Mary L. Currier

Fact, Fiction & Family: a Sister's Perspective on Conflict, Communication and Care Giving Mary L. Currier

This is a true story of a family's attempt at working together to care for aging parents. It involves four adult siblings, two parents, some anger, resentment, love and joy. There are tears, astonishment, sleepless nights, laughter and a whole lot of conflict, quiet and otherwise. Mary L. Currier shares her insight, beliefs and professional experiences to normalize conflict between adult siblings. She explains that families are often no strangers to conflict. Rather, they may be strangers to managing that conflict. Or perhaps it's more of an unwillingness to slip into the deeper crevices of those sticky issues that form the patterns of communication, therefore creating conflict. Either way, there is often a deeply imbedded cycle of poor communication that courses through family veins. You'd think that blood relatives would have a comparatively easy time sorting out issues of conflict. You'd think that four siblings would share similarities in problem solving techniques. That is not the case in this family. What first appeared as a moderate challenge evolved into a lifelong lesson requiring patience, self-understanding, unconditional love and an unending supply of forgiveness. As anxiety, Alzheimer's, depression, and cancer, come out from behind the shadows, each family member acts, or reacts, as only they can - with the skills they have cultivated. Does that work for them? Not always. This is a wonderful tool for adult siblings thinking about how they will sustain their relationships with one another as they venture into the care giving process. Mary even offers troubleshooting guidance in an effort to improve skills in communications and conflict resolution in hopes of sustaining adult sibling relationships.