All posts tagged: Caring

Man known for pro-Trump displays who died after attack outside his home was ‘caring’ and ‘kind,’ family says

Man known for pro-Trump displays who died after attack outside his home was ‘caring’ and ‘kind,’ family says

Published by Sam Flores

The death of a Southern California man who was attacked outside his home decorated with Donald Trump memorabilia has left his family struggling to cope. Subscribe to read this story ad-free Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content. Alejandra Nava, Kerry Sheron’s stepdaughter, said he was a “caring” man who enjoyed working as a chef at local retirement homes. Every Friday, he would host a fish fry, Nava said in a phone interview Wednesday. “He was definitely a kind man,” she said. “Anybody who was anybody knew him at the churches and stuff.” His wife, Maria Garcia, told NBC San Diego that he was a “beautiful man.” “I want my husband back,” she said. Sheron, 69, was attacked outside his home in Escondido just before 2:15 p.m. May 20, police said in a news release. When officers arrived, he had significant injuries, and he was hospitalized in critical condition. He died Sunday. The cause and manner of death are pending determination by the medical examiner’s office. A suspect, Navy veteran Thomas Caleb Butler, …

Trump’s Medicaid cuts threaten to upend families caring for disabled relatives

Trump’s Medicaid cuts threaten to upend families caring for disabled relatives

Published by Sam Flores

Now the wage she receives from the state is set to drop by more than 25%, down to $23.69 an hour. “I can’t absorb that,” Gonce said. “How am I supposed to keep paying my bills?” Advocates say paying relatives as caregivers doesn’t just help families — it can save the government money. Michele Gregory and her husband both care full time for their 31-year-old son, Nick, who has a rare and severe form of epilepsy and profound developmental disabilities, requiring continuous supervision. After they pulled him out of a day program and took over caregiving around 2017 at their home on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, Gregory said, Nick’s health improved and his hospitalizations dropped from about four times a year to once every 12 to 18 months. “That saved Medicaid somewhere between $300,000 to $400,000 a year,” she said. Michele Gregory and her husband work as full-time caregivers for their 31-year-old son, Nick.Courtesy Michele Gregory With Maryland’s new wage cuts and a 60-hour cap on the total number of caregiving hours a family can be …

Caring for service dogs | MIT Technology Review

Caring for service dogs | MIT Technology Review

Published by skeptic

While service dogs might be best known for guiding the blind, Canine Companions trains dogs to do such things as open doors for wheelchair users or alert deaf people to doorbells, fire alarms, and other key sounds. Its psychiatric service dogs help veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder—waking them from nightmares, for example. To date, it’s paired more than 7,000 dogs with people in need. It’s critical to ensure that every service dog placed is healthy, and Kennedy—a veterinarian—spearheads the organization’s efforts to breed dogs with that in mind. “We wouldn’t place a dog that might have a life-shortening or a significant medical issue that a person might have to manage,” she says. Kennedy also takes the lead in developing tech to support Canine Companions’ work. She is a co-inventor of CanineAlert, a patented device that sends a signal to a dog’s collar so the dog can interrupt a nightmare when its owner’s heart rate spikes. The technology may soon expand to address daytime anxiety episodes.  “These dogs can really be not only life-transforming in …

People Who Put Up Bird & Squirrel Feeders In Their Yards Usually Share 11 Rare Personality Traits

People Who Put Up Bird & Squirrel Feeders In Their Yards Usually Share 11 Rare Personality Traits

Published by Jenni Sidey

People who put up bird and squirrel feeders in their yards usually aren’t doing it just for decoration or entertainment. Taking the time to feed backyard wildlife tends to reflect rare personality traits such as empathy, patience, and genuine concern for small animals that many others overlook. It’s an unassuming, often overlooked habit, but it says a lot about how someone feels responsible for the living things sharing their space. More than anything, keeping feeders stocked shows a deep love for animals and a natural instinct to nurture. People who do this regularly tend to notice their surroundings more closely, appreciate quieter moments, and stay committed to caring for something outside themselves. Here are the rare personality traits many of these bird and squirrel feeders share. People who put up bird and squirrel feeders in their yards usually share 11 rare personality traits: 1. They’re open-minded and curious about the world around them Rido | Shutterstock People who put up bird and squirrel feeders tend to stay curious about what’s happening outside their window. They …

Smart People Do 11 Things To Get Their Life Back On Track Without Caring Who Stays Or Leaves

Smart People Do 11 Things To Get Their Life Back On Track Without Caring Who Stays Or Leaves

