It\u2019s not really \u201cHug your Sister\u201d month \u2014 but maybe it should be.<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re a caregiver, you probably can relate to the groans I hear whenever a family caregiver starts talking about their siblings.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a great help \u2014 as long as he can phone it in.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m doing all the work, and she shows up once a year to visit. The way our parents treat her, you\u2019d think she was the one doing all the work \u2014 not the one popping in to tell me how it should be done.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMy sister disagrees with everything I want to do. She insists mom isn\u2019t as bad as I say she is \u2014 she has no idea.\u201d<\/p>\n
It seems like every family has a breakdown among siblings, especially when mom and dad need help. One child \u2014 usually a daughter \u2014 becomes the primary caregiver or decision-maker. The other children typically take a seat as far removed from the action as possible.<\/p>\n
Stop for just a minute this month to look at your own family situation from your siblings\u2019 perspective. Maybe they\u2019re not doing the work, but look at the time they\u2019re missing out on, too.<\/p>\n
Francine Russo tells the story in her book,\u00a0They\u2019re YOUR Parents, Too<\/i>\u00a0( http:\/\/www.yourparentstoo.com\/) of being the \u201cbad sister\u201d \u2014 the one who rarely visited and left the heavy lifting to her sister.<\/p>\n
At her mother\u2019s funeral, Francine realized how much she had missed by not being actively involved in her mother\u2019s care. While feeling relieved that she didn\u2019t have to do the work, in reality she was robbing herself of an opportunity \u2014 forever gone \u2014 to get close to her parents and to have the kind of relationship that her sister had.<\/p>\n
She learned, as many, many caregivers learn, that the greater the challenges of caregiving, the greater the rewards and sense of joy and accomplishment the caregiver often feels at the end.<\/p>\n
So this month, if you\u2019re tempted to think, \u201cWhy doesn\u2019t she step up and take some of the load?\u201d try rephrasing the question.<\/p>\n
Try thinking, \u201cShe\u2019s missing so much. I\u2019m sorry for what she\u2019s missing.\u201d<\/p>\n
And go hug your sister.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It\u2019s not really \u201cHug your Sister\u201d month \u2014 but maybe […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":163,"featured_media":301,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[203],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n