Family Ties

Well, happy Thursday, everybody. How are you? By golly, I took my blue blockers off for a moment, and steph let me know that she really enjoys them. And by golly, I need them. They are doctor prescribed, so I'm going to put him back on. How are we? Happy Thursday. Happy caregiver day. My name is JC, and this is my only, my second week on Caregiver day, but you can normally find me on Mondays and Tuesdays and Saturdays and Sundays. And as of last week, right now, on Thursdays. Marisa, speak. Wonder how are you?

This is family ties. My opportunity to share a little bit about my experience as the youngest in a wonderful american style family with two adopted siblings, three half siblings, one brother, a baby boomer mother, a greatest generation father, and looking at the world with a family as the only millennial with six gen x siblings and going, gosh, what do we do? What do we do? As we look at the ties that bind? So, like I mentioned, six gen x siblings, a boomer mother, a greatest generation father. And I'll even say this.

My family's really unique in the sense that my dad is the oldest of five in a german mill working catholic family from Eau Claire, Wisconsin. My mom is the oldest of three, a polish Catholic Chicago family, worked on the railroads. So both of them are the oldest members of their family trees. I raise that because they both exist with the mentality that they always have to do everything for everybody else. I am the one millennial in my family, in my nuclear family, and as the one who's called to be the caretaker of my family.

I'm 14 years younger than my oldest sibling and then 13. 1211. Nine, four years older than me. I'm 42. My mom was born in 47, my dad born in 44. Again, that all provides a little bit of context. So think about you. Think about the relationships you have with your family and the ties that bind. Everything sets up for you to understand how those stresses of your family, either chosen or biological, set up your life. So, as I mentioned, everybody in my family feels like the call that they have is to do everything for everybody else at all times.

Me as the good millennial, my invitation to them is to always say, actually, what if you didn't do that? What if right now, you do what you want to do for yourself, just for this moment? And I'll speak on behalf of my parents for a moment. So my mom always wanted the big family. Always wanted the big holidays. Now, again, six siblings, right? But we've never been the family who always gets together on the holidays. We're all over the place. We're always doing a lot of things. We've never actually had the big, the big family holidays since I was super, super little.

So what do I always tell my parents? I'm like, you all. You could either be sad that we're not all together, or you can go ahead and make your big family holidays by finding people to spend your big holidays with. You could either go ahead and be like, well, I need to be here, here, here. Or you could do what you want. So as my parents get older, they're still at the age where they can kind of still do some things. I encourage them to do what they want. I move them down to Florida every six months, and they do what they want.

I move them back up every six months to Minnesota, and they do what they want. They sometimes spend time together, but I think part of the reason why they're still married, because they kind of do what they want. Very counter generational and definitely counterintuitive to the way that they were raised. What about your families? Do your families kind of drag themselves into misery because they're always focusing on going, well, I can't do that because your dad or your mom, they don't want to do that.

Or your sibling or your sister or your uncle or your aunt, they would never be okay with that. What if you look at your family that you take care of or that you're the sounding board of? What if you gave them permission to do the thing that they just want to do? What would happen? Hey, what if you gave yourself permission to do the thing that you wanted to do? How much happier would your family be? So the other thing about this live stream in the afternoon, it's called family ties. And if you are of my age or older, you may go, oh, I remember that.

That was a tv show, wasn't it? Yeah. Yep, it was. So along with a little look at the caregiving of our wonderful families and the ties that bind, we'll also go ahead and spend some time chatting a little bit about one of those wonderful sitcoms that took a little peek at the ties that bind of a family. And today I want to chat about one of my favorite, actually my favorite sitcom of all time, perfect strangers. Perfect Strangers was the story of two cousins, Larry Appleton, who was living the bachelor life in his apartment in Chicago, born and raised in Madison, Wisconsin, and then moved to the big city to live the life of the photographer in the big city of Chicago.

And all of a sudden, one day he gets a knock on his apartment door, and his cousin from the island of Mipos, balky Bartakimus, comes moving in, and he's like, you're my cousin. It's like, yep. His long distant cousin moves in with him even though he didn't want to. And all of a sudden, balky, living his american dream teaches Larry to lighten up a little bit. And balky, living his american dream, teaches Larry that. Larry going, this is the way I need to do the thing that I need to do in order to accomplish what I want to accomplish, teaches Larry that there's another way.

What do you need to loosen up on? Or what do you need to invite those people that you care about in your family to loosen up on in order to maybe make those ties that bind a little bit freer? Here's the theme song. Sometimes the world looks perfect? Nothing to rearrange? Sometimes you just. Just got a feeling like you need some kind of change. No matter what the odds are this time nothing's gonna stand in my way? This flamin my heart like a long lost friend? Gives every dark street a light in the end, every eighties theme song is so d*** high.

Standing tall? On the wings of my dream? Rise and fall? On the wings of my dream? Rain and thunder, wind and haze? I'm bound for better days? It's my life, it's my dream? Nothing's gonna stop me now. Think about it. How many of your family members are miserable because they have a dream and they're going, well, I can't do that. I think the millennials taught us and are teaching us. Why can't you do that? As the one millennial in my family with six gen x siblings, a boomer mother, and a greatest generation father, I proudly tell my family, do the things you want to do.

And actually, I think that's the gift that I give. So standing tall? On the wings of your dreams? Rise and fall on the wings of your dreams? Rain and thunder? Win and haze? You are bound for better days? It's your life, it's your dream? Nothing's going to stop you now unless you let it. Y'all have a great rest of your day. Grief and loss. Friday is right around the corner. I'll see you again on Saturday. Have a good one, Cadre.