What Happens When High Priestess of the Holidays Falls off her Throne?

December 13, 2021

Mothers are the high priestess of the ritual- like Queen Elizabeth without servants.

This sets up a filial crisis as women age. The UK estimated that there are 25 to-do’s women have on the holiday. It takes years to accumulate objects ritual dishes and religious objects used. It takes the left side of your brain executive skills, plans and organize, remember details, does things based on your experience. This eventually leads to a filial crisis and passing the torch.

Holidays are often done on autopilot

Women as they age –recalling all the jobs that must be done year after year get worn down in their assigned role as ” Mothers are the high priestess of the ritual.”

It also takes their IADLs- (Instrumental Activities of Daily Living) meal planning, shopping, plus ambulation. Then add depression – widowhood, loss and you have the challenges of aging in managing these entire titanic rituals mothers are assigned by society. Many times the aging Mom can no longer balance all these plates and the holidays shatter with the crashing ritual dishes.

When Mom Cannot do all the Holiday Preparation a Filial Crisis Occurs

Then the torch has to be passed and an adult child (usually an adult daughter must take over to resolve this filial crisis. This passing the torch is like secession, – Princess Elizabeth taking over for her Dad, King George, (who hated it and had a lifelong stutter) made famous in The King’s Speech who was handed the throne by his brother Edward who quit being king.

WhenMom needs to Pass the Torch-Some Baby Boomers Kids Shocked

Baby boomer-adult children and aging parents are unprepared by their own culture for this new developmental phase of passing the torch. They do not expect it as they did

the nights of the crying newborn or the rebellious teen, and are thrown off balance by the sometimes sudden and usually unexpected loss of their anchoring aging parents, when they find elderly mom is unable to pull off running the holidays Indeed, what must happen in this new developmental phase is that the adult child must evolve beyond the needy child, he or she has been, depending on his or her parents for that fiscal, emotional, social support and ritual organizing parents, like managing the officiating over the Christmas or Hanukkah celebration and take on filial responsibility to avoid a filial crisis.

Geriatric Care Manager to the Rescue

In the normal healthy family system this filial crisis of Holiday rituals can be overcome and the adult children with the brief help of an aging life or geriatric care manager they can let go of their former dependent roles and confront their parent’s loss by organizing and providing care. They can take over Christmas and Hanukkah by stepping in and grabbing that torch.

Geriatric care managers understand that the adult child must transition to what social work pioneer Margaret Blenkner labeled the filial crisis to filial maturity or a new mature state where they, as midlife adults, can give up their former roles as dependent, needy children and start to provide care to their old/old parents.

Dysfunctional Family Do Not Want to Take Over for Mom

In the dysfunctional aging family, this filial crisis is incredibly hard to trounce from both the parents’ and the adult child’s point of view. They really need a geriatric care manager’s services

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10 Do’s &Don’ts Doing the Dysfunctional Family Calls Post Holidays

November 26, 2021

Most Calls for Care Managers Post Holidays

More than half of the aging families who call you inquiring about services will be dysfunctional families post-holidays. The great majority of calls will come from adult children. If you want to make the sale during the inquiry you have to know how to handle these dysfunctional family members on the phone and give them enough trust in you to sign your contract and give you a deposit for your services.

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How Do You Get Them To Trust You Enough to Sign Contract with Dysfunctional family Post holidays?

Do Be Objective
Do Use Active Listening
Do Give them Hope you can solve their family problem
Do a two-part inquiry and have the problem defined in the first part done by a skilled administrative Assistant
Do study the problem before you do the second call and have exactly how you would solve the problem ready in a planned elevator speech
Do a complimentary 30-minute consultation
Do not give away the store but outline how you are an expert at solving the problems (moving, keeping at home, Alzheimer’s wandering and a bare outline of your solution
Do not criticize dysfunctional family post-holidays
Do not blame,
Do not take sides if several family members points of view and express them

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How Storytelling Can Give Elders A Happier Family Thanksgiving

November 22, 2021

Want to increase aging parents’ and everyone’s enjoyment at Thanksgiving? Try storytelling at Thanksgiving using elders’ memories.

