Things We Aren't Supposed To Talk About

Cadre. Good morning, it is Shannon from Cadre. I am late. It is 907. Welcome to Minneapolis St. Paul. Thursday morning in the Cadre sphere it is again, like I said, 9:07am Central Standard Time. Welcome, welcome, welcome. So for those of you who don't know me, I am actually part of the Cadre team. So I get to work with the beautiful Luke, jc, Colleen, Ana, et cetera. And I am here today on Caregiver day on Cadre, which is the day that those of us who care for people come together to talk about it.

And so that is my job. Okay? So for those of you who don't know me, I am not a clinician, I am not a mental health professional. I'm a human who lives with anxiety and CPTSD myself. I'm also the caregiver of a child with autism, my beautiful 15 year old son. And then I have another son who is a 16, almost 17 year old. And so actually today I'm going to take a departure from a typical conversation which is, which does tend to be more about my son with autism because that's probably a little bit more of a sort of traditional in quotes caregiver role.

And today I'm actually going to talk about caring for my other son, my neurotypical almost 17 year old son, Sullivan Sully. So yesterday I had a meeting scheduled at 9am like many of you who have full lives and have to do a lot of things, I had a meeting that I was supposed to lead four Cadre for my Cadre team at 9am and at 8:10, my 17, my 16 year old Sully texts me and was like, mom, can you take me to the doctor? Actually he said, do you want to take me to the doctor? So I knew he had a doctor's appointment.

It was at 9:15 and his dad made the appointment, but he said, mom, do you want to take me to the doctor? And so for those of you who have kids, and especially teenagers and teenage, probably boys, I don't know, I don't have a girl to juxtapose it to, but I feel like I interpreted that as his way of being like, hey mom, I need you. And I had a meeting, like I said, scheduled at 9am with Luke from Cadre and Ana from Cadre. And it's a meeting that I lead. And in that moment I was like, ah, I've got this meeting meeting and I'm leading this meeting and I'm like shoot, what do I do?

And it took me about 30 seconds to say My kid who asked me for little because he's a 17 year old boy is asking for me and he's asking for me to be with him. And so I made a decision in that moment to do it. And I texted my team and I said, hey, my son needs to go to the doctor, I need to take him. And so I'm going to move. Our meeting seems like a little thing, right? But for any of you who have multiple roles and carry the weight of a job and caregiving and all the things, it can feel like hard to walk away from the other responsibilities, right?

And it can be like, oh God, what decision do I make right here? My team's counting on me. But in that moment yesterday, I chose my son and I chose my caregiver role as his mom. And the funny thing was we went to the doctor, he has allergies, and, you know, amoxicillin is what he got. And I got to spend an hour with him and I got to drive with him in the car. I got to, you know, be in his presence. I got to sit in the room. He didn't care that I came in and I got to sit in the room with him. And it was funny because we're sitting there looking out the window and I was like, oh my gosh, I love you so much.

Like, I never just get to sit with you anymore. You're a 17 year old kid. I don't get to sit with you and like be close to you physically because you're running around and doing a thousand things, as am I. And so I honestly walked away from that and was like, this is going to sound creepy, so please forgive me. I was just like, oh my God, I'm so in love with you in a mom child way. But I did, I felt like I was just so grateful to have sat in his presence to be with him, to care for him, because as you all know as kids age, they don't want you to care for them in the ways you did.

And so it turned into this fantastically beautiful moment where I was able to be with this kid. And I did choose that caregiver role in that moment. And I don't regret it for a second. I spent an hour with him, I dropped him off, and I went back to my day. And so I just want to encourage us all, like, I could have chosen in that moment to be like, ah, my meeting got blown up or like, oh my God, now I'm off for the day, or whatever. And I chose instead to very intentionally say this is an opportunity to be with this kid that I love, and he's asking for me and I'm gonna be there.

And so it actually made my day amazing. I was so. I just had the best day. I left him and, you know, the minute I dropped him off, he turned into his passive aggressive little child self that he is. But it was just a great day. And so I just encourage us to find the things that are beautiful in caregiving, and I hope that you have those in your life. All right, coming up, Today we have Mac Minnesota Autism center is coming up. We have Ms. Shannon Paul. We have Speak Wonder, aka Kathy Joy harbor pilots.

So for any of you caregivers out there, today is the day to tune into our lives. Know that you are not alone in caregiving and know that there's a lot of beauty in it as well. So thank you for being here. I loved seeing you all and I hope you have a fantastic day and we'll see you here again soon. Soon in the contrast. Fair. Bye, guys. Have a great day. See you soon. Uhoh. I didn't press end.