Social Skills & the Sandwich Generation
Today was Graduation Sunday at my church. An honoring of the graduates from those who were graduating from high school. Since my son was one of the graduates, it was his day.
After they were introduced, they invited the parents to come down to pray over the boys. It was very clear, that it was an invitation to the PARENTS, not the families. Each of the boys who graduated had grandparents in the congregation, but my son was the only one whose grandmother got up and came down with the parents. His eyes got wide open as she walked down. Nothing was said to her but the youth pastor quickly changed the invitation from parents ... to an invitation to the addition of other family and friends.
Thank you Ryan.
My son, afterwards tried to say to his grandmother "that was supposed to be a Mom, Dad and me moment" and my mom, with much indignity said "you're MY grandchild! I had every right to be there!"
We quickly dropped it and went back to our seats.
After church, our new worship pastor's wife went over to my son to congratulate him. I had not met her yet. She turned to me to congratulate me, and my mom came walking up. As Margaret congratulated me, mom said "thank you so much"
OK.
Then Margaret said "I heard you singing, you sing so beautifully!" Mom then responded with
"I made sure she was in choir, and got voice lessons"
(um, ok ... um, the voice lessons were a gift from a friend, you had absolutely NOTHING to do with those voice lessons!!)
Then, mom told her about my signing. She told her that she taught me to sign when I was just 4 years old. (um, ok, she taught me to sign my alphabet and Kumbya. But I learned to sign as a 15 year old from our church intepreter, that, once again, had nothing to do with her. I learned to sign INSPITE of my parents sign language skills, not because of.)
Margaret and I tried to carry on a conversation about worship ministry, as well as our names (Peggi is a nick name for Margaret, there is also another Peggy/Margaret in the church). But Mom kept interrupting and putting the focus on herself.
Then Margaret said that she loved to dance to worship, and that she wished that it was considered 'appropriate' in more churches (certainly not ours!!) That she could not wait to get to heaven to dance before Jesus. She considered sign a type of dance (as do I) in worship. (I do to, an acceptable dancing *grin*) We both agreed that it would be awesome to be able to be before the throne of Christ and be able to dance before our savior.
My mom interjected rather loudly
"I can't wait to get to heaven and have Jesus dance over ME!"
WELL GOOOD
that ended the conversation, rather bluntly and quickly. Margaret remembered she needed to talk to the other Peggy ... and needed to go. I think she was kind of shocked at mom's blatant need to pull the conversation to herself. Margaret hasn't been at the church but a few weeks, so she may not realize that mom isn't 'all there'.
I don't know how to respond when mom does this. How do you respond? What do you say? Do you just let it go and drop it? Do you try to calmly say "gee mom, this conversation isn't about you"
I have tried to politely let her know before that if I'm talking to someone to please let me talk.
I have at other times asked her to not follow me around the church and interrupt my conversations, that I don't get to talk to some of these people except on Sunday mornings and I talk to her almost every day. Please, give me some privacy.
Her excuse is "I only find out what's really going on in your life if I interrupt your coversations"
I feel like I should have more patience with her. I should be more gentle, more kind, more ...something!!
I am going nuts trying to be gentle, kind, patient and at the same time ... I don't know where the boundries of propriety, rights, and acceptable behavior are. When is it ok for me to say "enough, you can't cross this line"
If she wasn't loosing social skills, there is no way I'd tolerate this behavior. But, I have no earthly idea what she is comprehending and what she isn't? As I've said a dozen times before, it's like having a child. Her cognitive skills, social skills and abilities are all about that of an 8 year old ..and declining. Her memory is just now starting to go.
She is so demanding that she be allowed to behave in any manner that she choose. "I'm a human too" "I have feelings too" "You can't manipulate me like that"
are all things that are said if you try to redirect her behavior. she claims her therapist has told her this. I dont' know what to believe. He's also supposedly told her that there is nothing wrong with her but ADHD and OCD.
(which, her psychiatrist gets very annoyed with her insistance that this is the problem and her dependence on this diagnosis)
I'm exhausted with this confusion.
After they were introduced, they invited the parents to come down to pray over the boys. It was very clear, that it was an invitation to the PARENTS, not the families. Each of the boys who graduated had grandparents in the congregation, but my son was the only one whose grandmother got up and came down with the parents. His eyes got wide open as she walked down. Nothing was said to her but the youth pastor quickly changed the invitation from parents ... to an invitation to the addition of other family and friends.
Thank you Ryan.
My son, afterwards tried to say to his grandmother "that was supposed to be a Mom, Dad and me moment" and my mom, with much indignity said "you're MY grandchild! I had every right to be there!"
We quickly dropped it and went back to our seats.
