Author

Thomas Wiest

CEO, Aspirience Home Care

They’re known as the sandwich generation, spread — sometimes thin — between the needs of their parents and their children. They are two-paycheck, middle-class couples with both child and elder care responsibilities — a group representing up to 9.4 million American families.

In some recently published studies researchers have found some interesting results. Such as the power of meaning over math.

Although researchers expected hard measures such as the number of children or hours spent in parent care, for example, to rule the stress levels, the researchers found instead that softer stuff — basically how the couples felt about their work and their loved ones — made much more of a difference.

Having a good relationship with one’s spouse protected their sense of well-being to a much larger extent than expected.

Also, they found feelings of satisfaction — not just burden — in many couples.

A real strength of their findings is that couples look for the positives as well as the negatives, and find many of these. And these are couples who live some of the most serious conflicts between work and family on a daily basis.

Commuting as Couple Time

Most of us start our weekdays with a running start at 5:30 a.m., with showers, breakfasts, and sometimes a quick load of laundry before both working parents commute into work.

Some couples like to spend that half an hour to an hour together with no distractions, no TV, no children, no dinner that has to be done, no bills that have to be paid. That time allows them to share thoughts and ideas of how events and things will work out.

Where Work, Family Meet

A new study of 309 couples, comes out of Portland State University in Oregon.

Here are some more findings:

- Couples try so hard not to bring their family issues to work that they tend to err in the other direction, taking work stress home.

- Even though they believe that caring for aging parents does hurt their work, many said they find it enormously satisfying. And one reason is that the support can be mutual, with the elder parents helping out with child care, finances, or just time to talk.

- Of all kinds of help, these couples were least likely to use the formal workplace programs such as on-site child care, resource and referral services, and support seminars. Like other studies, this one found that’s often because employers don’t offer them, or people worry about a career hit if they use them. But it’s also because employees sometimes don’t know they have the benefits.

You can be going along blithely, not needing any help, until you have a child/parent-care crisis. And if there’d been a flier about a support group a week earlier you probably wouldn’t have even read it.

Some couples’ work and family lives changed dramatically. For employers, that means the need for workplace supports may be brief, or an employee may need different kinds of support over time.

Overall, workplace supports helped employees’ well-being. Surprisingly, however, they were connected with both job and work-family difficulties. One explanation is these employees then take on way too much. Another possibility is that it’s employees who are already suffering who turn to the supports, and it’s that suffering — not the supports — that shows up as problems.

The reality is there are going to be times when our family responsibilities do interfere with our work. Work won’t always go on 100 percent unaffected.

But, aren’t good caretakers exactly the kind of responsible, loyal people employers should want?

It’s important to know, you’re not alone when it comes to handling home care issues.

Author:

Thomas D. Wiest

CEO, Aspirience Home Care

You know, there are Personal Care Assistance needs everywhere, all the time, for many different types of health needs…right in front of us and sometimes we don’t even know it.

A couple weekends ago we were at Mall of America with some relatives. We were talking about PCA services and someone asked how can you ‘see’ PCA needs everywhere? Considering the line of work we are in, we are probably a little more in-tune than most with Personal Care Assistance services but, it was not always like that, until it hit close to home for our family.

I asked her to look around at all the people and tell me what she sees through her eyes. As she struggled for a minute with the answer, I asked her to think of who COULD use some extra help or assistance with their daily activities routine – the things we take for granted.

Once she started to look around and understand, I mean really look at what people were doing or trying to do I asked her to think about how they might feel now. That is when she really became aware of the people around her and the needs they might have.

She ‘saw’ people with potential PCA needs everywhere…an elderly woman trying to navigate her walker from a store front to a mall bench, a child with Down Syndrome laughing as he ran through the food court, a younger man who was in a major accident with casts on both legs being pushed in a wheelchair, a young mental health patient being lead through the mall for a day of shopping excitement, an older gentleman sitting down attached to an oxygen tank and so on.

She became obviously aware the need is there.

All too often we close the door on this valuable service that is available to everyone because we do not always see the benefit it can bring. I asked, how did you quickly see so many people with this need? Her answer was easy…it was how they might feel without PCA service. That was a path she did not want to walk down. She wanted to aspire to feeling better about things than having to undertake the thoughts of a less than full life without the help of a PCA.

It’s important to know, that PCA needs are everywhere.

Author:

Thomas D. Wiest

CEO, Aspirience Home Care

Have you ever been caught off guard by the challenge of care giving to a parent, a spouse or a child in the midst of your busy life? Most of us prefer to avoid this subject. Too many of us are caught up in the physical world with our work, families, attainment of goals, and our material possessions. However, no one knows when they might be presented with this challenge. Perhaps now is the time to think about it.

The numbers of graying “baby-boomers” and the increase in degenerative disease precedes a large population of adults and children who will face having to care for their parents or a loved one at one time or another in the very near future. Care giving crosses all illnesses, conditions, ages and health concerns - physical, geriatric and mental health. Having support through a time like this is so important and we can’t help but emphasize how we must become more aware of this challenge which will confront all of us in the near future, either for a loved one or oneself.

Caregivers, whose numbers are increasing rapidly, are challenged to cope with catastrophic illnesses like cancer, stroke, Alzheimer’s, MS and many other debilitating diseases. We provide assistance on practical care giving matters and give meaning to the spiritual and personal challenges that result from being a care giver.

I remember when my mom was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and how my dad, brother, sister and I looked at each other not knowing what that would bring. It was tough not knowing about the future. Even under the most challenging circumstances, taking care of someone you love can transform your life forever. It has ours.

We provide you an opportunity to look at many of the issues one may experience or are already experiencing in your time of need. This reassurance comes from knowing someone is there to help when you need it the most and are not sure who to trust or where to turn.

It’s important to know, that aspirations can be turned into experiences.