As an aging professional, you can bring joy to an older person through reminiscence, storytelling, and oral history for elders

This Thanksgiving, if you really do travel to a family home or grandma’s house, travel safely If not make the safest choice, stay home and use Zoom and include your elderly

parent. You can do oral history for elders if they can use a computer or have a family member or friend who visits often and who lives nearby and is in their bubble serve and share Thanksgiving dinner at their home and use zoom with them to see other family members on the holiday.

Share Your Thanksgiving Story

If you are at a family member’s holiday dinner and use reminiscence for elders by asking everyone to tell their favorite story about a Thanksgiving dinner. Start with midlife members to get the idea and then ask

again parents to share their stories. Oral history for elders will bring extra thanks to Thanksgiving by learning about an elder’s past and giving them the opportunity to share, which sometimes they do not do in the hubbub of family talking.

The “telling ” also means someone documents. That magically gives the elder and a child social interaction and connectedness. Elders vividly recall their past by telling

from vignettes in their life – especially life in their 20’s, which sparks the richest recall called the “20’s bump”, according to researchers.

Elders sharing stories means passing on history.

So try storytelling at Thanksgiving and it becomes intergenerational. The older person is given a chance to give the larger picture of their life and family history to children and grandchildren or extended family, who may not have heard all the details of their grandparent’s or parent’s life before. My 10 grandchildren have grown with their now 80-year-old grandfather telling them exciting stories of when he was a California Highway patrolman. So a dual dose of a higher quality of life for both the older person and the aging family is increased through oral history and reminiscence.

Capture Your Families Past Before It Is Gone

Many midlife adults now do ancestry and regret that they did not ask questions of older family members when they were alive. Capture that past now on this family holiday. An aging professional or a geriatric care manager can suggest family or friends record the Thanksgiving story as oral history using technology like an i Phone or i Pad.

Story Telling at Thanksgiving with Story Worth

Another great idea to capture reminiscence for elders is giving them StoryWorth.

My daughter sent this gift to her Dad and both he and I love it. Each week StoryWorth sends a question to my husband that prompts him to write about his past. He writes his reminiscence out longhand and I easily use the dictation on my phone and email his story to Story Worth.

At the end of the year, my daughter will order a bound book of all the stories- a whole collection of memories, an oral history of an elder father that she might never think to ask and will be saved for her and her children to pass on family history. I will order a copy for all her three siblings. Equally important, my husband, really enjoyed writing about his past and the prompts have brought many vivid memories back to him.

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Why There So few Caregivers to Recruit in Health Care ??????

October 20, 2021

Where did the Caregiver all over the Nation Go?

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit and 13.7 million workers in roles comparable to direct care lost

their jobs in early 2020, they did not turn to direct care jobs, a recent study found.

Of the 9.1 million who have now found a new job, “an immeasurably small number of workers” entered the direct care workforce, despite high demand for staff, a study by consulting firm PHI and the Health Workforce Research Center on Long-Term Care at the University of California San Francisco found.

Women, the main caregiver are leaving the workforce in record numbers, and it’s not just a result of the pandemic.

The pandemic was the catalyst for millions of women leaving their jobs, but not the root cause. Since 2009, the number of women in the workforce has been decreasing because we haven’t made investments in child care and paid leave. Now the gap between men and women in the workforce is widening, while in most other countries the gap is shrinking. That’s leaving our whole economy vulnerable.

Right now, women’s workforce participation is at 55.9%. The last time it was that low was 1987)

Workforce for Women Caregivers and all Working women with Children Became Nightmare in Pandemic

The pandemic opened many eyes to the realities of child care in America when schools went virtual and many day-care centers closed. Covid-19 forced millions of working parents, especially women, to leave the workforce to care for their children. Following up on a campaign pledge to “make high-quality child care affordable,” President Joe Biden has asked Congress for hundreds of billions of dollars for early childhood care and education.

If You Are a Woman or Work In Aging Call Your Congressman

Care Infrastructure may be dead if folks in health care and older constituents do not contact their congressman and tell them to support this bill. They control the votes for the bill and you have to let them know you will only vote for them if they do. Common Cause has this easy way to find and contact your congressman If you believe in Medicare and senior’s right to not have their teeth rot, not hear their grandkids or be unable to read a book- please do it now

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