This week's material interesting, yet scary! These are all things within the lifespan that are quickly approaching me... Balancing my school life with my family is a task in itself to conquer, I stay busy studying to keep up with good grades while my daughter has homework and sports just about every night. Luckily I do not work which eases the challenge of someone else caring for my daughter, however this wasn't always the case and I did return to my last job after the birth of my daughter in order to make ends meet. Work-family conflict (the feeling of being pulled in multiple directions by incompatible demands from one's job and one's family) sums up the feelings that I once had, as well as the feeling I still have once in a while. There is not enough time in one day to do all things necessary to accomplish the needs and wants.
Chapter 13 hit home a bit, family dynamics! I lost my grandmother almost 10 years ago and she was the kin keeper of our family and after her passing everything went out the window. I am now in a position to try and keep traditions alive and give my own child something to pass on to her family later in life. I also have been caring for my ailing grandfather for the past year, and that is no easy task as he still wants things done his way, yet he is not able to do them himself. In the text it states that usually it is middle aged adults caring for their parents and in my case I am the grandchild taking on the roll. I reuse to send him to a skilled facility as long as I am able to do it myself. I feel that keeping him in his own setting will give him better quality of life opposed to being in a facility.
Good for you for taking care of your grandfather.. I don't think it is an easy task to care for another person (young or old!) but caring for the elderly can be especially trying because they have a lifetime of knowledge and experience and it must be hard to revert to a position of being cared for. Your post made me think about how the roll of kin keeper is something that also must be passed down through a family, else the stories and family tree are lost. I think that loss is happening more these days as families are spread out across the country or globe and not as inclined to have multiple generations living together and being part of everyones day to day life..
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