“Are You Guys Trying?”
A candid conversation about family planning with one of Instagram’s most joyful caregivers.
When Patti LaFleur took her mother, Linda, to Disneyland in February 2022, she didn’t know it would be their last trip together. A month later, her mom died.
“The whole thing went very fast,” Patti tells me over Zoom. “I called hospice on a Monday to have an evaluation—and then she passed the following Monday.”
Her mom had been diagnosed with mixed dementia eight years earlier, and Patti, a former kindergarten teacher, was her full-time caregiver for the last two-and-a-half years of her life. She chronicled their time together on Instagram, sharing videos of her mother giggling, dancing and doing crafts, and amassed a following of caretakers hungry for her brand of positivity.
I spoke to Patti, who lives in Washington state, late last year, not long after her 36th birthday, to discuss life after caregiving. We wound up talking a lot about family planning (so if you’re a kid-free caregiver over the age of 35 like I am, consider this your trigger warning). Below is an edited and condensed version of our conversation.
I’m sorry about your mom’s passing. How are you doing today?
Today is a good day, but that’s part of grief, right? There are days that are impossible—there are days that are just as hard as the day she passed—and then there are days where I feel like I’m still connected to her in such beautiful ways. I’m allowing myself a lot of time to process and grieve and prioritize myself.
How are you feeling, identity-wise? You left your job as a kindergarten teacher to care for your mom, and now that your mom is no longer here, you’ve said you’re struggling to find your purpose.
I’m one of those people who closely identifies with their career, so I identified as a kindergarten teacher for 10 years. I was like, “This is me.” And obviously things changed. I tried to do teaching and caregiving [at the same time], and it was impossible. I was giving 75% to both, and that’s just not a way you can live. So I quit and became a caregiver. And even though I grieved the loss of being a kindergarten teacher, I blossomed in that care partner role—I fully invested in it. And now I really don’t know what’s next.
I don’t necessarily want to be a caregiver for someone else that isn’t family, but I want to be a caregiving champion or advocate.
You mentioned your husband. What was his response to your mom moving into your home? I’m always curious how caregiving impacts couples, younger ones especially.
It was actually my husband’s idea to move my mom in! And by moving her in, he knew our relationship was going to look different. It was going to take some sort of a back seat to this caregiver role. He had lost his dad a few years before we got married, and he would have done anything to have had more time with his dad, so it was just so important to him that I had that time with my mom.
That’s really sweet.
The thing that became more complicated for our relationship was after she passed. He kind of thought things were going to go back to the way they were pre-caregiving, and they didn’t. My coping mechanism, especially in the first couple of months, was avoidance. I was constantly traveling. I was like, “I just need to get out of here.” Everything in my house reminded me of my mom. But he had this image that [my mom’s passing] meant we were going to go back to the way things were. Also, I didn’t recognize—because I was grieving so deeply—that he was grieving my mom, too. He loved her.
How has the experience impacted your family planning, if at all?
My husband and I wanted to start a family when we got married four years ago. That was our plan. But then a year into our marriage is when I really started caregiving full-time, and so I just didn’t have time to really think about it. And then I was too stressed. My body was like, “Uh-uh, that’s not happening. You can pick one or the other: Care for your mom or have a baby.”
And now?
I haven’t been totally feeling ready to start a family because of the deep loss I’m feeling and where I’m at emotionally, and that’s where things have gotten complicated. I wouldn’t say my husband is mad or angry or upset. But he’s feeling our age (we’re 36), and 75% of our friends have kids. We’re kind of the last of our core group that doesn’t have kids. And so the questions are starting again, like, “Oh, when are you guys gonna have kids? Are you trying?”
I just go back and forth on wanting kids, you know? Which isn’t fair, because I always did want kids, and you marry someone that has that same opinion as you. But I also just don’t have any interest in being pregnant at this point.
I think that’s really important to admit…
My husband was so supportive. I could not imagine him being more supportive. But just because he was supportive doesn’t mean that 95% of the caregiving didn’t land on me. He helped in any way he could, but he also couldn’t do certain things. He wasn’t going to shower my mom, and that’s okay. He wasn’t going to wake up with her every night. He wasn’t going to get her dressed.
If I wanted to go spend time with friends he would hang out with her, but there was always the time-frame, because I had to get her ready for bed. He was great, but he wasn’t doing it all, and that’s a little bit how I feel about pregnancy.
He’s going to be such a great dad, but he’s not the one that has to be pregnant, he’s not the one who’s going to have to change his life in the same way. He doesn’t have to breastfeed.
The older I get, the more I worry that, if I ever have a kid, I’d be putting them in a position where they end up as a younger caregiver, too—and I don’t want that for them.
I know, I think about that a lot, too. It’s funny because my husband’s on the opposite end. He’s like, “If we don’t have kids, who’s gonna help us?” And I’m like, “We’re just going to have to save our money and pay someone.” I don’t want my kid to help me if it’s going to totally disrupt their life and that’s not the relationship we have.
With my mom, we had an amazing relationship. She was truly my best friend—and I just had to have my best friend live with me.
Let’s talk about some of your goals for this next year, which will hopefully be a better one for you.
Oh yeah, 35 was terrible. I think that my goal this year is to really come to more of an understanding of what’s next for us as far as having a family. That doesn’t mean that I have to have a baby or get pregnant this year; it just means that we have to decide, “Are we going to or not?”
I’d also love to figure out other places to share my voice and continue my advocacy.
You’re still so active on Instagram. How did you decide how much of your mom to share on social media?
When I first started sharing about my mom on social media, I didn't even mean to. It’s my personal Instagram. I don't have “Miss Dementia Person,” you know what I mean? It’s “MissPattiCake.” I’ve had [that handle] since I was 23. I was just sharing my life, and my life had become being a caregiver.
If I had to pick one reason why I share my story, it’s really to change the stigma around dementia. I think that the more people that see the joy in dementia, the less scary it becomes when you get that diagnosis.
I would often get asked, especially in the beginning, “Why are you showing those videos? Your mom can’t consent to that.” And I’m like, “Here’s the thing: I know my mom. Yes, she consents to it. She would want this. If she knew it was going to help change the stigma of dementia—which it is—she would be 100 percent okay with it.” And that, to me, is how I honor my mom.
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