Years ago, a misguided work talk focused on structuring your day like a CEO for maximum efficiency.
The speaker’s advice focused on what you do in the first few hours and how you can set yourself up for success.
He seemed to suggest that all you had to do was wake right, breakfast right, stretch right and the world was yours. His advice seemed to have not made much contact with reality.
We dismissed him but it sparked a discussion about our morning routines.
“Oh my god! You have to shave him!”
Most colleagues already knew Elliott’s care needs meant my days started early with washing, feeding, dressing and toileting him before work.
Not a parental role
But the fact that I have to shave my 20-year-old son each morning was what caused gasps of astonishment.
Perhaps it was because shaving your child is something that most parents never have to do.
Every parent has changed their child, fed them or wiped a messy bottom. But those days of parental personal care are long gone by the time shaving becomes part of the routine.
Shaving is the hairiest of issues when it comes to Elliott’s personal care. Elliott is blessed with his 6’6″ in height from me and his thick, dark, fast-growing Iberian hair from his mother. While this makes him the definition of a tall, dark, handsome stranger, it also makes it difficult to control his face fuzz.
The situation is exacerbated by the fact that Elliott finds the act of shaving unsettling at best, distressing in the main and terrifying at worst.
It’s not just electric shavers; all personal care faces resistance. Teeth are brushed briefly and nails clipped while he is asleep – but shaving is the hardest.
Over the years, we have developed a complicated choreography that guides our morning shearing.
After his shower, I take the shaver. Attempts to have Elliott hold it ended when he tried to shave his tongue.
So, instead of Elliott holding the shaver, he holds my arm. Hard. Some days, he allows me to move my arm towards him. Some days, he holds me at an arm’s length so long a falcon could comfortably land there.
Eventually, Elliott indicates he’s ready and directs the shaver to his right cheek – the easy side, usually done in under a minute..
Then the dance begins.
All personal care faces resistance. Teeth are brushed briefly and nails clipped while he is asleep – but shaving is the hardest
Elliott hates having his left side shaved. He hitches his shoulder up to evade me. He pushes my arm away after the briefest of strokes. He steps back. And to the left. And back. And to the left.
So we go around and around in a circle. For 20 minutes, we circle each other in a barbershop ballet.
They say Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did but backwards and in heels. Well, I think the dance I do with Elliott is equally impressive.
If all of this sounds a faintly ridiculous way to begin each day, believe me it feels it.
We’ve tried all sorts of different ways to solve this problem but, each time, we default back to me and my adult son twirling his stubble away.
And, as silly as this situation is, the truth is that I’m the only one who knows the steps to this dance.
I was recently lucky enough to go on holiday for two weeks. I returned to find that he hadn’t let his mum shave him at all and now resembled some kind of wild beast.
It took nearly six hours over the following days to pare back the Brian Blessed-style beard that had sprung up.
In truth, there are probably hundreds of routines like this that we have developed as Elliott’s carers.
Strange ways of doing simple tasks that mean it takes 10 times longer but is the only way to get the job done.
And, while none of them might be how a CEO starts their day, they are the only way to set Elliott’s day up for success.
