are doing the best that they can. That way, professionals may be less inclined to judge or assume they know better and recognize that the parent is the true expert when it comes to their child and their family situation. If parents and professionals can work collaboratively, sharing the same goal of helping the child, amazing change can happen.
BLOOM: There are many families mentioned in the book, including your own, who have several children with mental health, behavioural and neurodevelopmental challenges. Is this common?
Ann Douglas: It is. Often a lot of things have some kind of genetic basis and we know that there’s usually a mix between genetics and the environment. So it’s not exclusively genetic, but you know there’s going to be a whole bunch of genes popping up in different family members, so it’s not unusual at all for there to be people that share the same diagnosis or have related diagnoses. Maybe one person has problems with anxiety, and somebody else with depression, and somebody else with ADHD, and so on.
BLOOM: Which can make it even more challenging?
Ann Douglas: It can, especially if the parents also share the diagnosis. Maybe [you] have ADHD and are trying to parent kids with ADHD and at first it can feel like ‘oh wow, this isn’t going to work very well’ but then realize that you’ve gained a lot of wisdom and insight living your life and figuring out how to manage your particular challenge so you can share some of those insights with your child. You can also be more understanding because you know that these challenges are for real, they’re not something made up and it’s not just a child trying to be difficult or act up for the sake of acting up. There’s a reason for the behaviour.
BLOOM: Was there anything that you learned while working on the book that was particularly new, interesting or surprising given your experience?
Ann Douglas: The information about self-regulation was something I hadn’t done a lot of reading about until I started doing the research for the book. The idea that we can both boost our positive emotion and reduce our negative emotion just by making choices in our daily life; that was mind blowing for me. Just learning how taking a couple of walks a day can help me to manage my anxiety. Also, the piece about self-compassion: that it’s so important to change from the self-critical channel in your head where you hear mean things being said to yourself about yourself, to a much more self-compassionate kind of stance where you remind yourself that you’re doing the best you can in a difficult situation. Then trying to think what you can do to make life better.
BLOOM: How did you decide what language to use to describe conditions?
Ann Douglas: I want to be as inclusive as possible so that everybody can sort of see himself or herself in the book. I also believe when we say someone has a mental health disorder it sounds, to me, so negative and so judgmental. I picked up on the language about calling things ‘a challenge’ from attending a mental health conference last year that was hosted by the Institute of Families for Child and Youth Mental Health. They asked the young people themselves ‘What language do you prefer when people are talking about your mental health problems/difficulties/challenge?’ And they said they would very much prefer the idea of using the word ‘challenge’ because that left the door open to possibility and hope, because if it’s a challenge you can just keep working at it. Whereas if it’s a disorder, it sounds a lot more definitive and that there’s not quite as much room to grow.
BLOOM: You repeat full names and diagnosis quite often. Is the book meant to be read from start to finish? Or can you kind of skip around?
Ann Douglas: You can dive in to whatever you need most today. If your child is having a hard time at school you might dive into the advocacy section and if you’re preparing for that first meeting to get a diagnosis, you might start there in the book. If you just want to know what it’s like for other families, you might read the stuff on how it is for other people and their families. That’s why it has a really good table of contents and comprehensive index—so that whatever your issue is today when you kind of feel like you’re hitting the wall, then flip open the book and look for the appropriate section. You might be inspired to read other sections around it, but at least if you have a burning question or issue today, then you know where to go.
BLOOM: What kind of feedback have you had? What are you hearing from parents and professional groups?
Ann Douglas: They’re really grateful that there is a book like this now so that they don’t feel quite so alone. They are just in awe of the braveness of the families who decided to share their stories in an effort to try and help other parents. I share that feeling of appreciation because if other families hadn’t been willing to share their stories there wouldn’t have been a book.
BLOOM: Was it challenging to write candidly about your own experiences?
Ann Douglas: I had to think hard about what I was prepared to share and what I wasn’t prepared to share, and I also needed to check things out with the kids because it’s not just my life, it’s their life too. So I made a lot of really conscious and deliberate choices about what I was going to write about. A couple of years ago, I sent out a tweet on Bell Let’s Talk day saying that I lived with bipolar disorder and I thought it’s really important for people to know people out there who are dealing with a particular challenge or disability or whatever. Because if we don’t have some sort of role models out there then nobody will ever understand that it’s possible to have a diagnosis and an amazing life. I think that I feel a real responsibility as somebody who, yes has bipolar disorder, but also, yes, has a pretty great life; that I should say I’m not going to be afraid to tell people I live with this.
