by External Article | Jul 23, 2021 | Care Work Library, Caring for a Parent, Long Distance Caregiving, Long Term Caregiving, Millennial Generation |
My older sister and I eventually decided to involve our aunt to help figure out a way to save her. We got together, talked about it, and approached my mother – she was barely responsive to us, so we decided we would get help for her regardless. The next day, my mother... 
by External Article | Jan 18, 2020 | Care Work Library, Caregiving Relationships, Finding Meaning, For Friends & Family |
Have you ever felt helpless trying to help a loved one? We know the stories: the alcoholic mother/brother/friend who keeps getting in trouble. The father who has been borrowing money from his adult children with the intent to pay it back but never following through.... 
by Guest Author | Nov 5, 2019 | Caregiver Stories, Caring for a Parent, Finding Meaning |
There is a song we often sing in my community ‘Be gentle with yourself, my friend, my friend/ Be gentle with yourself my friend’ My father has been an alcoholic absentee parent for most of my life but I have always denied any lack of ‘normalcy’ in my life. I have, in... 
by External Article | Sep 30, 2019 | Care Work Library, Caring for a Friend, Caring for a Parent, Death & Dying, Generation X, Long Distance Caregiving, Occasional Caregiving |
No one ever uses the word dying, even if it’s the correct word to use. We think this denial of the obvious, of the facts, is for Hannah’s benefit—if we refuse to see how bad it is then maybe she won’t see it either. But no one sees it or feels it more clearly than... 
by External Article | Sep 25, 2019 | Care Work Library, Caring for a Parent, Generation X, Grief |
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.... 
by External Article | Jun 13, 2018 | Art, Care Work Library, Caring for a Parent, Grief, Millennial Generation |
I didn’t know how to communicate with him, and so the easiest thing to do was to not communicate with him. It was a way to protect myself emotionally from having a parent that was really entrenched in alcoholism and drug use. I was already struggling with my own... 
by External Article | May 11, 2018 | Baby Boom Generation, Care Work Library, Caring for a Parent, Long Distance Caregiving, Occasional Caregiving |
A year after rehab, Jamie Brickhouse is struggling with a relapse as his mother starts to deteriorate. Normally she’s so put together, but during his parents visit to see him in NYC, it’s clear that she’s not herself anymore. After police encounters... 
by External Article | Aug 28, 2017 | After Caregiving, Care Work Library, Caring for a Sibling, Grief, Occasional Caregiving |
My older brother, Bill, had lit himself on fire in front of the Veteran’s Hospital where he was being treated for a damaged knee sustained when parachuting in Panama during our “War on Drugs.” He was also being treated for alcoholism, and diagnosed with PTSD. For... 
by External Article | Jun 12, 2017 | Care Work Library, Caring for a Parent, Generation X, Grief, Occasional Caregiving |
Nearly a decade after my father died, his last wife decided it was time to deal with his papers. Winnefred had had a stroke not long before she and my dad met, so soon he became her lover and live-in caretaker. He guided her walker around the Safeway while they... 
by External Article | Dec 1, 2016 | 24/7 Caregiving, Care Work Library, Caregiver Burnout, Caring for a Child, Caring for a Client, Caring for a Sibling, Death & Dying, Finding Caregiver Support, Housing, Long Term Caregiving, Millennial Generation, The Paid Perspective |
A family and their home health aids tells the story of their brother (and son) jumping off his balcony and sustaining a TBI. They’ll never know what caused him to do it. What happens next? What choices did they have to make about his care? How do they keep him... 
by External Article | Jul 12, 2013 | Baby Boom Generation, Care Work Library, Caregiver Stories, Caregiving Relationships, Caring for a Parent, Housing, Long Term Caregiving, Reviews, Sandwich Generation |
A decade ago, after my father had a stroke and was hospitalized a few blocks from me, my mother suggested that she might want to stay with me overnight. Since she lived all of half an hour away and we had been semi-estranged for years, I told her I thought that would... 
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