They're not the sharpest people - babies. So, you must be everything to them.
We used to have to arrange things around the dialysis. I would have to plan where to play so I could be back in time, and couldn't go too far.
I'm not a caregiver.
There are only four kinds of people in the world - those who have been caregivers, those who are caregivers, those who will be caregivers and those who will need caregivers.
Feminists have mocked full-time motherhood as silly and old fashioned. Maybe they're right. I mean, what do moms do really?
You could pray all you want that you have a massive stroke while you're working and die, but possibly that won't happen, and you'll be in this bed, and somebody's going to have to clean you up.
[Chuck's wife] was standing behind me at the time and she said, 'Chuck hasn't fed himself in 19 years. So, you've got a choice: We keep the arm, or you keep Chuck.'
In retrospect, perhaps the biggest reason my mother was cared for but not helped for twenty years was the simplest: Her functioning was not that necessary to the world.
So you're getting squeezed at both sides. You're taking care of your mom and dad and you're still doing caregiving with your kids, which is not easy. But I think overall, there's a level of satisfaction that might be unparalleled.
My dad was a surgeon, my mom a nurse, and they were always out working. I had five sisters and a brother. They didn't care what I got up to.
It is a little ironic that one thing a babysitter should not do is sit on a baby.
I don't get that with the nannies. What's your point if you have a child and you aren't raising it?