BLOOM: Was it difficult to choose what you were going to include?
Ann Douglas: I think I just wanted to be as honest as I could and talk about different experiences that my kids had had and that we’d had because, again, not wanting other parents to feel like they were doing it wrong if their child was having a hard time at school or if they were having a hard time navigating the children’s services or mental health care systems. The systems are complicated and schools don’t always have the resources they need to be able to respond to the needs of children. I think that if we all talk about these challenges then that’s the first step to getting these various systems funded enough that every child gets their needs met sooner rather than later.
When I told my mother that I was writing for BLOOM, she said it was ironic given her memory that we were kicked out of Bloorview rehab after my rhizotomy surgery in 1994 for being “difficult.” I was a strong-willed child and she was opinionated and independent. But she was also quick to remind me that those so-called difficulties led to immediate and visible improvements after she made suggestions during a parent support group while we were there. “It was confusing and disorienting being in a new place,” she told me. “Some parents didn’t speak English. I figured that if I struggled then they must have even worse.” So those who appreciate being greeted by a smiling staff member to explain the ins and outs as they enter rehab at Holland Bloorview with their child have Susan Geboers, and other parents, no doubt, to thank.
My mother was the one who taught me I could do, maybe not everything (because no one can go everything), but a lot that others could. I don’t remember there ever being a question of whether or not I would go to college or university—in fact, I graduated from Durham College in 2011 and will graduate from Ryerson University on June 8—live away from home or have a career, date and one day get married. It was just assumed. I only recently learned that my parents were quietly worried this entire time, as pointed out by my father’s psychic (because my parents believe in that kind of thing). But I’ve been assured that it’s normal for parents to worry about their children’s future, regardless of their physical or mental ability.
I was born on January 23, 1990. Nine weeks early, I was about one pound and small enough to fit in the palm of my 19-year-old mother’s hand. It was two months and four more pounds before I was allowed to leave Sick Kids Hospital. Aside from my small size and wonky eyes, caused by an over exposure to oxygen at birth, I seemed like any other baby. It wasn’t until I was meant to start rolling over and sitting up on my own that my mom began to realize that I wasn’t reaching the normal development milestones. After multiple doctors and tests, at two years old I was diagnosed with cerebral palsy spastic diplegia. My mom says that when the doctor called to give her the news, she was so relieved just to have an answer that she said “Okay, thank you,” then hung up. It wasn’t until she began to think about it a few minutes later that she realized she had no idea what cerebral palsy was. So she called the doctor back. Unsure of what exactly my future would hold and not wanting to give my mother false hope, the doctor told her I would likely never walk. This is where, I believe, the problem begins.
In the 23 years since that cryptic prognosis, I’ve not only learned to walk but also relearned to walk after my rhizotomy and again after my leg surgery in 1999 (although my boyfriend’s mother doesn’t consider walking with canes to be walking). It took a lot of hard work by both my mother and I, but I seemed to have fared a lot better in life than the doctors predicted. I don’t blame them, as there are many forms of cerebral palsy and even the same form can differ further from person to person. For example, while my best friend, Hanako, and I both have spastic diplegia, she can walk on her own but I need at least one cane.
It hasn’t always been an easy life, full of the ups and downs of growing up. I’ve struggled with depression and trying to find my place in a world that I often feel I don’t quite fit into. I’ve felt like I’m stuck between the able and disabled worlds with a foot in each—too disabled to go unnoticed but not disabled enough to entirely relate to the disabled community. But despite all of this I’ve always considered my life to be quite unquestionably normal. This is why I find it odd, and a bit sad, when I meet people who are surprised to learn that I live away from home with a roommate, study journalism, spent a semester studying and traveling in New Zealand (during which I went skydiving and bungy jumping), love going to concerts and, not only have a boyfriend, but a boyfriend who is not disabled. This last point is particularly interesting given that I’ve never given much thought to dating someone with a disability. Not because I am a “disabled hater,” as Mom jokingly accuses me, but because most of the guys I come across in daily life are able-bodied. Once people move past their surprise, they often tell me what a great inspiration I am for being so accomplished. But while it is sometimes nice to hear I’m doing well, I hate the implied assumption that people with disabilities don’t do these things and that I am therefore special.
