{"id":332,"date":"2016-03-12T21:20:37","date_gmt":"2016-03-12T21:20:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.judithdhenry.com\/blog\/?p=332"},"modified":"2025-06-02T22:09:03","modified_gmt":"2025-06-02T22:09:03","slug":"a-caregivers-report-card","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.judithdhenry.com\/blog\/2016\/03\/12\/a-caregivers-report-card\/","title":{"rendered":"A Caregiver’s Report Card"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"J<\/a><\/p>\n

Are you secretly giving yourself a grade for caregiving? Feel you’re falling short? Don\u2019t be ashamed to say so, because I get it. Growing up in my house, a grade of \u201cC\u201d was equivalent to an \u201cF,\u201d and at dinner each night, my younger siblings and I had to come up with good answers to my father\u2019s perpetual question, \u201cWhat did you do of any consequence today?\u201d<\/p>\n

Decades later, while caring for both my parents during the last phase of their lives, and still putting myself to Dad\u2019s test, these are the responses I finally arrived at.<\/p>\n

Perfect solutions don\u2019t exist when caregiving, and what may work one day, may not work a day, a week, or a month later. Even knowing this, we often drive ourselves to exhaustion processing tons of information, and absorbing solicited and un-solicited advice while trying to honor the hopes and expectations of the parent we\u2019re caring for. It\u2019s inevitable that sometimes \u201canalysis paralysis\u201d sets in. This happens\u00a0when we worry about not having all the facts, are concerned the decision may be the wrong one, or have convinced ourselves that the worst possible scenario is going to occur. What can help is learning to stop second-guessing our decisions; remembering we can only work with what we know at any given time, and making peace with the idea of \u201cacceptable for now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Caregiving is a verb, and our days run on multiple To Do lists \u2013 dealing with a deeply flawed medical system, particularly where the elderly are concerned; ordering and picking up medical supplies and prescriptions; filling out insurance forms; and responding to crises we\u2019d rarely\u00a0imagined. It\u2019s never-ending, yet caregivers often feel they should be doing more. Once in awhile, try making an \u201cAccomplishment\u201d list, instead. Write down all the things you manage to handle while taking care of a parent\/ a spouse\/ a child\/ a full time job\/ a home\/your own needs, or any combination thereof. Even you will shake your head in disbelief at what you\u2019re achieving under great odds.<\/p>\n

Try not to compare your caregiving experience with others. I was speaking with someone\u00a0who’d\u00a0been taking care of a father with dementia for over 10 years. When I commented on\u00a0how hard that must be for her, she said, almost apologetically, that her dad was in a memory care unit, so she wasn’t a twenty-four hour caregiver. The reality is that caregiving is a 24\/7 job whether your parent is with you or not. You\u2019re still the one being called at all hours when issues arise and difficult decisions must be made, so don\u2019t ever devalue your efforts.<\/p>\n

Often,\u00a0the toughest part of caregiving is recognizing that you can\u2019t always make things better for Mom or Dad despite your love and efforts. And sometimes, being with a parent is more important than doing for them.<\/p>\n

Finally, forgive yourself for being irritable, resentful and sometimes wishing your caregiving responsibilities were over. It doesn\u2019t make you a bad person. It just makes you human. The irony is that accepting this fact can release some of the unrealistic expectations and pressure we put on ourselves to try and fix everything that goes wrong.<\/p>\n

So, for those of you who still feel the need to grade yourselves, I\u2019ve devised a new system with caregivers in mind.<\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 A \u2013 Accomplished<\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 B \u2013 Big-hearted<\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 C \u2013 Compassionate<\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 D \u2013 Dedicated<\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 F \u2013 Fabulous<\/p>\n

Now – go ahead and give yourself the \u201cF\u201d you deserve.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Are you secretly giving yourself a grade for caregiving? Feel you’re falling short? Don\u2019t be ashamed to say so, because I get it. Growing up in my house, a grade of \u201cC\u201d was equivalent to an \u201cF,\u201d and at dinner each night, my younger siblings and I had to come up with good answers to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":335,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[21,26,16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.judithdhenry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.judithdhenry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.judithdhenry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.judithdhenry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.judithdhenry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=332"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/www.judithdhenry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":351,"href":"https:\/\/www.judithdhenry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332\/revisions\/351"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.judithdhenry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.judithdhenry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.judithdhenry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.judithdhenry.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}