I disagree. It's a way to talk about fear which is not a little thing. We're all afraid. We're humans. It's a great skill, to be afraid, because it allows us to avoid so many dangers. There's no shame in being a human. :-)
The point is the father is afraid to die. And he's coping with it by spending a lot of energy thinking about other things that he thinks he can control. He simply factually wrong in this case but the work effort, the strength that he's exerting is admirable. He's got his list, it's 10 things, he's organized $10,000, he says he's thought about this, "a million times".
I think it's actually pretty useful and helpful as an article. A cautionary tale in some ways. Plus it seems factual.
They are not saying that the father is little, or belittled. They're saying that the father's perspective is rigid. And that it causes external problems when changes happen around that father.
Q: Am I overlooking something in the article? Did they actually say, "my father is worthless etc etc?"
Eg When the daughter needs to talk about the part of her identity that she's been hiding for decades, the father doesn't want to hold that conversation, which proves to be an insurmountable amount of distress for the daughter as she needs support, so she has to separate. And This rigid rejection is because of the issues that are discussed in the article.
In a way it's interesting to see how a functioning family can fall apart. In that way it's a cautionary tale: Don't expect the way that you relate to your father or your father relates to you will remain a stable constant throughout their lives. People change.
Fear of death is pretty distracting and devastating for many.
How is he belittling his father? The piece is incredibly emphatic to his father.
If anything, the author’s fault is agreeing with his father too much, to the possible exclusion of the rest of his family. I doubt his sister and mother will let him hang out in the middle ground forever.
This is playing out in a whole lot of families, and has been for some years. Collective recognition of this illness, an understanding that we’re not alone in struggling with it, reflections on how to cope with or reverse it or at least eke out a few decent moments with these once-normal people (even if it’s just things that didn’t work) are very much needed.
I imagine the story is likely accurate (conservative father adopts increasingly bizarre right-wing conspiracy theories and family becomes alienated - is it dementia or something else?) and it also may fit NPR's editorial angle. To me it does seem like something of an invasion of privacy, particularly if it was published without permission.