I recently saw a TedTalk by Tamara Taggart, whose son, Becket, has Down syndrome. She speaks about how the doctor apologized and consoled her when giving the news of her son’s condition, just five days after his birth. Tamara said that set the tone for all of the negative conversations with doctors thereafter about all of the things Becket would never do, such as walk, talk, go to school or fit in with his peers (to which the doctor actually said “yes, that is a legitimate fear, as people with Downs are often lonely.”) But she also speaks about another conversation she had with a very hopeful and empathetic oncologist a few years later when she was diagnosed with cancer. This doctor focused on all the positives and told her about how this experience would change her for the better. Tamara wishes that when telling her about Becket’s Down syndrome, the first doctor had offered the same hope and told her about how wonderful her little boy would grow up to be. Parents generally hear first about their child’s disability from a doctor. That’s why doctors should be more mindful of the negativity and stereotypes they are fostering.
It reminded me of how some friends of mine reacted when they were told their son had cerebral palsy—already worrying about how he would never have a job or get married. Don’t get me wrong, I understand fear of the unknown and mourning for the perfect life and child parents thought they would have. But age two is far too young to predict or write-off a child’s future. Having cerebral palsy doesn’t have to mean that the life a parent envisions for their child is impossible—it may just be accomplished in a slightly different way, or better than they could have ever imagined. Maybe he won’t play soccer, but maybe he will play sledge hockey, become a writer or go into the arts or sciences. Finding work is challenging to say the least but a good education, patience and connections are helpful—that’s how I came to be writing for BLOOM. Dating is not always easy (not that it is for anyone). My boyfriend’s parents are old-school European immigrants who dislike me simply because I have a disability. While that is a whole other story, what is important is that this is an extreme case that does not, and will not, happen to everyone.
Being aware of the science of your child’s condition and doing what needs to be done in order to improve their quality of life is important. But it’s also important to help them feel comfortable with themselves and their disability by calling attention to their positive qualities and potential to live a happy, productive and, possibly, somewhat ordinary life.
Originally published by the Ryerson Review of Journalism on November 26, 2014.
We spoke with Celine Cooper from Montreal’s The Gazette, Scaachi Koul from Hazlitt, Robyn Urback from the National Post and Margaret Wente from TheGlobe and Mail about how the issues surrounding sexual assault, rape and abuse should be covered by journalists. (I conducted all the interviews that make up this podcast.)
Originally published by the Ryerson Review of Journalism on February 11, 2015.
In lieu of recent events around Leslie Roberts and Amanda Lang, we spoke with CAJ president Hugo Rodrigues, National Post journalist Tristin Hopper and PR specialist and co-founder of On Q Communications, Tanya Dodaro about conflict of interest and if and when journalism becomes PR.
Here is a sneak peek at one story from our Spring 2015 issue of the Ryerson Review of Journalism magazine. Clink here to see the video multimedia I created the Ryerson Review of Journalism: http://rrj.ca/teaser-one-of-a-kind/
When CBC first announced its intention and approach to investigating the Jian Ghomeshi scandal, it seemed to be more of a public relations stunt than anything else. To me, it seemed more to protect itself than those who have experienced harassment at the hands of the corporation’s superstar.
In fact, the investigation plan was so questionable that the CBC’s own union representative, the Canadian Media Guild, cautioned employees against speaking to lawyer and investigation leader, Janice Rubin. Why? It could cost them their jobs.
Despite it being voluntary, CBC offered informants no reward or security. Rubin would record all interviews but those being interviewed were not allowed to do the same. Interviewees were eventually extended the seemingly fair opportunity to review a transcript of their interview, but not make changes.
Although the investigation was about Ghomeshi, it seemed that anyone who volunteered information was also volunteering to be investigated. Not only does CBC have access to the recordings, but it has also told CMG they may be “relied on by management to discipline the employee being interviewed.”
Making the whole investigation seemingly pointless.
But it turns out that I, and everyone else who questioned CBC’s intentions, may have been wrong. On January 5, the network announced Chris Boyce, the executive director of CBC Radio, and Todd Spencer, its executive director of human resources and industrial relations, had been placed on leaves of absence.
