His First Kid Was 89 Years Old

Mark Steven Porro was a carefree LA bachelor — never married, no kids — when his mother stopped eating at 89 and hospice was called in. He moved from Los Angeles into the New Jersey house he grew up in and became a first-time parent at 55, to his own mother. A Cup of Tea on the Commode came out of that, and he’s now eighty percent through his second book, Slightly Unsalted, about his father.

Jo and Mark get into the rituals he invented to give her back her dignity, what an actor’s training is actually good for, and the trip to a 200-person village in southern Italy that started the whole thing.

Key Moments

• Day of Beauty — the wardrobe, the nails, and parking her in front of the mirror to ask ‘Who is this pretty girl?’

• She forgot his name, so he taped it to the ceiling in block letters where she’d look up and find it

• The night he lost his temper, turned off the light, and came back to a clean plate

• Sixteen days in Italy with his dying father, and a photograph of a man knocking on his own father’s door

The Takeaway
It sounds like he went back and rescued his mother. Looking at it again, he thinks she rescued him — one last teaching moment, handing him the most important thing he’d ever do.

To watch on YouTube, click here. To listen on CastBox.fm, click here. To listen on Apple podcasts, click here.

If you yearn to learn more about Mark Steven Porro’s multi-award-winning memoir, click here. 

To purchase A Cup of Tea on the Commode, click here. You’ll laugh out loud. You’ll cry out loud. (Sorry for the crying part).

#Humor #Memoir #eldercare #acupofteaonthecommode #whatskrackenpodcast