Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Grab your morning coffee and join us on July 11th at 9:30 am for our next Real Women on Health! on-line health salon and radio show.

We often think of taking care of our aging moms, as they outlive dad by seven or more years. However, I have invited best selling author, Janis Spring, PHD, who is a nationally acclaimed expert on issues of trust, intimacy, and forgiveness to talk about her just released book called Life with Pop: Lessons on Caring for an Aging Parent (Avery Penguin). Just released on April 30, 2009, the true story and lessons learned takes place in an independent living facility in West Hartford, CT.

Today, and contrary to our own grandparents days, thankfully, fewer than 5 percent of the elderly live in institutions. Nursing home use has been falling for 20 years. Seven of every 10 adult children who help frail parents are daughters.

As yesterday's June 15th Washington Post article Their Parents' Keepers explains, for years, economists warned that women entering the work force would become unavailable as unpaid caregivers for the elderly. Plausible -- but untrue. Family caregiving continues at high levels, though more than half of adult children who help elderly parents also work full time, and 10 percent part time.  That can exact a steep toll. Most caregivers with jobs report sometimes having to arrive late or leave early; smaller proportions take leaves, cut back to part-time schedules or turn down promotions. A few even give up their jobs.

We step up even if we have children at home. Boomers deferred childbearing, so they can have dependents at both ends of the age spectrum -- the sandwich generation.

While family caregiving is essential but unrecognized, there are also rewards.

Just dial in on July 11th at 9:30 am to www.blogtalkradio.com/realwomenonhealth. If you have not registered yet, please do so and you'll receive a link that will allow you to listen through your computer. If you would rather use a phone to listen, just dial (646) 929-2625 and you'll be connected to our conversation. You can chose to listen or talk!