Beware of the Naysayers
These naysayers are those lovely intrusive coworkers and "friends" who pry into your family affairs and try to wrangle information out of you about why you aren't putting your parent in a facility and why your siblings aren't doing more and why you are taking off so many days for the parent's medical issues rather than taking time for a vacation. These people really don't care what you are going through even though they talk sweet and act concerned. They only see your parent as a burden and see your life as "not a life". They like to nag you about when are you going to put your parent in a facility or get services to handle all of the tasks that you don't mind doing because they have their own agendas such as hoping to drain your time dry themselves so they do not want you spending your time with your parent. Or they have "issues" with their parent so they don't like seeing you helping yours because it makes them feel guilty. Or they are simply ageist and think that all elderly people have already lived out their worth. In my case, I made a personal commitment within myself to take care of my parent regardless of the fact that the 2 siblings do not help, and for me it is partly my spiritual values and partly other factors including that I am a nurse and do not have children, that is, no other family other than my parent. Helping my parent is my vocation in life. The naysayers do not have any concept about vocation. They just want to nose their way into my day and try to ruin my morale and my mood by negativity about what I'm trying to do. I have learned not to listen to the naysayers most of the time but there are occasionally times when they do get to me and I go home feeling like someone pricked me with needles all day long. It is hard enough to take care of an elderly parent without having the naysayers poke and prick you all day long.
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