The removal of Spencer is almost expected, as HR played an important role in enabling the harassments to go on by failing to stand up for the employees, but suspending of Boyce is the most reassuring He fumbled through his interview in November, where he said that it had not been his place to conduct a police investigation but believed they did what they thought was best at the time, but “in any case, hindsight is 20-20.” It is well known that Boyce had a lot invested in Ghomeshi, as he was “instrumental” in making him a star, and would be one of the least keen to see him fall from fame; therefore, he may have turned a blind eye.
There are still questions about whether or not these senior executives were sent home with pay, or what will come next. But at least it appears CBC deserves more credit than I initially gave.
Linda Lewis always had a clear idea of what she wanted. Caroline Connell, who worked with her at Today’s Parent, could see the gears of her mind turning as she listened to art concepts. She’d say, “Yeah, that’s great, but I think it should be like this,” before presenting little sketches she’d just drawn during the discussion. “What do you think?” Lewis would ask. The staff teased her about her terrible drawings, but they always knew that what she came up with was good. “She would sort of pretend to entertain everyone else’s ideas,” says Connell, “but she pretty much had it figured out herself.”
Later, when Lewis had a chance to create a Canadian edition of More, an American lifestyle magazine, she knew what she wanted it to reflect: the looks, lives and desires of women 40 and over. When it launched in 2007, she wrote in her Letter from Linda: “You’ve reached middle age when all you exercise is caution. I read this sentence every day because it is written on my bathroom wall.” She admitted that although she was the first (and likely the last) person to purchase such kitschy wallpaper, she didn’t believe a word of it. Then 46, Lewis embraced her age—even if it meant having a muffin top around her waist, losing her glasses on top of her head or accidentally wearing two mismatched boots to the office.
For Lewis, who died of leukemia in July 2013, being an editor came naturally. Thanks to her open and honest relationship with readers, her perseverance to get the best stories and a good sense of humour, she led a successful career—even as the Canadian magazine industry faltered.
***
Lewis and her identical twin, Leora Eisen, were both bookworms growing up, even turning reading into a competition. “She read Anna Karenina and War and Peace first,” says Eisen. “So I had to read them.” They both went into journalism, though Lewis chose magazines while her sister became a TV documentary director. After completing her master’s degree at Syracuse University in New York in the mid-1980s, Lewis wrote for several of Canada’s top magazines, including Saturday Night, enRoute and Chatelaine. Although general interest publications had long been in trouble and no one was getting rich, there was still a lot of work for freelancers.
In 1993, Lewis joined Today’s Parent as managing editor. As a mother of two young children, she always had many story ideas, so former editor-in-chief Fran Fearnley, who wasn’t a parent, relied on Lewis’s judgment. It also didn’t hurt that she could write well. “She was an excellent writer, which isn’t always the case with every editor,” says Fearnley. “She had such a wonderful way of combining important commentary with a light touch and bringing in examples from her own life.”
When Lewis took over as editor in 1997, she wrote editorials about her own experiences as a mother. In “The Facade of Competence,” she discussed four then-recent events: First, “‘Mom’s a really good. . . uh. . . speller!’” she wrote. “When asked what they thought I was good at, this is the response my two bright and adoring children came up with. Yup. That’s it.” Second, when a dinner guest asked what her best dish was, Lewis just stared at him as she served cold leftovers made by the nanny. Third, after a friend said she rarely yelled at her kids, “Casey and Nikki are looking at her longingly; they probably want to trade mothers.” And fourth, after messing up carpool plans, Lewis admits: “I phoned Barb when I finally remembered at 11:21 a.m., and announced that I should be fired from my job at a parenting magazine.”
There was no danger of that. Today’s Parent flourished during Lewis’s nine years as editor-in-chief, which was all the more impressive given the upheaval in the industry at that time. A recession in the early ’90s hurt advertising sales, and then came the internet. It provided a platform for cheap, seemingly endless content tailored to specific demographics, unleashing new competitors like online magazines and blogs. Some print magazines failed while many struggled. But Today’s Parent had its niche and knew how to serve it, says D.B. Scott, a Canadian magazine blogger, consultant and president of Impresa Communications Ltd. The online threat was hard to ignore, so Today’s Parent filled its website with articles from the print edition as well as blogs, videos, contests and sponsored content.
