Conversations About Caregiving: Only Children Caring for Parents [Video]

How do you manage the care of an aging parent when you’re the only caregiving child?

Our guests, Jennifer Richey, Gary Presto and Sharon Mischio, share their experiences as the only children caring for their parents.

Please add your experiences in our comments section.

About Jennifer

Over the past 10 years, Jennifer cared for my father during his journey to get a kidney transplant after Agent Orange exposure in Vietnam. She also lived with and cared for her grandfather in the last 7 years of his life. In 2019, she added an accessible bedroom suite to her home in order to better care for her mother, who passed away in Dec 2020. Jennifer also adopted her 5-year-old great nephew. She have turned her experience and training into a service for new caregivers, new coaches, and women wanting to become brave through courageous conversations and brave decisions.

About Sharon

Sharon Mischio is a certified parent coach, seasoned public school teacher, former professional nanny and proud mom of two adult kids. Sharon has been an only-child caregiver to her parents for over 10 years. She has navigated many hospital stays; selling her parents’ condo; taking over their finances; moving in and out of three different assisted living facilities; health insurance/long-term care insurance issues; hospice care and the emotional fallout of aging and illness. She relies on support from her husband and friends, cry sessions in her car and a healthy sense of humor.

About Gary

Gary Presto has been the sole adult child caregiver for my widowed mom Dorothy for almost 19 years now. His mom has lived in an independent senior housing residence for these past 10 years and is age 95. Gary, who’s single, toggles between his fullt-ime job with his mom, his own physical health issues, and attaining a Certificate of Graduate Studies several years back in Gerontology Aging Services Management. Gary first connected with Denise through her first online caregivers support in 2005. Gary knows there are other men like himself who caregive out there, too, but might present (or not) or provide that care in sometimes more unseen ways. Caregivers are all uniquely visibly and invisibly diverse. Gary believes it should be not about what statistic we represent, but about what we do and what we need to do it. Because he’s been doing this for so long now, Gary sometimes feels like he’s just hanging on. But he thinks that his faith, friends, family, work, and love of life keeps him going.

Connect with Denise, Jennifer, Sharon and Gary on CaringOurWay.com.