Board and Care Homes – What Are They?

Board and Care homes (also known as RCFE’s - Residential Care Facilities for Elderly) are residential private homes that have been licensed by Department of Social Services to provide services to seniors. Most accept no more than six residents, but offer a cozy, home-like setting for frail seniors. At least one caregiver is on premises at all times to assist residents.

Board and care homes come with a variety of characteristics. Rooms can be shared or private and may include a shared or private bathroom. Limited social activities are provided, but not to extent of an assisted living facility. Specific needs can be met in this small setting, such as language, ethnic or food preferences, even accommodating a loved pet. Meals, laundry, housekeeping, transportation to doctor appointments are usually included. Most provide assistance with dressing, bathing, grooming, eating, medication management, and hygiene and continence issues. With hundreds of these homes scattered throughout most geographic areas, there is hardly a situation that cannot be met in a board and care home.

When Your Children Come From Different Planets

As I write this, Carol and I are in London, having just spent a lovely two week European cruise with my sister and her family--my sister married an Englishman and has been living in England for over 25 years. Carol and I savored opportunity to spend this extended time, and particularly appreciated getting to know our twin niece and nephew better. Watching twins caused me to reflect a bit on observation that two children growing up in same household, even when they are twins, inevitably blossom with different personalities. Sometimes—as in case of my own two children, and in case of my sister and my brother—the differences are so profound one might think they grew up not just in different families, but on different planets. Many of us know families where some of children have followed in their parents’ path in terms of careers, values, and lifestyles, but one or more of others have marched to their own drummer, perhaps even becoming “black sheep” of family. My niece stands 5 feet 10 inches tall at age 11, while her brother is only 5 feet 2 inches. He aspires to be an engineer (though I am not sure that he quite knows what an engineer does yet), while she is quite artistic and is moving more and more in that direction. He speaks rather articulately and directly, while her speech is more animated and a bit diffuse. He still has a bit of child-like quality, while she is just a breath away from entering adolescence. My nephew and my sister get along quite well, but my sister finds herself often at odds with my niece—in part, because my niece reminds my sister of herself at that age. Likewise, my sister and brother (actually half-siblings—we did not grow up together) are complete opposites. She is fun loving, relatively easy going, generally progressive in thought on social issues, and quite flexible. She also spends money quite easily. In contrast, our brother is extremely conservative and rigid in his lifestyle and viewpoint, has difficulty in social situations, and is extraordinarily frugal. My own two children are likewise quite different--even their memories and attitudes about their childhood are radically different—one recalling a rather content childhood, and other still processing some old anger. So what is this phenomenon, and what is a parent to do with it! The debate over nature versus nurture is an old one. There are certain characteristics that seem relatively fixed at birth—some are rather clear, for example a tendency toward introversion or extroversion, while others show up as a tendency toward one end of a continuum or another. Although we as parents may strive valiantly to treat our children equally, it is nearly impossible to do so. First, each will have a different experience growing up—one is always eldest and others stand in different birth order (twins being exception).