Published by Jenni Sidey

Personal growth can be a relatively elusive topic, but some research, like a study from New Ideas in Psychology, breaks it down into simpler terms. Self-awareness, openness, courage, autonomy, and full responsibility for one’s self care are the main tenets of personal growth, and while they take time and effort to build up, they can truly transform a person’s life and existence. Especially when it comes to taking responsibility, in periods of crisis or stagnancy, accountability is the first step. Smart people do certain things to get their life back on track without caring who stays or leaves, but it takes that inner accountability to make space for them. They can’t keep blaming others or subconsciously self-sabotaging to progress forward. Smart people do 11 things to get their life back on track without caring who stays or leaves 1. They stop blaming other people BearFotos | Shutterstock People who refuse to take accountability for themselves and instead blame others are often operating from a chronic victim mentality. They’d prefer to protect their self-image, seek pity …

10 Rare Personality Traits In People Who Leave Food Out For Stray Animals

10 Rare Personality Traits In People Who Leave Food Out For Stray Animals

Published by Jenni Sidey

It speaks volumes about people that go out of their way to leave food out for stray animals. A 2024 survey even found that feeding stray animals is a relatively common activity with an estimated 10-26% of people providing care.  Stopping and feeding a hungry animal is truly a window into someone’s personality and how they relate to the world around them. It might just look like someone just has a soft spot for animals and is being nice, but people who do it regularly without making a big deal about it treat those around them and even themselves way differently. The 10 rare personality traits of people who leave food out for stray animals: 1. Deep empathy Ground Picture | Shutterstock People who leave food out for stray animals have an ability to feel what others are going through. They don’t need an animal to be cute and friendly with them to recognize that it needs a bit of help. Their empathy is able to operate without strings attached.  Most people tend to only …

Tell us your experience of caring for elderly parents | Family

Tell us your experience of caring for elderly parents | Family

Published by Sam Flores

In a recent Guardian opinion piece, Lucinda Holdforth described her experience of caring for her late mother, and her complicated feelings after she died. It is a common human theme that good parents can never really rest for worrying about their children. But it seems to me that a reciprocal burden exists for good children. We are never entirely free from the psychic weight of our parents’ needs, love and ambitions for us in our youth, and increasingly we now find ourselves taking on guardian-style responsibilities for them during their prolonged old age. I finally understood the accumulated heaviness of the burden I had carried about a year after my mother died. At 59, I was at last an orphan, which meant I could turn off my phone each night. I woke up one day with the most complete feeling of creative liberty and personhood I’d ever experienced. That feeling has not left me since. With this in mind, we would like to hear about your own experiences of caring for elderly parents. How has …

Riane Eisler on Partnership Systems, Caring Economics, and Humanist Values in the 21st Century

Riane Eisler on Partnership Systems, Caring Economics, and Humanist Values in the 21st Century

Published by Sam Flores

Riane Eisler, an Austrian-born American systems scientist, futurist and human rights advocate, is renowned for her influential work on cultural transformation and gender equity. Best known for “The Chalice and the Blade,” she introduced the partnership vs. dominator models of social organization. She received the Humanist Pioneer Award in 1996, and in conversation with Scott Douglas Jacobsen, Eisler emphasized the urgent need for humanists to focus on values-based systems and the transformative power of caring economics. Drawing from neuroscience and history, she argues that peace begins at home and calls for a shift in worldview to build more equitable, sustainable, and compassionate societies rooted in connection, not control. The three books of hers of note that could be highlighted are “The Chalice and the Blade”—now in its 57th U.S. printing with 30 foreign editions, “The Real Wealth of Nations,” and “Nurturing Our Humanity: How Domination and Partnership Shape Our Brains, Lives, and Future” (Oxford University Press, 2019). Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Today, we are here with Riane Eisler. She is an Austrian-born American systems scientist, cultural …

The Last Chapter Isn’t Over: The Value of Storytelling in Caring for Our Elders

The Last Chapter Isn’t Over: The Value of Storytelling in Caring for Our Elders

Published by Sam Flores

“People need a function, he believes. And he has always been functional, no one can take that away from him.” — Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove Fredrik Backman’s “A Man Called Ove” follows a protagonist who has lost his wife and has hardened into a bitter and solitary figure, a curmudgeonly presence in his neighborhood. His character is reminiscent of Scrooge in Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol,” described as “hard as flint.” Yet Backman’s novel slowly reveals that Ove was not always this way. Moving between past and present, the story offers glimpses of the man he once was, the version of Ove who seems to have disappeared alongside his wife. In remembering Sonja, we learn that after her cancer diagnosis she “found it easier to forgive than Ove did. Forgive God and the universe for everything.” Ove, by contrast, felt that “someone needed to remain angry on her behalf.” As we read, we come to realize that his seemingly petty frustrations, his arguments with council representatives and “the men in white shirts,” even …