You are not the boss of me

Don’t you just love it when you hear those words, “You’re not the boss of me!” While we usually think of them in relation to our toddlers or teens, I’ve heard them lately from two sources: a middle aged person (to his spouse) and an elder (to their child).

Happens to be true, you know. Think about our children, from birth, through the toddler years, to pre-teen and teen. When can we possibly think we’re the boss of them?

Not in those first few weeks after birth – those new little ones are clearly the boss of us, waking us from sound sleep, demanding to be fed, changed or just cuddled.

Certainly not during the toddler years when we find ourselves challenged by the simplest things (“wear your coat for Pete’s sake – it’s snowing” – “eat at least ONE pea!”). We negotiate, we beg, we yell a little, too, and usually end up resorting to bribery of some sort, despite our intentions never to stoop to that level in our parenting.

Anyone who has imagined they’re the boss of their teen children has been sorely tested, and likely battered and bruised in the process, too. Lock them down, and they’ll find a way to escape. Try to control who they talk to, and they’ll just hide their friends from you.

When our kids finally arrive at the “adult” years (I put that in quotes, because most of the people I know are still supporting in real, tangible ways our grown kids), we sort of sigh, and think, “I’ve done my best – my parenting is over.” But of course, it isn’t. Our kids call with adult challenges, crises and questions. We juggle and balance like high-wire circus performers, trying to answer their questions without being the over-bearing “mom who won’t let go.” Again, we hear, if only in the back of our own heads, “You’re not the boss of me!”

And then we arrive at that point we just didn’t see coming (or were in denial about): the time when our parents need us to re-engage in their lives. Only this time, instead of them giving us advice, we’re giving them advice. We’re helping them navigate complex health care issues, deciding what housing options make sense for them (and for us, of course), and starting to fill the gaps of a rapidly thinning social circle of companionship.

Sometimes we get confused and think that now, we’re the boss of our parents.

A couple of days ago a woman shared her story with me about having to take her husband’s car keys away from him. He is furious with her. She’s guilty, angry, distressed and frustrated. Her husband’s Alzheimer’s is so far advanced that he simply can no longer safely drive – as his two recent accidents proved to everyone but him (and his doctor, who refused to “get involved.”)

Her husband blurted out to her in anger last week, “YOU ARE NOT THE BOSS OF ME!”

To which she replied, “No, but I am the boss of that car. I am the one who pays the insurance. I am the one who will have to clean up the blood from the people you hit. You are NOT DRIVING THE CAR!”

There’s no easy way to make this tough transition but to muscle through, much like some of life’s earlier transitions. We talk calmly – or shout loudly – but we keep on communicating. We keep saying, “I love you. I will be here for you. I will help you. But I won’t let you hurt someone else or get hurt yourself, if there is any way I can help it.”

And we know, as we’ve known all along, that we are not the boss of them. We’re just doing the very best we can, as our roles shift, our responsibilities change – once again – and we find a new balancing point in our lives.

Caregiver Courage

Straight talk from a caregiver about guilt, fatigue, even the feeling that you wish your loved one would hurry up and die – these are the kinds of stories that I discovered in a blog I happened across this morning.

Dyingtohelp.com is a blog written by Lois Kelly about her caregiving experience for her dying mother. It’s written with love and humor; it definitely touched some of my own caregiving nerves.

Here’s one entry I love: “Big “C” and small “c” caregiver courage.”  Ms. Kelly describes the kind of courage we see on TV with the rescue of a small boy from open water: “…screams of victory. Women and men crying. Dogs barking. The parents heaving, gulping frigid sobs as the EMTs wrap the boy in a silver space blanket, lift him in their arms and run to the ambulance.”

On the other hand, there’s caregiver courage – the kind that doesn’t make the evening news. Kelly describes it this way:

“The day-in, day-out caring for someone who is sick is courage, too, but small “c” courage. There’s no glamour. No big momentous event. No crowds cheering you on, slapping you on the back after you help the person you love inch his or her way into the bathroom at 3 a.m. Waiting outside the bathroom door, ready to help the person slowly, slowly get back into bed. This courage won’t make the six o’clock news. It won’t win special awards or recognition. It won’t even deserve a conversation when people check in with you tomorrow.”

