We are wanting just the 4 of us at the table, not caregiver as it is family time. We offered her off from 2-9 pm to go back to city and be with friends. She was hurt saying they all had plans. We have concerns with her anyway which we spoke with her about last night. The main one is her flirtatious behavior with my husband. My mother, her charge, wad the first one to notice it and she is bothered by it. My husband who is pretty naive to this does see it. The worst part is whenever I walk into the room she abruptly goes into another room like she feels guilty. I feel disrespected in my home. My husband mentioned this to her and naturally she denied that. She said she isnt "as close" to me because I am direct. My personality is direct and. not easy-going like my husbands. Most people would appreciate a direct personality as they know where they stand. I have always been nice to her. She takes offense when I tell her to do something differently with my mother. I've told her, as has my husband, we are following the doctors orders or rehabs instructions. The list goes on. My mother is 85, I am 56, my husband 52 and the caregiver is 40. She dresses in tight yoga pants, off the shoulder sweaters and leg warmers. My husband is very good looking. I trust my husband with all of this. Oh, and last night she told me that "any young woman who came into your home would flirt with your husband because he is a very good looking man".
Ufortunately she is the best we have had-we have had liars, people stealing, one getting naked in the shower with my mother, none previously who would cook (everything was fried in gallons of olive oil), one that said, when looking at our dogs she ATE dogs.
So obviously there are a lot of issues here but what I want to know now is it rude to just want the family at the Thanksgiving table?
Sorry for the soap opera but I wanted to supply a background.
Thank you for any suggestions.
Susan
After thinking on it, if this is a live-in caregiver, and she is home, there would be a problem in not having her at the table, imop. So, I guess you have to decide if you want this person in your home after that. Does she still have a home, or is this it for her? That would be a whole other issue. Keep posting until you all figure this out. You could treat her as an employee and ask her to help with the dinner and clean up. You could have her cook for Mom and you go out with family, leaving poor Mom with caregiver? There are so many possibilities.
She is a paid employee and not your relative. Hurt feelings or not she has been given the holiday off. Stick to your decision.
#2 FIRE HER. This has nothing to do with personalities, this woman has crossed professional boundaries with your husband and has admitted it to you.
Start looking for her replacement immediately and let her go before she does more damage to your family.
My thoughts are will you, Your instincts are correct about this woman. She is trouble.
Unless you cannot find better care, you will need to really talk to this person. It sounds like she really doesn't have enough to do in a day---would your mother do puzzles? watch movies? put together humanitarian packages? Or is she really just in need of a warm body to watch her?
As much as I agree with your concerns, I know I'd have her come to dinner. No alcohol, good idea, but unless you help her transport to someplace else and back...she'll sit up in her room and feel like a naughty child. (Which, kind of sounds like she is, BUT.....) Good luck with this. The scrubs idea was great, also. I wouldn't have minded wearing those!
There is no jealousy, I gave that up long ago. Her comments and behaviors were inappropriate. We spoke with her and she is scarce-not following my husband around.
We have decided to include her but I like the advice of telling her that Christmas is family time and she has the day off. She has an apartment with a room mate in the city and friends in the city too.
Whereas she is on call 24 hours it has never happened. She works a total of 4 hours a day-does my moms laundry, makes her eggs and toast for breakfast, simple lunch and simple dinner. She stands in the bathroom while my mother showers herself. She walks in back of her or next to her when my mom is using her walker. That is the extent of her working. She does not drive. She eats either with my mom or in her room so she can Skype her mom who is in another country. My husband and I eat very late due to our schedules.
My mom would not have the patience for puzzles but we suggested a simple card game, talking about not too personal life experiences but they have cultural upbringing differences they could share, etc. We also have a few relatives that can visit while we are at work.
I like the idea of scrubs.
Thank you for understanding that being direct is not being mean. It lets people know where things stand, the expectations and when things are going well too. My employees and patients all prefer directness.
It is vey hard having a stranger in our home. Plus we never get one minute with the house to ourselves.
I will keep everyone posted on how tomorrow goes. I am really trying here. I don't have to ask "WWJD", I know.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone.
Good result!
We are ALL sitting down to dinner in a few minutes.
I am thankful for everyone who took their time to reply. Will check back later...
Or, Shesmom decided to cook the caregiver and burned dinner.
I am hoping nothing bad happened.
NO, only as a side dish.
Shesmom, I feel for you. Live-in elderly parent and live-in-ish caregiver.....how suffocating. Do I think the caregiver needed to be at your T-giving table? No. She's an adult and she can figure it out. Life isn't a Norman Rockwell painting -- as she knows darn well from the line of work she's in.
As for the other issues, have you considered quietly/constantly interviewing new caregivers while this one is with you....however long it takes....then make the switch when you find a good fit?
With the frustrations you had w/the other caregivers (which are depressingly common, apparently), I can see why you're hanging onto this gal. But big picture -- she's poison. Her disrespect for you is galling. She ignores your instructions, and she is thoroughly inappropriate with your husband. Whether he's the type to take the bait or not, the caregiver is sending a huge message about how little she thinks of you. And even though she's OK with the tasks and (so far) not a thief, how can she be properly invested in your mother's care when she treats you and your husband like a joke? Very unprofessional.