Lewis also launched For Kids’ Sake, a program celebrating people making a difference in children’s lives. Each year, from 2004 to 2011, it awarded up to $10,000 to recipients and their charities. Ildiko Marshall, former group publisher and vice-president of the Today’s Parent Group at Rogers Publishing says, “The magazine was incredibly successful—she was a fabulous leader for the editorial.”
By 2006, it was time for a new challenge. At 45, her children now teenagers, Lewis became founding editor-in-chief of More Canada and asked senior editor Sarah Moore from Today’s Parent to join her. The magazine ran articles such as “This is What 52 Looks Like” and “More Beautiful at 40 Than at 20?” as well as pieces on everything from acne, weight and exercise to cosmetic surgery, menopause and cancer. Features celebrated women who were doing what they loved, making a difference and starting over. For example, “Bear Essentials” was about a woman who guided tourists through the polar bear habitat of Churchill, Manitoba, and “Church and Fate” profiled an editor who became an Anglican deacon. “It’s a lot about being comfortable in our own skin. We’ve lived a few years, know what we want and that’s a lot of what the magazine is about,” Lewis said in a 2008 interview on CTV. “I think it’s about accepting who you are and what you are doing and recognizing that there’s still a lot of living left to do.”
One of her favourite interviews was with Michaëlle Jean, and she later wrote about how much she liked and respected the Governor General—though she thought it was unprofessional to admit—because Jean was just like other women. In fact, Jean was late to the photoshoot and interview because she’d squeezed in much-needed time with friends. The two women hit it off and continued to write each other. Just before Lewis died, she received Jean’s last note.
At More, Lewis wrote openly about her life, weight (she was often accused of being too skinny), relationships, divorce, being a single parent of two teens and the ups and downs of getting older. In September 2008, she discussed meeting her readers. At a corporate luncheon one woman told her, “When I read your editorials, I feel like I’m sitting on the couch right next to you, chatting over a glass of wine.” On the subway, a woman next to her said, “Excuse me, are you Linda Lewis from More? I’m 46 and I totally get it.”
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When Lewis started at Today’s Parent, the magazine operated out of an old three-storey brick building in downtown Toronto. Editors worked from home, but when they came into the office, they perched wherever there was room; it was a fun and engaging space. At the time, Lewis was a busy wife and mother, but she never tired of work. Connell says Lewis’s mind was always on the magazine. It was not uncommon for her to assign pieces “absurdly far in advance” and she always finished ahead of deadline. She was also an insomniac, according to Connell. “She used to come back with manuscripts that she’d written her notes on, and say, ‘Yeah, I did that one at four in the morning because I couldn’t sleep.’”
Lewis also pushed her editors and writers to do their best work. Vanessa Craft, who was a beauty editor at More, says Lewis was open-minded when her staff came to her with ideas, but she also challenged their reasoning to ensure their suggestions were appropriate for the magazine. “Linda always put the readers first and made you view your ideas, your stories and editorials through their eyes,” says Craft. She often received comments such as “jargony and press release-y” on her drafts. Dan Bortolotti, who wrote for Today’s Parent and More, sometimes grumbled as Lewis sent him away to re-interview and rewrite, but could never deny that her feedback made his work better. He valued her ability to improve stories while still maintaining the writer’s voice.
Lewis was just as demanding at home, where she would dock her son Casey’s allowance for grammar mistakes on his homework. She also showed no mercy as a Scrabble player. Tim Pennock, Lewis’s boyfriend during the last four years of her life, admits that he never expected to win a game and he considers the few times he managed to stump her to be victories.
But Lewis was forgetful. It was not unusual for her to come to the office wearing jeans inside-out. Faith Cochran, More’s art director, says Lewis wasn’t big on formal meetings, so she was more likely to run from office to office as thoughts came to her. If she didn’t, the idea might have left her mind as quickly as it arrived.
When Lewis was away on medical leave due to cervical cancer in 2000, her staff picked up the slack. Bortolotti had never worked so hard, but he and his colleagues wanted to make her proud. It was a test for those in the “School of Linda,” a test he feels they passed thanks to her training. “Everything we do now,” says Craft, currently beauty director of Elle Canada, “is filtered through the ‘What would Linda do?’ lens.”
