Daughterhood Blog | Daughterhood

December 21, 2022May 25, 2023 by Anne Tumlinson

Throwing In The Towel: The 6 Most Important Questions to Ask When You Want to Quit Caregiving

I don’t know anyone who feels like they can just up and quit taking care of a loved one who needs it. The very nature of this role is that it’s not something you choose.

That doesn’t mean that we don’t often, or even always, wish we could get off the caregiving train. The work’s not fun. It’s unrelenting, hard and requires tremendous sacrifice.

Often in life, quitting can be a healthy thing to do… ending a toxic relationship, leaving a miserable job, or even moving on from a comfortable career so that you can do something more rewarding.

But, there are also times when we, either can’t or don’t really want to stop. We just need to find some way for the pressure, fear, and exhaustion to ease up a little.

If this is your situation, here are 6 questions you need to ask yourself.

December 11, 2022May 25, 2023 by Anne Tumlinson

Caregiver’s Holiday Survival Guide

Let’s face it. Caregivers don’t get to participate much in the holidays. While everyone else is planning trips and parties, shopping for gifts or decorating the house, caregivers are still muscling through their daily grind.

If you’re taking care of a parent or loved one, you know what I mean. It’s hard to avoid feeling especially deprived this time of year. Whether you’re sitting in the ER again, dealing with frustrating dementia behaviors, or worrying about your mom’s depression, the misery of it is all just magnified this time of year. One of the hallmarks of caregiving is that it leaves you feeling like you’re missing out. Missing out on fun everyone else is having, missing out on your old life – before you were a caregiver. Of course, Holidays make this feeling even worse.

The simple fact is, whatever makes us sad, makes us sadder in December. Everything hard is harder. We feel the passage of time more acutely and our losses more profoundly. If your family member has dementia, it’s extra painful. This time of year is, after all, loaded with memories.

in Common Challenges / Feeling Guilty / Feeling Overwhelmed / Navigating Change and Letting Go / Uncategorized 4 comments

November 16, 2022May 25, 2023 by Anne Tumlinson

5 Dos and Don’ts for Staying Independent in Old Age

My inbox is filled with emails from caregivers trying to figure out how to pay for their parents’ care. They’re facing complicated and hard choices.

The big choices? Whether they should quit their job, move a parent into their home to avoid expensive care, or pay for care and risk running out of money. Or some combination of any or all of these.

That’s a really crappy set of choices.

We all agree that, regardless of your financial situation, it’s hard to be a caregiver… But, the truth is that it’s really scary to be a caregiver when you or your parents don’t have much money to pay for care….

in Home Care / Medicare / Paying for Care 4 comments

November 6, 2022May 25, 2023 by Anne Tumlinson

It’s All About Connection: Caregivers Survival Guide

Other than death of a loved one, few things are more disorienting than making the shift from being cared for by your parents to caring for them.

This transition is made even more challenging because it usually comes as such a surprise. And it’s not just the biologically wired blind spot we have against our parents’ vulnerability. It’s the utter shock that, when it happens, there’s no place to turn for help. It’s like trying to climb a rock face without any toeholds or crevices where you can grab on, and then scaling it without a net.

The problem with our aging care system is that even though there’s a lot of information out there to help, the situations most caregivers confront are so incredibly complex, unique, and specific (such as, why won’t rehab providers accept my Dad?) that they can’t find exactly what they need. Or they want the exact right answer to a very complex question that doesn’t have right answers.

in Common Challenges / Feeling Overwhelmed / Uncategorized 3 comments

October 14, 2022May 25, 2023 by Anne Tumlinson

3 Resources to Ease Caregiver Money Worries

In a recent survey, AARP found that about three-quarters of all caregivers spend, on average, 20 percent of their household income on caregiving.

This is on top of the estimated $470 billion in unpaid care that they provide; and doesn’t include the potential lost income due to work-related strain that over half of caregivers report.

It’s clear that caring for a family member creates a financial hardship for many, and even a catastrophe for some; especially when caring for someone with dementia or Alzheimer’s Disease.

If you’ve experienced it, you know that there’s nothing worse than feeling financially strapped! Especially if you’re also feeling overwhelmed by caregiving responsibilities. So, if you are facing economic strain because of a caregiving situation, here are a few organizations that may be able to help.