Caregiver courage doesn’t get the recognition that big-screen courage gets. But at the end of the day, as Kelly says,

“This small “c” courage is Love. Love with a capital ‘L.’”

Top 10 reasons for in-home care

If you could choose, where would you live?

Right now, I’m thinking someplace warm and sunny. A little warm water lapping on a sandy beach wouldn’t hurt, either. Maybe a hammock, a good book or two, a very light and fruity umbrella drink…that sounds pretty good to me!

But where would you live if you needed a little help? Would you rush into the nearest neighborhood nursing home? Would you sell everything and move out of your home as quickly as possible?

Not likely. More likely, you’d start looking for help to come to you. You’d look for options that would allow you to keep your dignity, your independence, your privacy as long as possible.

Today, more and more seniors and people with disabilities are looking at home care as the option they’d prefer – for life.

A great website, Ourparents.com, provides resources for in home care as well as an easy to use facility finder. They list the “Top ten reasons why baby boomers want to age in place” as including:

1) It allows you the most freedom in the least restrictive environment, something of high value to baby boomers (like me).

2) Its safe. Your home is one of the safest places, in terms of exposure to infectious diseases. Most homes can be made even safer with minor modifications to reduce stairs or add grab bars.

3) Healing and quality of life are important to baby boomers – and we truly believe that “there’s no place like home.”

4) Control, control, control. Baby boomers do love to be in control.

5) Personalization and one-on-one care – after all, for baby boomers, “it’s all about me” – right?!

6) Comfort. My home reflects what is comfortable to me – my favorite chair, my books, my hobbies and my “stuff.”

7) Aging is place has demonstrated effect on healthier, happier aging.

8) Staying in your own community – in your own neighborhood – help you retain roots that baby boomers value.

9) Technology – it’s a word we boomers love. We invented the internet, after all, not to mention the microwave and much of the other technology today’s generation takes for granted. Technology today is all about supporting a person to stay in their own homes as long as they choose to do so. Baby boomers can be expected to embrace this new technology.

10) We fear the loss of independence – almost more than we fear death itself. As baby boomers, we fear this loss for our parents, too.

These are ten great reasons that we will continue to prefer care in our own homes. But at the end of the day, we probably only need one: its home.


Did you know that your long term care insurance policy most likely covers the cost of caregiver training? Did you know that you (or a family member or paid caregiver) can get certified as a Personal Care Aide 100% online using the Institute for Professional Care Education’s e-learning course? Check it out at www.IPCed.com or call us at 877-843-8374.

Mel Gibson: The mission: leave something

Don’t you just love that we’re all getting older? Celebrities over 50 are no longer the rarity; even some of those considered extreme “hotties” are aging, just like us.

Take Mel Gibson, for example. The handsome leading guy is now a well-seasoned 54 years old. I remember 15 or so years ago when Mel was the heartthrob of the Lethal Weapons movie franchise, one of my favorite little restaurants in California had Gibson’s photo on the back side of their table-top wine list. We’d read the wine list and turn it around to gaze on his face, whenever we’d go there for lunch. One day I asked the manager, “Why the photo of Mel? Does he have something to do with this place?”

“Not at all,” was the reply. “We just liked the photo.”

Recently Gibson was interviewed for his new movie, “Edge of Darkness,” a story about a father seeking revenge for his daughter’s death.

When asked about his age, Gibson replied, “This journey is more than half over. I’m way past the halfway mark. It’s kind of scary. And you ask yourself, ‘What the hell have I really done? What I have I accomplished?’ And it seems pretty puny…we’re all so transient. The mission is leave something.” (Reported by Geoff Boucher, McClatchy-Tribune, Jan. 28, 2010).

Yes, indeed. The mission is to leave something. It seems like the older we get – the farther past that halfway mark we travel – the more this mission seems to take on urgency. It’s time to take stock. It’s time to think about what we’re leaving behind.

Maybe that’s why so many of us find new passions in our past-halfway years. We start new businesses that follow our passions, rather our business sense. We volunteer; we organize; we reach out.

Consciously or unconsciously, we’re fulfilling our greatest mission: leave something.

Thanks, Mel, for the thought.

And thanks, too, for getting old right along with the rest of us.