Omg! I’m the Grown-Up! a Conversation on Giving-Care to a Loved One…And Yourself

By Sheri L. Yarbrough Ph.D.

OMG! I’m the Grown-Up! gives care-givers an innovative strategy for managing the interpersonal dynamics of giving-care she calls the Praxis for Care. This book presents the Praxis for Care as a strategy that guides care-givers toward taking actions that are satisfying to both persons. It is a practical, easily applied approach that balances the care recipient’s needs with those of the care-giver.
Dr. Yarbrough likens giving-care to riding a teeter-totter where the needs of both persons go up and down based on the circumstances at hand. As a care-giver, Dr. Yarbrough has experienced how easily one can forget herself while meeting a loved one’s care needs. That experience taught her that care-giving and giving-care are two fundamentally different practices. According Dr. Yarbrough, care-giving is what you do for your loved one; giving-care is what you do for both of you.
OMG! I’m the Grown-Up! guides readers through the Praxis for Care. Using thinking points, self-reflection, and journal exercises readers build an individualized care journey for providing the best care for both people.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press
• Release date: Jul 31, 2020
• ISBN: 9781982250492

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Copyright © 2020 Sheri L. Yarbrough, Ph.D.

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ISBN: 978-1-9822-5047-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-9822-5048-5 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-9822-5049-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020912448

Balboa Press rev. date:  04/11/2023

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

Foreword

About the Characters

Chapter I       Becoming the Grown-Up

Chapter II      Dynamics for Growing Together

Chapter III    Reframing Forgiveness for Giving-Care

Chapter IV    Giving-Care with Patience

Chapter V     Peace through Acceptance

Chapter VI    Enjoy the Journey

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Writing this book was a team effort. My first acknowledgement goes to my Mom. Without her I would have had no story to tell. The second acknowledgement goes to my dear friend Ama B. Patterson. She always said that I told good stories and prodded me to tell them to the world.

I have to thank my 2 editors, Judith V. Lopez and my Spelman Sister, Rashida Rawls. Judith was the catalyst for me to write my story. She helped me in the beginning to shape my ideas and find my voice. When Rashida joined my team, I was stuck. I had written for so long that I could no longer hear the story I was telling. She helped me clarify my ideas so that I could tell my story in a meaningful way. Rashida was also my task master. Setting progress goals and keeping me focused on meeting them made this book come to fruition. Rashida also introduced me to my talented graphic artist, Kacie Trimble. Thank you Kacie for turning my idea into a visual tool for care-givers.

I also have to let my readers know how much I appreciate them taking time to review my work. Having the support of professionals who engage with seniors and their families lets me know I’ve written something useful. Thank you Dr. Fayron Epps, Dr. John Holton, and Dr. Darby Morhardt for endorsing my work.

My final acknowledgement goes to everyone else who supported my writing this along the way. I couldn’t have done this without the help of all my friends and family members who encouraged me to keep writing so others could hear my story.

FOREWORD

I wrote this book for one reason: to make a difficult and uncomfortable conversation tolerable. I’m talking about the softly spoken conversation about how difficult prior experiences impact how care is given. Common images and stories about caring for loved ones present the theme of my loved one was always there for me so I am here for her or him. Having had some tough upheavals with my Mom prior to having to care for her made me think about other people who had had similar experiences. I wanted to write a book that talks about what you need to do for yourself in order to care for a difficult loved one. I wanted readers to know that there is a way to balance your needs with those of your loved one in spite of how the two of you have previously gotten along.

This book is for everyone who is currently giving-care or has giving-care on the horizon. Its title reflects how becoming the grown-up can happen quickly and unexpectedly. Whether it’s the result of a sudden illness or injury or happens gradually as a loved one’s care need slowly increase, when roles reverse in a relationship, the person extending care becomes the grown-up. When you become the grown-up to another adult, giving-care requires you look at the life-long relationship between the two of you in order to meet your loved one’s changing needs. Successful navigation of that new role means including yourself in the care relationship. That can be a challenge when unresolved issues from the past are the foundation for your relationship.

Early in this journey, my good friend Judith asked how I was doing. I described how I had to walk through a process for getting rid of the past, dealing with what was on my plate and thinking about where this was going in order to fully care for her. Listening to what I said, she got really excited and told me I needed to write the process I had taken so that others could learn from it. That was the genesis of this book.

This book is written from the perspective of an insider who had the jarring realization that a loved one’s care needs can arrive without warning. As the grown-up, you will be tasked with a lot of changes. Sometimes you will see where the change is heading; sometimes you will not. The one thing that will change is the relationship you had with your loved one.

