Thanksgiving with dysfunctional family Archives ⋆ Cathy Cress

When Cut Off in The Family is a ” Phantom Limb” at Thanksgiving

October 24, 2019

The Dysfunctional Family’s Worst Time of The Year

Thanksgiving can be the gateway to the dysfunctional family’s worst time of year- the holidays. You face family across the table you despise or just both love and hate. Or there is that empty seat- the uninvited guest- the brother-sister, aunt, son, daughter who you never invite- the cut off-family member.

Families Phantom Limb

But since this leaves the family with that “phantom limb”- like the awful sensation that an amputated or missing limb is still attached and where it was is pulsating in pain- families reach out for someone to fix it.

The ordinary aging processes are made far tougher when a family has a history of dysfunction. Aging professionals, like geriatric care managers, have their greatest challenges in working with these “difficult” families around this time of year.

Dysfunctional Families Fail Eldercare

Dysfunctional families are not able to organize themselves effectively in the face of eldercare challenges and crises. These families are under more stress as they move from long-established roles into uncharted territory.

Family” Cut” off faces Phantom Limb at Thanksgiving

What if they “ cut off” their Dad years ago and now he had a severe stroke-what do they do?? Someone has to take over Mom or Dad’s care and these dysfunctional midlife adult kids are heavy ambivalent or just don’t want to do it. Now that the holidays are arriving – they have the same attitude about attending the family Thanksgiving dinner.

My favorite aging dysfunctional family ” cut off ” Thanksgiving film is Pieces of April Made as a comedy in 2003, it touches death and dying, sibling rivalry, mother-daughter estrangement, interracial love- and Alzheimer’s all fueled by deep family fault lines and how to cook a turkey on a broken stove. The film manages to make the old theme of fraught family Thanksgiving, crisp, funny and ultra worth watching.

Shot in 3 weeks for a measly $350 K, it received a Sundance Film award and accolades for its pedigree cast including 21 year old Katie Holmes as the grunge Goth daughter who her family has ” Cut Off”,Patricia Clarkson as the dying Mom who distains then forgives her rebellious eldest child and Alice Drummond as the demented grandmother who comes along and plays the most rational person in the film in her obliviousness to the family holiday freak-out.

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When Aging Mom Burns the Turkey Adult Kids Call a Care Manager

October 25, 2018

Thanksgiving is around the corner and it will have care manager’s cell phones buzzing with desperate dysfunctional aging family members calling.
The ordinary aging processes, like family rituals, are made far tougher when a family has a history of dysfunction. Aging professionals, like aging life or geriatric care managers, have their greatest challenges in working with these “difficult” families.
Dysfunctional families are not able to organize themselves effectively in the face of eldercare challenges and crises. Every holiday becomes a new crisis. They often can’t even cook the turkey or often an aging Mom just burns it. These families are under more stress as they move from long-established roles into uncharted territory.
What if they “cut off” their Dad years ago and now he had a severe stroke-what do they do?? Someone has to take over Mom or Dad’s care and these dysfunctional midlife adult kids are heavy ambivalent or just don’t want to do it.
Now that Thanksgiving marching towards us and families are making plans– they have the same attitude about attending the family Thanksgiving dinner.
Here are 3 things you can do as a care manager to help aging clients and their kids avoid acid reflux and burnt turkeys

1. Read Lynn Lynn Hackstaff’s chapter, Difficult Families: Conflict, Dependence, and Mutuality: Care Management with the Difficult Aging Family in the new Handbook of Geriatric Care Management 4th edition

2. Watch my YouTube channel Geriatric Care 1 and subscribe

3. Join me in my new Webinar

5 Ways to Tame the Turbulence of Holiday Meltdown in Aging Families
During the busiest season for care management referrals-

You Will Learn:
 How to give hope to frantic children who call, after seeing their aging parent struggling with the rituals
 How to sell services to desperate adult child callers
 How to use GCM tools to contain Holiday chaos
 How to use financial forecasting to prepare for growth during the holidays
 How to work with both dysfunctional and long-distance families who call during the holidays
• Sign Up or Find out more
•
•
•

Thanksgiving Going HayWire? Call a Care Manager

October 19, 2018

The holiday season in the aging dysfunctional family triggers amped up turmoil. Mom can’t cook the turkey, she forgets to wrap presents, Dad’s not just drunk but he’s wandering. Prepare to handle these fractured families when the adult children call a care manager for help. Revisit the Thanksgivings many of these now baby boomers lived in the 1970’s
Kids who grew up in the 70’s will soon have Thanksgiving with their 70 or 80-year-old aging parents.Will they recall the ” Ice Storm”?
In the film, it is Thanksgiving weekend in the early 70″s and a boyish Tobey Mc Guire returns home from prep school to a Thanksgiving feast that his sister starts with this prayer.
” Dear Lord, thank you for this Thanksgiving holiday. And for all the material possessions we have and enjoy. And for letting us white people kill all the Indians and steal their tribal lands. And stuff us like pigs, even though children in Asia are being napalmed.”
So we begin the descent down the cusp of the 1970’s as the nearly normal family shapeshifts into dysfunctional in Ang Lee’s brilliant film The Ice Storm.
Lee’s Thanksgiving classic is the perfect reflection of some family’s plunge into the early 70’s season of hell.
If you’re in your 40’s and grew up with parents have gone haywire through 70’s social change, you will remember the ice storm.
Divorce imploded the family, as we knew it. If you were a parent then you may recall, Nixon resigning, key parties, (swinging couples affairs), Watergate, Deep Throat and self-help books or hear David Bowie who did the soundtrack to the film.

