Living: the ultimate team sport

A team is only as good as its members.  If the playbook isn’t carefully followed, success is unattainable.

My brother, my dad, and myself in 2006 at dad’s care facility.

The scenario for this article centers around care for Mom.  It doesn’t matter if Mom is still living at home and cared for primarily by one of her adult children OR Mom is living in a care facility receiving care for her day-to-day needs outside of the home.  Either way the brothers and sisters of this caregiving team are in for the challenge of their lives.  What follows is a simple, yet complex, listing of destructive traits that could get in the way of the family’s caregiving goal.  All definitions are directly from the Oxford English Dictionary, 11th Edition, 2004.

• EGO. n. a person’s sense of self-esteem or self-importance.  Brothers and sisters, please check your egos at the door.  The…