Once we choose or are chosen to care for a loved one, the nature of our prior relationship plays an integral role in how the care relationship will proceed. Sometimes interacting the way you’ve always have works; sometimes it doesn’t. When it doesn’t, you’ll need a strategy for navigating all of the interpersonal dynamics for which there are few manuals in a role that was often unexpected. I call the process I took for our care relationship the Praxis for Care. The Praxis for Care grew out of my question, "how do you care for someone with whom you have had a difficult relationship?"

The Praxis for Care creates balance between the needs of the care-giver and the care recipient. When caring for a loved one, it’s very easy to become so focused on meeting a loved one’s care needs that the needs of the person extending care get overlooked. If there have been difficulties prior to the need to extend care, residual feelings from those experiences get compounded by having your personal needs go unnoticed. The Praxis for Care is a strategy for changing that dynamic. It emphasizes creating interactions flexible enough to handle the ups and downs that come with caring for a loved one. Using it gives people who have had difficulties in their relationships a tool for creating a manageable care journey.

The underlying nature of a relationship will shape the way care is given. Chapter II describes three types of interpersonal relationships; positive, negative or neutral. My relationship with my dad was very positive. I use our story as an example for a positive relationship. By the time he died, we had become buddies. He knew what he could expect from me and I knew what I could expect from him. The relationship with my Mom was a lot more complicated. Our issues had very little to do with what we had done to each other. Rather, they were because of residual issues she had with her mother. My personal experience didn’t give me good examples of negative and neutral relationships; so, I looked to movies to find them. I like using fiction because the best fiction is rooted in real-life experience. Movie characters give viewers access into someone else’s reality. They show us how someone experiences a life event and give us an opportunity to connect our values to that person’s experience. Because of that, movies let us analyze the actions of its characters and scrutinize their values in ways that many living people would find uncomfortable or invasive. Most people don’t want their lives analyzed. However, the purpose of a movie is to examine the choices characters make. I chose the following three movies as examples of care in negative and neutral relationships. The characters Jane and Blanche Hudson from Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? are my example of care in a negative relationship; Max and David Basner from Nothing in Common and George Bailey from It’s a Wonderful Life are examples of care in a neutral relationship. For people who haven’t seen the movies, I’ve created a synopsis in the About the Characters chapter.

Everyone’s care journey is unique to the individuals in it. By the end of the book, I want readers to be grounded in what they can do. As the grown-up in a care relationship, a lot will be demanded of you. Looking at all you have to do through the lens of what you can do will make the journey manageable.

When you finish the book, I hope you will see yourself as a partner in the care journey, not just the care provider. The self-reflection and journal exercises will help you develop a clear vision of what you want from the care relationship in order to balance your needs with those of a loved one. When you’re clear about where you’re going, thinking about all that has to be done becomes manageable. A friend who had also given care to her parents shared some advice she received: if you stumble, she falls. ¹ Building a partnership wherein both persons receive care, you have the support you need in order to support your loved one.

ABOUT THE CHARACTERS

I chose the following movies because each of the main characters unexpectedly landed on a care journey. Jane Hudson became her sister Blanche’s care-giver after purportedly causing the car crash that paralyzed her. George Bailey became the care-giver to the family business and its staff after his father’s untimely death. David Basner became his father Max’s care-giver after learning his father lost his job and was gravely ill.

Whatever Happened to Jane? is the story of sisters Jane and Blanche Hudson. I chose this movie as an example of what can happen when old issues are active when care needs to be extended. As children, Jane was a bratty vaudeville star who performed a singing act with her father. Blanche is her older sister for whom vaudeville provides no home nor anything in common with her sister and father. Watching her sister manipulate their father’s affection while getting little for herself created white hot anger for Jane that would last their lifetime. That childhood experience put the Hudson sisters in direct competition with each other. Once they became adults, each woman strove to outperform the other.

When Jane and Blanche became adults, entertainment had changed. Though both women had film careers, Blanche was the star. That would come to an abrupt end after a car crash purportedly caused by Jane. Having been seen drinking heavily at a party, it was assumed that Jane had been driving. The crash ended Blanche’s stardom and destroyed the meager career Jane had. After it, Jane became Blanche’s dutiful caregiver and Blanche became the victim of a tragic accident. The Hudson sisters had been largely forgotten until television brought Blanche’s films into American homes. Coming back into public view ignited their lifetime of unresolved issues. Those issues became the foundation for their care relationship creating a constant battle for control of it that neither wanted to change.

George Bailey from It’s a Wonderful Life is my first example of care in a neutral relationship. George Bailey is a man who gave a lot of care and patience to