With Lou Reed you can loop back to his fabulous song of that spins the period Walk on the Wild Side and maybe recall the template for it the entire era the -book, Open Marriage.

Children of this social tumult may now share another Thanksgiving with the aging parents who put them through hell. What will they do when they find they have to care for those same parents who did not care for them? When they return to Thanksgiving they may call an aging life or geriatric care manager. Are you ready?
Learn more about what you can do for dysfunctional families and give them hope when they call desperately call this holiday.

Join me in my new Webinar November 14 2PM PST

10 Steps Tame the Turbulence of Holiday Meltdown in Aging Families

During the busiest season for care management referrals-

You Will Learn:

How to give hope to frantic children who call, after seeing their aging parent struggling with the rituals
How to sell services to desperate adult child callers
How to use GCM tools to contain Holiday chaos
How to use financial forecasting to prepare for growth during the holidays
How to work with both dysfunctional and long-distance families who call during the holidays
- Sign Up

Watch my YouTube Channel Geriatric Care 1 and learn how to work with the dysfunctional family who will desperately call around the holidays

Thanksgiving Going HayWire? Call a Care Manager

November 21, 2017

The holiday season in the aging dysfunctional family triggers amped up turmoil. Mom can’t cook the turkey, she forgets to wrap presents, Dad’s not just drunk but he’s wandering. Prepare to handle these fractured families when the adult children call a care manager for help.Revisit the Thanksgivings many of these now baby boomers lived in the 1970’s
Kids who grew up in the 70’s will soon have Thanksgiving with their 70 or 80-year-old aging parents.Will they recall the ” Ice Storm”?
In the film, it is Thanksgiving weekend in the early 70″s and a boyish Tobey Mc Guire returns home from prep school to a Thanksgiving feast that his sister starts with this prayer.
” Dear Lord, thank you for this Thanksgiving holiday. And for all the material possessions we have and enjoy. And for letting us white people kill all the Indians and steal their tribal lands. And stuff us like pigs, even though children in Asia are being napalmed.”
So we begin the descent down the cusp of the 1970’s as the nearly normal family shape shifts into dysfunctional in Ang Lee’s brilliant film The Ice Storm. 080729-tdy-swingers-hmed-4p.grid-6x2.jpg
Lee’s Thanksgiving classic is the perfect refection of some family’s plunge into the early 70’s season of hell.
If you’re in your 40’s and grew up with parents have gone haywire through 70’s social change, you will remember the ice storm.
Divorce imploded the family, as we knew it. If you were a parent then you may recall, Nixon resigning, key parties, (swinging couples affairs), Watergate, Deep Throat and self-help books or hear David Bowie who did the soundtrack to the film.

With Lou Reed you can loop back to his fabulous song of that spins the period Walk on the Wild Side and maybe recall the template for it the entire era the -book, Open Marriage.

Thanksgiving Going HayWire? Call a Care Manager

November 20, 2016

The holiday season in the aging dysfunctional family triggers amped up turmoil. Mom can’t cook the turkey, she forgets to wrap presents, Dad’s not just drunk but he’s wandering. Prepare to handle these fractured families when the adult children call a care manager for help.Revisit the Thanksgivings many of these now baby boomers lived in the 1970’s
Kids who grew up in the 70’s will soon have Thanksgiving with their 70 or 80 year old aging parents.Will they recall the ” Ice Storm”?
In the film it is Thanksgiving weekend in the early 70″s and a boyish Tobey Mc Guire returns home from prep school to a Thanksgiving feast that his sister starts with this prayer.
” Dear Lord, thank you for this Thanksgiving holiday. And for all the material possessions we have and enjoy. And for letting us white people kill all the Indians and steal their tribal lands. And stuff us like pigs, even though children in Asia are being napalm.”
So we begin the decent down the cusp of the 1970’s as the nearly normal family shape shifts into dysfunctional in Ang Lee’s brilliant film The Ice Storm .
Lee’s Thanksgiving classic is the perfect refection of some family’s plunge into the early 70’s season of hell.
If you’re in your 40’s and grew up with parents gone haywire through 70’s social change, you will remember the ice storm .
Divorce imploded the family, as we knew it. If you were a parent then you may recall, Nixon resigning, key parties, (swinging couples affairs), Watergate, Deep Throat and self-help books or hear David Bowie who did the soundtrack to the film.

With Lou Reed you can loop back to his fabulous song of that spins the period Walk on the Wild Side and maybe recall the template for it the entire era the -book, Open Marriage.

Thanksgiving Going HayWire? Call a Care Manager

Thanksgiving Going HayWire? Call a Care Manager

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