Although Lewis was driven and demanding, she certainly had a fun side. In 2009, she and photographer Laura Arsie travelled to New Zealand’s North Island together. They laughed as they struggled to kayak down Mohaka River and ride bicycles around Hawke’s Bay—although some of their troubles may have stemmed from enjoying the wineries a little too much. Arsie photographed all of their adventures, including one at a mud spa where Lewis encouraged her friend to take her photo as she lay covered head-to-toe in mud.
While in Barbados on vacation in 2012, Lewis and Pennock discovered a small café. When the owner noticed them, he showed them a National Post article on the wall: “The Worthy 30,” about the most influential women in Toronto. “It was her picture in a little pub in Barbados,” says Pennock. “I go, ‘Oh my god, you gotta be kidding me.’ You’d think she’d brought me there to show me the picture.” But when the owner told them the list’s author, Shinan Govani, was a regular customer, they realized it might be on the wall to honour him, not her—much to the humble Lewis’s relief.
“I always picture her looking up to the sun smiling,” says close friend Callie Maister. “Not that I’ve ever seen her do that, but it’s how I picture her.” It was always important to Lewis to maintain a close group of friends outside of work—not that it was difficult. People were drawn to her energy, humour and intelligence. Lewis and Eisen were “a pair of extremely bright girls, but so focused if they were writing or reading or discussing something; you could scream ‘Fire!’ in the room and they wouldn’t hear you,” says Maister. “But when Linda focused on you, you had absolutely all of her attention.”
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In November 2012, soon after being told she would have to take at least a year’s leave to treat acute myeloid leukemia, a representative from More’s parent company, TC Media, visited Lewis at home to inform her that, after a seven-year run, the December issue would be the last. There wasn’t enough advertising to sustain it. “Advertising support—that’s always what brings any magazine down,” says Moore. “It’s not circulation. People who adore it, buy it.”
Although More had a circulation of 120,000, it had launched right before the 2008 economic recession and was never able to generate the ad revenue it hoped for. TC Media was principally a printing company that, according to Scott, went into magazine publishing to keep its presses running. Eventually, the company ran out of patience. This wasn’t the first time: it closed Homemakers in 2011 (after downsizing it in 2003) and sold Canadian Home Workshop and Outdoor Canada in 2009.
Lewis had every intention of returning to More after beating cancer for the second time. “I was devastated,” Lewis told the Toronto Star. “But let’s prioritize here. I am mainly concerned for my staff.” Friend and CTV National News anchor Lisa LaFlamme remembers the sadness Lewis felt the day she emptied her desk in preparation for at least six months of chemotherapy: “She loved the magazine—the strength, what it gave to women,” LaFlamme says. “It spoke to women of an age on issues that you never talked about, that no other magazine talked about. She just hit them head on.”
In her December-January 2013 editorial, “Isn’t It Ironic?” she explained that she was a cervical cancer survivor and had been living with a blood disorder that developed into acute myeloid leukemia. Instead of wearing an evening gown and drinking cocktails during the holiday season, she would be wearing a hospital gown and ingesting three types of chemotherapy drugs. “She was a master at honesty and real-life raw truth,” says LaFlamme, “even during the worst parts of her life.”
She kept her readers, friends and family up to date with her running commentary under the Twitter handle
@LindaOnLeukemia, where she discussed “things that don’t suck.” Lewis used the platform to promote humorous or touching moments of her ordeal. “Got excited when Supertramp was playing. Then realized it was a Coke commercial. I am old,” read one tweet in May 2013. Another: “Some days are so, so tough. But not today. Today, my magnolia tree bloomed, my kids made me smile and I ate a massive Dufflet cupcake.”
Lewis rarely failed to see the upside of an unfortunate situation. In March 2010, Cochran, Lewis and six other friends travelled to Las Vegas expecting the warm, sunny weather they needed to shoot a summer fashion feature. Instead, a blizzard stole the sunshine and covered Red Rock Canyon in a chilly white blanket—not at all a summer scene. But they hunted down any spot of sun they could find and swept snow away from the shivering model. Cochran was stressed about getting the shots they needed, but Lewis —to her art director’s annoyance—was optimistic they’d get something they could use, even if it was only a funny editorial.
Later that day, the sun came out and melted the snow, so they went home with a summer shot—and a funny editorial called “What Happened in Vegas.”