October 2, 2022January 14, 2023 by Anne Tumlinson

Navigating Home Care

On August 16th we hosted our 6th Daughterhood conversation on Zoom focused on Navigating Home Care for Your Parents. I was joined by Andrea Cohen, founder, and CEO of Houseworks and Christine Lee, founder and CEO of Companion Home Care Solutions, an agency that provides in-home care in San Diego California and San Diego Daughterhood Circle leader. Both women are owners and operators of top-notch, amazing home care companies that deliver and provide home care services, and both are also deeply involved in caregiver advocacy and support.

Please feel free to DOWNLOAD this tip sheet that Andrea Cohen has made available that can help you select an agency.

Here are some highlights from our conversation!

September 26, 2022May 25, 2023 by Anne Tumlinson

3 Medicare Benefits You MUST Know About

“What do you mean Medicare doesn’t cover this?” My friend Sarah was caught off guard when I told her that her parent’s health insurance program doesn’t cover her parents’ care.

What I explained is that there’s a lot Medicare doesn’t cover and one of the biggest gaps is the ongoing, long-term care that people need when they become frail or disabled.

This care is expensive! Hiring someone to help with cooking, laundry, transportation or personal hygiene can cost around $20 per hour!

So what do families do? Well, one of two things. They pay for this care out of their savings… or much of the time, DAUGHTERS PROVIDE THE CARE THEMSELVES.

In fact, new research shows that most of the really frail older adults in this country don’t live in a nursing home. Most live at home and the vast majority — 2/3rds to 3/4s — are being cared for ONLY by family members — unpaid.

in Common Challenges / Medicare / Navigating Change and Letting Go / Paying for Care / Uncategorized 4 comments

September 6, 2022May 25, 2023 by Anne Tumlinson

4 Tips for Talking to Your Parents About Death

Earlier this year, I wrote a blog about how important it is to prepare for end-of-life decisions you might have to make on behalf of your parents. I wrote about advance directives, and having important conversations with doctors and family.

I culled so much good advice from books and articles that it inspired me to talk to my own family.

Here’s how that went down.

Me to Dad: So, Dad, I’m writing a blog about preparing for end-of-life decisions and it occurred to me that we haven’t really talked about what you and mom want.
Dad: You think we’re DYING!?
(End of conversation)

Me to Sister: So, I’ve figured this all out. I’ll tell Mom and Dad that you should be the financial power of attorney because you’re good with money and I’ll be the healthcare power of attorney because I’m good with healthcare
Sister: * ? *
Me: Oh, see, I was thinking we should get Mom and Dad to focus on creating their advance directives — you know, end-of-life planning
Sister: Is there a book I can read about this?
Me: You know I’m an expert, right? Don’t you trust me?
(End of conversation)

in Common Challenges / End-of-Life / Feeling Guilty / Feeling Overwhelmed / Navigating Change and Letting Go / Resources 3 comments

August 23, 2022May 25, 2023 by Anne Tumlinson

3 Reasons You Might Not Be Getting the Help You Need

It’s 5 am on a Saturday morning and I’m lying awake with that cold, sweaty, anxious feeling that comes from deep existential angst masquerading as too many things to do. I know something has to change – that there’s GOT to be another way to look at my life..to live so that panic isn’t my default emotional channel.

One of the good things about being almost 50 is that I can look back on the last 20 years and realize that being anxious all the time doesn’t change much, regardless of what I’ve got on my plate. In other words, my responsibilities have always felt like too much, even when I was taking math tests in 5th grade.

in Common Challenges / Feeling Guilty / Feeling Overwhelmed / Uncategorized 11 comments

August 12, 2022May 25, 2023 by Anne Tumlinson

4 Sanity-Preserving Truths Your Good Friends Want You to Know

Do you realize that 70 percent of the human food supply depends on a bunch of women dancing?

This is my interpretation of what my beekeeper friend, Nicole, taught me about how honey bees do their job. It inspired the most important advice I’ll ever give about Daughterhood — and explains a big initiative we’re launching to help you.

Let me explain how these dots connect.

First, we all know that if bees don’t help boy and girl flowers share pollen with each other, they can’t make the vegetables, nuts, fruits, berries, and wheat that we eat, or the plant food that cows and chickens eat before they become burgers and nuggets.

in Uncategorized 13 comments