This is a first for MidLifeBloggers: we’re publishing a chapter of a new book written by midlife blogger

Ellen Besso of MidLife Maze

Putting ourselves first is a concept that is very difficult for women to hear. It goes against the grain. After all, we’re women, aren’t we meant to nurture? Years ago when I was in group therapy, the facilitator used to tell us to put ourselves first. As many of us were mothers, that made her request an especially tough one.

It took many attempts on the part of the therapist before we began to understand what she was talking about. What finally convinced us was the idea that we would be better mothers, partners, workers – as well as better human beings – if we prioritized our own needs.

Maybe I’ve been one of the lucky ones. I didn’t buy into the ‘relentless busyness’ of modern life, as Wayne Muller, author of Sabbath: Restoring the Sacred Rhythm of Rest and Delight, calls it. This may have been partly due to my increased awareness from being in the group, my partner’s balanced way of living and also the result of the deliberate choices we made together about the lifestyle we wanted and where we chose to live.

Although city people, in the eighties we made our home in an old farmhouse just north of Toronto, and since 1990 we’ve called a BC coastal community a forty-minute ferry ride from Vancouver our home. Even when we went back to city living for almost five years early in this decade, serendipity provided us with a slower-paced living situation in a very special little community called Quayside Village Co-housing. Life within the community is a microcosm of a slower society, where neighbours stop to pass the time of day, have tea together and share common meals twice each week.

When Oprah Winfrey first had life coach Cheryl Richardson on her show in the early nineties, the audience actually booed her when she advised them to put themselves first, a surprising and unusual reaction on their part. They obviously felt very strongly about this topic, perhaps because of their conditioning combined with their biology of nurturing hormones.

Certainly things have changed since then, but I’m not sure just how much. Many women now take the advice of professionals and carve out some regular time for themselves. They may have a massage now and then or take an hour alone or with friends. However, to ensure our needs are fully met, we need to carefully develop a daily rhythm of mindful balance. It’s our right and we’re entitled to this.

The responsibility of caregiving is still considered women’s work almost exclusively in our society. Most paid and unpaid caregivers are female. Our elders rely on their daughters, daughters-in-law and granddaughters for help if they do not have a spouse to care for them. Many of us have been raised to believe our job is to take care of our family’s needs, including those of our aging parents. This is particularly true of women born in the baby boomer years (1946 to 1965).

For the past ten years I have been a caregiver for my mother who has Alzheimer’s disease. I haven’t done it solo, my brother took a very active role in the first years, organizing and managing her in-home care as well as visiting our mom regularly. We’ve been very fortunate to have many loving private and care home professionals who have done most of the practical work of looking after mom.

The midlife caregiver experience can be very stressful. Midlife is a time when our focus and our energies are shifting inward, yet now we have an additional responsibility. It’s easy to lose sight of ourselves during the process of taking care of aging parents. This can be especially true in a shared living situation, where the caregiver is available to her parent around the clock.

It may be some time before we begin to realize, and even longer before we acknowledge, that a large part of the stress we’re experiencing with its accompanying sadness, guilt and frustration, is a result of our complicated relationship with our declining parent. At first we may think it’s our job, our business, our partner or our kids that are the cause of our nagging worries.

When we do become aware of the root of our problem, we often feel we shouldn’t complain. After all they’re our parents and we have a duty to them. Perhaps we say to ourselves, “What right do I have to feel burdened when I’m not doing the bulk of the daily care?”

Finding the balance between the doing and the being – between the demands of the outer, physical world and our inner emotional and spiritual one – is so important for women. There are many reasons midlife might not be the ideal time for caregiving. We may yearn to begin new ventures such as travel, school, volunteer work, hobbies or a new business, our energy levels may be lower, we may be experiencing health issues including perimenopause and menopause challenges, or we may want to retire and do whatever pleases us.

Humans are like plants. It takes a lot to kill most plants. They can survive for years in poor soil, and poor light. But it’s not good enough for us to just survive…to ‘get through’ our parent’s declining years. We deserve much more than that. If we burn ourselves out it’s difficult to recover a state of good health and joyful living.

For the most part no one is able to put herself first at all times. We deserve to experience life as full human beings… multi-faceted women. Only by feeding ourselves in every way possible will we be empowered to live the rich and joyful lives we yearn for and deserve.

I challenge you to question your beliefs and to change your thinking and your habits around being a midlife caregiver. It won’t happen overnight. Change takes time, contrary to what the ‘quick fix‘ marketing tells us. When we are aware of our own needs, we can develop new ways of caring for those of our parent. Once we have created balance in our lives, we have the foundation to build our dreams on.

Ellen Besso holds a Master of Arts degree in Counselling Psychology, is a Martha Beck Certified Coach and a Registered Clinical Counsellor. She is a writer and life coach who specializes in helping women access their joy and passions as they navigate the challenges of midlife, including caring for their elders.  You can buy The Caregiver in Midlife here.