And honestly, I suspect that something worse lies beneath her surface emotional immaturity and iffy people skills. She's 40 years old, has no car and her apartment is 40 minutes away? What the heck?? I know she doesn't make awesome money, but really...no car? She'll soon become comfortable asking hubby (never you) to drive her to Target, Walgreen's, etc. (Or is that happening already?)
She's 40 years old, dresses like a 20-year-old and can't get through the day without cooing over a married man in front of his wife? She needs to take her sick sh*t elsewhere.
You are in a crappy spot right now. I feel for you. But I think you know deep-down that the longer she works for you, the more she'll ooze unneccesary drama. If you have the stamina to keep shopping around, get on it.
By my calculation that is a 24 hour a day job. Hope you are paying her minimum wage and overtime as required by labor laws.
First to reply to gladimheren here is the schedule: caregiver gets up anout 9 am, takes a shower, wakes my mom up at 9:30 and assists my mom if she needs it in the shower-usually she stands outside the bathroom door for 8 minutes. My mom then asks for help with getting sweater on due to artbritis. And help with socks. It is now about 9:50 a.m. She has my mom sit in her nice comfy chair in her bedroom and turns on the TV for her. Then the caregiver goes downstairs puts two eggs in a pot to soft boil for my mother, then gets her a bowl of cereal and when the eggs are done brings up the cereal eggs and coffee to my mom. Now, while she is waiting for the eggs to soft boil she sits there leisurely and have a nice cup of coffee. When she brings the breakfast to my mother she takes the fitted sheet off the bedn the clothes that my mother wore the day before (pants, top of some sort and socks and takes them downstairs and throws it in the wash. She then has breakfast whe she waits for sheet to be done. Then she throws it in the dryer. Then she is on the phone until lunchtime. My moms lunch typically consists of one piece of bread, two slices of some sort of deli meat, one slice of cheese, water because my mother dehydrates very easily and a piece of fruit. That takes 6 minutes. She brings that to my mother. Then she gets her lunch and goes to her room and Skypes with her mother for 1 hour. Dinner might consist of putting a piece of chicken in the oven with a potato and putting a vegetable into the water to cook. The few dishes that are used she puts in the dishwasher. She sits the rest of the day and watches TV talks on the phone Skype and that's about all we can figure out. She does no extra work. She does not clean up like she is supposed to. She rarely empty the dishwasher. She has a old car now and she's been driving just a few months she said it. She has already been in a small hit and run, yes I did say hit and run. She is also had a few tickets for speeding and for parking. This all in just a few short months. Needless to say I am NOT comfortable having her take my mother anywhere yet. She gets paid $265.00 a day. She has a minimum of 10 hours in her room at night to sleep. Often times it is closer to 11 hours. In the 14 months we have used caregivers no one has ever had to get up in the middle of the night to assist my mother with anything. And the few times my mother did cough or need something the caregiver no matter which caregiver it was who has a baby monitor which is on full volume and you can hear quite clearly has never gotten up. My husband and I are the ones who got up.
So our caregivers have had the opportunity to get between 10 and 11 hours of sleep every night on interrupted. As you can see the amount of work they have done is extremely minimal.
As far as the one who said we eat dogs and having no respect for me, she had not even met me yet. She had walked in the door to report for her first day and my husband walked into the room and was just about to introduce her to my mother and she saw our dogs and made that comment. I'm not sure who had said that that caregiver had no respect for me because of the comments she made about her dogs however she had not even met me at that point.
Black hole, I really appreciated your response. And thank you for the empathy. We've gone through several agencies and we have had just very disappointing and sometimes horrific experiences with us. You are right the level of respect for me is zero and I do like the idea of trying to quietly interview other people before we let this one go. The problem is they have to come into the home and I don't want to be able to have the other one know what's going on. Prior to everyone telling my husband what was going on he may have driven her to the store if she needed to get something however with everything going on in his awareness now there is not a snowball's chance that he would do that.
And now let me tell you about Thanksgiving. We told her that after being up until 3 in the morning the past few nights and be on our feet for two days preparing everything that we were going to put on some nice clean pajamas and have our Thanksgiving dinner or pajamas. I told her I'm not fixing myself up I am simply going to be just as I am and we're going to relax this Thanksgiving. It was only going to be myself my husband my mother and my 18 year old step son. My mother who at 85 has become quite vain decided she wanted to wear a nice pair of pants and sweater and have her nails done and put on a little makeup. God bless her, she's adorable. She was the only one who is going to dress up. About 20 minutes before dinner was about to be done I haven't walk out of my room and I saw her and she said to me I'm putting on makeup so I can be pretty for everyone. And she painted her nails. And then she changed into a nice low cut top and tight pants and that was her outfit for Thanksgiving. Conversation was strained. My husband was distantly polite if you can picture that.
Today, we have the weekend caregiver here, my mom asked me if vitamin E oil was expensive. She has been using it on her hands at the doctors suggestion. I told her no, why? Well the full time caregivef has been pouring it all over herself! The large bottle that was purchased a week ago is nearly gone! Then my mom said all her lotions are gone too as are several of her nail polishes. She said the caregiver "feels free to come in and use all of my things all the time". THEN my mother said she had a small candy bar in her drawer she was saving until she had a taste for it and the caregiver walked into my moms room, opened the drawer and said "I'm stealing your candy, I have a taste for it".
So, that is the latest.