My mother has always told me that I should do whatever possible to be a voice for the disabled community. At one of my lowest points on my journey to self-acceptance, she made me attend a leadership conference with the hope of building my confidence. While there, I reconnected with my childhood friend Chantelle Fogarty-Griswold. Chantelle would love to be a voice for people with disabilities, but the speech delay caused by her type of cerebral palsy (CP) makes this challenging. My CP doesn’t affect my voice, but I’ve never been one for public speaking. Instead, I decided I would write. In journalism school, professors advised us to write what we know. And throughout my time at Ryerson I’ve taken the opportunity to write multiple stories about what I know best: disability.
It’s difficult for stories about minorities, such as those focusing on people with disabilities, to be heard in the daily news cycle. When stories are published, these people are often depicted inaccurately. This becomes detrimental when you consider the power journalism has to inspire understanding and change. But recently, there’s been progress. Journalists at major Canadian newspapers such as The Globe and Mail and Toronto Star are becoming increasingly intrigued by disability-related stories and are being conscious of how they’re telling them.
Language is crucial for the disabled community. “The words cripple and crippled are offensive to the disabled and also too vague to be useful,” states the ninth and latest edition of The Globe and Mail Style Book. “If we must use a vague term, make it disabled.” As good as this is, it’s ironic because the guide also cautions against such generalizations such as “the disabled” or “the deaf.”
Toronto Star public editor, Kathy English, said in an email that the latest Star style guide, last researched and updated in 2010, encourages the idea that “a person is an individual first” and should not be reduced to just their disability. These ideals are good to know, but Sylvia Stead, public editor at the Globe, summed it up best in an email: “Ideally, word usage should be based on knowledge of the subject and also asking the person being interviewed how they would want to be described,” she wrote. “It’s important to stay current in terms of language usage, but also to listen to the individual.”
This is something that Tavia Grant aimed to do while working on a recent feature for the Globe’s Report on Business about the employability of those with disabilities. The piece was originally intended to be a short weekday feature after she attended the February 11 Rethinking Disability Conference hosted by the Ontario Disability Employment Network. “But I happen to have a great editor that thought, first of all, that it was a business story and gave it that prominence,” Grant says. Since she’s not a health or social issues reporter, she did her research and took her language cues from her sources. She admits it was a learning curve and although she still may have made a few mistakes, she was quite mindful of her work and tried to build awareness without perpetuating stereotypes.
Andrea Gordon, a Life reporter at the Star, often writes about developmental disabilities. She says that she sort of fell in to the beat over the years as one story about children’s mental health led to another. Since then, she has developed a passion for the bringing these stories to light. “I guess what I’m attempting to do is to provide a voice and present a perspective that maybe that isn’t often heard.” Gordon says the best way to accomplish this is to let the source’s voice drive the story. But she also tries to be mindful of language. “People get upset when they see too much use of the phrase ‘autistic child,’ ‘autistic person,’ versus a ‘person with autism;’ that kind of language people are really sensitive to,” she explains. “So you try to be respectful of that but, at the same time, there are only so many words, there are decks and headlines, and sometimes people take shortcuts and it’s out of my control.”
One of the challenges for journalists writing about a developmental disability—particularly with people who are nonverbal or unable to communicate with the written word—is the reliance on parents or caregivers. Though most parents know their child best “you still have to be sensitive to the fact that this is still one step removed,” says Gordon. That’s why it’s important to hear from those who can speak for themselves. “But there aren’t a lot of those people so maybe we need to look harder for them,” she continues.
Writer and activist Melissa Graham uses her blog Bitch on Wheels to make sure her voice is heard on matters affecting people with disabilities. On February 7, in reaction to the discussion of legalizing assisted suicide, she wrote, “Ableism, not assisted suicide, is what we need to work against.” Graham would like to see more people with disabilities writing stories. She often gets asked to speak about not just the experiences of her own disability, but disabilities in general. “I can’t speak for everyone and some journalists understand that better than others,” she says. “Some media outlets are more progressive than others, and it’s easier to get that message across.”
There are some journalists with disabilities who won’t report on disabilities because they don’t want to be branded as a one-beat reporter. While I respect this, I have no qualms about covering disability-related stories. In fact, I’ve began freelancing for Holland Bloorview’s BLOOM, a magazine for parents of disabled children. My goal is to use my knowledge and abilities to provide awareness and understanding of an often-overlooked and misunderstood community by writing what I know.
Jessica Geboers 