Love, Limits and Aging Parents

You love your parent. You're also exhausted by them. Resentful of them. Maybe relieved when you walk out the door — and then immediately ashamed of that relief. If that sounds familiar, this episode is for you. Esther and Laurie talk about ambivalence: what it actually is, why caregivers carry so much of it in silence, and why feeling conflicted doesn't make you a bad daughter. It makes you an hon...

You love them. You also dread their phone calls. You feel responsible for their happiness — and somehow guilty about your own. If that sounds familiar, this episode is for you. Esther and Laurie unpack one of the most misunderstood dynamics in family caregiving: trauma bonds — the invisible emotional ties that keep adult children locked in cycles of over-giving, hoping, and self-erasure. This isn'...

This is where it all begins. In this foundational episode, Esther Kane and Laurie Newcomb go back to the very reason this show exists — because millions of adult children are carrying something enormous in almost complete silence. The sleepless nights. The resentment they feel ashamed of. The grief they can't quite name. The love that is absolutely real and absolutely exhausting at the same time....

If you love your parent and they've also hurt you, you already know how impossible that feels to explain. In this episode, Esther Kane and Laurie Newcomb explore the emotional complexity that makes caregiving for an abusive parent so uniquely exhausting — and why so many caregivers feel like they can't talk about it honestly with anyone. They dig into the guilt messages that keep caregivers trappe...

Abuse in caregiving relationships is rarely what people expect — and it's almost never talked about openly. In this episode, Esther Kane (retired OT and Certified Aging in Place Specialist) and Laurie Newcomb (licensed professional counselor) tackle one of the most difficult realities family caregivers face: when the person they're caring for is also hurting them. They explore the three most commo...

You spent years — maybe decades — building distance from what happened in that house. And now you're back in the thick of it, not because you wanted to be, but because someone has to help. Caregiving has a way of doing that: pulling the past right into the present, making old wounds feel startlingly fresh. A tone of voice, a familiar criticism, a look — and suddenly you're not a capable adult anym...

If you've ever felt manipulated, guilt-tripped, verbally attacked, or emotionally worn down by the very parent you're trying to care for — this episode is for you. We don't talk enough about what happens when the caregiver is the one being harmed. In this episode of Love, Limits and Aging Parents , we're taking an honest look at emotional and psychological abuse in the caregiver relationship — spe...

Love, Limits and Aging Parents with Esther Kane, OTR/L, CAPS and Laurie Newcomb, LPC Caring for an aging parent is one of the most loving things you can do. It can also be one of the most depleting — especially when love starts to blur into obligation, guilt, or burnout. Love, Limits and Aging Parents is for adult children navigating the hard parts: the conversations that never go the way you plan...