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Can I Refuse to Care for an Elderly Parent?

Can I Refuse to Care for an Elderly Parent?

by External Article | Jan 16, 2023 | Caring for a Parent | 0 comments

Caring for our parents as they age seems like the obvious way to repay them. Yet, some people ask: Can I refuse to care for an elderly parent? The question isn’t as surprising as it might seem. After all, providing care is no small task. It can be draining both...
Living with My Mother’s Mental Illness

Living with My Mother’s Mental Illness

by External Article | Aug 15, 2020 | Care Work Library, Caring for a Parent, Millennial Generation | 1 comment

For my whole life I have lived in a family where transparency about my mother and her illness was elusive to us all. We’ve all managed to say so much about so little over the years–my mother has struggled with mental health issues her whole life, but we...
What obligation do we owe our shitty fathers as they age?

What obligation do we owe our shitty fathers as they age?

by External Article | Mar 22, 2020 | Care Work Library, Caring for a Parent, Millennial Generation | 1 comment

They may have been monsters when we were growing up. But now they’re old, frail and not long for this world. Is it best to care for them — or ourselves? Nat, a 34-year-old non-binary New Zealander, describes their father as a “world-class shitty dad.” However, now...
After His Mother Died, Adam Smith Found The Secret in the Freezer

After His Mother Died, Adam Smith Found The Secret in the Freezer

by External Article | Sep 25, 2019 | Care Work Library, Caring for a Parent, Generation X, Grief | 0 comments

It’s hard for Adam Smith, 37, to say whether Barbara had been a good mother. Growing up, he and his sister Susan always had food on the table, a roof over their heads. Still, he says, she’d always had a mean streak and regularly belittled him for no cause....
A Gift? I’d Return My Mom’s Alzheimer’s If I Could

A Gift? I’d Return My Mom’s Alzheimer’s If I Could

by External Article | Apr 11, 2019 | Baby Boom Generation, Care Work Library, Caring for a Parent, Long Term Caregiving, Sandwich Generation | 0 comments

Though not technically estranged, our relationship was tenuous at best, stitched together only by threads of my guilt and desire not to be someone who had no contact with her mother. She had driven my father, my sister, her siblings and her friends away decades ago....
Lost Cause: On Estrangement and Chosen Family

Lost Cause: On Estrangement and Chosen Family

by External Article | May 10, 2018 | Care Work Library, Caring for a Grandparent, Millennial Generation | 0 comments

I think I’m supposed to feel badly that my grandmother doesn’t always recognize me, but I don’t. That’s nothing new. I made her cry in the middle of Back to School Night my senior year of high school, when she said, “You aren’t gay, are you?” Now, to protect...
The Undeserving Parent

The Undeserving Parent

by External Article | Oct 20, 2011 | Care Work Library, Caring for a Parent | 0 comments

[Her mother] hit Wendy when she was a teenager who stumbled at night and awakened her. She hit Wendy when she was a bride-to-be trying on wedding gowns. “To this day, when she hears something she doesn’t like, she still says, ‘I’ll smack you,’” Wendy told me in an...
They can’t go home again

They can’t go home again

by External Article | Dec 1, 2010 | Care Work Library, Caring for a Parent | 0 comments

Few subjects generate as much contention and heartache hereabouts as siblings and the role they play, or don’t play, in caring for aging parents. Which led me to wonder: What about those absent children? What’s the view from their side of the divide? In Ms. Barnes’s...
Suicide is desperate. It is hostile. It is tragic. But mostly, it is a bloody mess.

Suicide is desperate. It is hostile. It is tragic. But mostly, it is a bloody mess.

by External Article | May 19, 1996 | Care Work Library, Caring for a Parent, Death & Dying, Grief | 0 comments

I made many choices that night; some were smart, some stupid, some crazy. I believed, deep down, my father would indeed kill himself, sooner or later; I knew my mother was in danger [H]e knelt on the floor, put the barrel of a .22 rifle in his mouth, and squeezed the...

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