Skip to main content

A rant….

This photo of my family was taken this past Thanksgiving. I am not in the picture because I was home sick. my cousin David took the photo.

PB220778a

I’m including this photo because I’m thinking about how we care for family members.  I have been talking to various home care agencies in Boston trying to find the best match for my mother.

I just got off the phone with an agency. One of my sisters told me that several members of her community used the agency. Their rates were low. They were really low. Their workers make a shade over $6 per hour. I know that one could say that the care worker is  sleeping for part of that time, but still. Taking care of an old person is hard work. Being around a person who is not of full mental or physical soundness is exhausting. taking care of such a person takes real skill.

 

I asked the agency about how much time off their full time 24 hour workers get. I was told “ Oh they aren’t like you or me,  they don’t need much time off.”  I don’t know, If I were taking care of even a completely delightful human being 24/7  for only $6/hour after several days I would get kind of cranky. I could not imagine what I would be like after a month. I would assume that even if I had the disposition of a saint I would be mean and resentful of the person I was caring for.

 

 

Needless to say, we did not go with that agency. We have selected the agency that pays it’s workers a decent wage and gives it’s workers 2 days off each week.

Labels:

Comments

  1. SandyMarch 29, 2013 at 6:04 PM

    Well I guess! Good call. I can't believe there are people who still think there are others 'who aren't like you or I'. We know a family from the Philippines. The Father works in a care home. In the Philippines he was a university lecturer. but doesn't have the qualifications needed here. So, not like you or I may possibly be that they are gracious and not over full of self worth.
    I read your food Friday post too. it all looks good. they do pizza with chicken or with pinapple over here. Took some getting used to. the sauce is not as nice as the sauce on American pizza...now and then I find one that is better.
    Our Samuel is 24 today. he is getting rather down about not being able to get a job yet. not really realising it is happening to alot of young people.
    Hope things go smoothly with getting your mum settled. Hope some of the worry is less while you celebrate your holiday.
    Sandy

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sarah JacobsMarch 29, 2013 at 6:41 PM

    Sandy, I was so angry after the call with that agency that I was running around my house yelling. I did not shout angry curses at the woman on the phone. I thought them, but did not yell at her.

    As for you son, it took my daughter a long time to get a rel job. She graduated from college two years ago June and it took until just a few weeks ago before she got a real job. she's had bits of jobs and some awful jobs. I do hope that this one is a keeper.
    Best of wishes to your Samuel.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

I love hearing from my readers. I moderate comments to weed out bots.It may take a little while for your comment to appear.

Popular posts from this blog

Connecting with the past

A few months ago I had a craving for my father’s chicken fricassee.  If my father were still alive I would have called him up and he would have talked me through the process of making it.    My father is no longer alive so I turned to my cookbooks and the recipes I found for chicken fricassee were nothing at all like the stew of chicken necks, gizzards and wings in a watery sweet and sour tomato sauce that I enjoyed as a kid.  I assumed that the dish was an invention of my father’s. I then attempted to replicate the dish from my memory of it and failed.   A couple of weeks ago I saw an article on the internet, and I can’t remember where, that talked about Jewish fricassee  and it sounded an awful lot like the dish I was hankering after. This afternoon I went to the butcher and picked up all of the chicken elements of the dish, a couple of packages each of wings, necks and gizzards. My father never cooked directly from a cook book. He used to re...
1 comment
Read more

The light themed tallit has been shipped!!!

 I had begun speaking to Sarah about making her a tallit in the middle of August. It took a few weeks to nail down the design. For Sarah it would have been ideal if the tallit were completed in time for her to wear it on Rosh HaShanah., the beginning of her year as senior rabbi of her congregation. For me, in an ideal world, given the realities of preparing for the High Holidays I would have finished this tallit in the weeks after Sukkot. So we compromised and I shipped off the tallit last night.  I would have prefered to have more time but I got the job done in time. This tallit was made to mark Sarah's rise to the position of senior rabbi but it was also a reaction to this year of darkness. She chose a selection of verses about light to be part of her tallit. 1)  אֵל נוֹרָא עֲלִילָה  God of awesome deeds ( from a yom kippur Liturgical poem) 2)  אוֹר חָדָשׁ עַל־צִיּוֹן תָּאִיר   May You shine a new light on Zion ( from the liturgy) 3)  יָאֵר יְהֹ...
8 comments
Read more

A Passover loss

 My parents bought this tablecloth during their 1955 visit to Israel. It is made out of  linen from the first post 1948 flax harvest. The linen is heavy and almost crude. The embroidery is very fine. We used this cloth every Passover until the center wore thin.  You can see the cloth on the table in the background of this photo of my parents and nephew My Aunt Sheva bought my mother a replacement cloth. The replacement cloth is made out of a cotton poly blend. The embroidery is crude and the colors not nearly as nice. The old cloth hung in our basement. We used the new cloth and remembered the much nicer original cloth. I loved that my aunt wanted to replace the cloth, I just hated the replacement because it was so much less than while evoking the beauty of the original. After my father died my mother sat me down and with great ceremony gave me all of her best tablecloths. She also gave me the worn Passover cloth and suggested that I could mend it. I did. Year after year ...
2 comments
Read more