After church, our new worship pastor's wife went over to my son to congratulate him. I had not met her yet. She turned to me to congratulate me, and my mom came walking up. As Margaret congratulated me, mom said "thank you so much"
OK.
Then Margaret said "I heard you singing, you sing so beautifully!" Mom then responded with
"I made sure she was in choir, and got voice lessons"
(um, ok ... um, the voice lessons were a gift from a friend, you had absolutely NOTHING to do with those voice lessons!!)
Then, mom told her about my signing. She told her that she taught me to sign when I was just 4 years old. (um, ok, she taught me to sign my alphabet and Kumbya. But I learned to sign as a 15 year old from our church intepreter, that, once again, had nothing to do with her. I learned to sign INSPITE of my parents sign language skills, not because of.)
Margaret and I tried to carry on a conversation about worship ministry, as well as our names (Peggi is a nick name for Margaret, there is also another Peggy/Margaret in the church). But Mom kept interrupting and putting the focus on herself.
Then Margaret said that she loved to dance to worship, and that she wished that it was considered 'appropriate' in more churches (certainly not ours!!) That she could not wait to get to heaven to dance before Jesus. She considered sign a type of dance (as do I) in worship. (I do to, an acceptable dancing *grin*) We both agreed that it would be awesome to be able to be before the throne of Christ and be able to dance before our savior.
My mom interjected rather loudly
"I can't wait to get to heaven and have Jesus dance over ME!"
WELL GOOOD
that ended the conversation, rather bluntly and quickly. Margaret remembered she needed to talk to the other Peggy ... and needed to go. I think she was kind of shocked at mom's blatant need to pull the conversation to herself. Margaret hasn't been at the church but a few weeks, so she may not realize that mom isn't 'all there'.
I don't know how to respond when mom does this. How do you respond? What do you say? Do you just let it go and drop it? Do you try to calmly say "gee mom, this conversation isn't about you"
I have tried to politely let her know before that if I'm talking to someone to please let me talk.
I have at other times asked her to not follow me around the church and interrupt my conversations, that I don't get to talk to some of these people except on Sunday mornings and I talk to her almost every day. Please, give me some privacy.
Her excuse is "I only find out what's really going on in your life if I interrupt your coversations"
I feel like I should have more patience with her. I should be more gentle, more kind, more ...something!!
I am going nuts trying to be gentle, kind, patient and at the same time ... I don't know where the boundries of propriety, rights, and acceptable behavior are. When is it ok for me to say "enough, you can't cross this line"
If she wasn't loosing social skills, there is no way I'd tolerate this behavior. But, I have no earthly idea what she is comprehending and what she isn't? As I've said a dozen times before, it's like having a child. Her cognitive skills, social skills and abilities are all about that of an 8 year old ..and declining. Her memory is just now starting to go.
She is so demanding that she be allowed to behave in any manner that she choose. "I'm a human too" "I have feelings too" "You can't manipulate me like that"
are all things that are said if you try to redirect her behavior. she claims her therapist has told her this. I dont' know what to believe. He's also supposedly told her that there is nothing wrong with her but ADHD and OCD.
(which, her psychiatrist gets very annoyed with her insistance that this is the problem and her dependence on this diagnosis)
I'm exhausted with this confusion.
Labels: social skills
posted by 30 years from Darling at
12:15 AM
5 Comments:
Oh yeah - you must be exhausted, especially after doing all that dancing in church! Just kidding. I wish sometimes that I had been born in the Caribbean - they dance and since in their churches all the time.
I feel for you. Must really be hard. I think I'd just walk away. Ignore her behaviour, as you'd do with a naughty child. But I'm sure there's a good deal more to this than meets the eye.
You should check out Mothering Mother - on my blogroll. The author wrote a book called "mothering mother" about dealing with her alzheimer's mom. She has a blog too.
Hang in there and God Bless.
Can you use humor instead of anger? Or deflect (right Mom, you did get me going on sign, and I then mastered it with the church interpreter) and redirect.
I clearly have to find some kind of appropriate reaction. Right now my reaction is to redirect the conversation. And the anger gets imploded on myself. This has always been my pattern.
I don't do confrontation. I don't do public scenes. I don't show negative emotions. I do experience them and they all get directed at myself. Which, obviously isn't a healthy way to live.
They also can't get aimed at her, either. Which is a fear, that it will explode, volcano style, if this continues. Not that I've ever done that, but. .... ... I've never lived through this before.
This comment has been removed by the author.
I've read about "inappropriate" comments on Alzheimer's sites - I believe the patients were no longer out and about then. Not sure how I'd handle it - so far, we haven't run into that issue.
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