I love that there are so many roots of adult Phil in Flip, particularly his skills of being highly sensitive and adaptable.I can see how he became adept at reading body language. When it's difficult for the people you love to communicate verbally, you start paying attention to other things. Here, it seems that neither his mom nor his sister toward the end at least are great verbal communicators. Alexa can't, physically, and mom can't emotionally, either by exhaustion or depression or both. He's also already figuring out what works for Alexa, i.e. tags and clothes and buttons.
There's so much truth here about the reality with a family member who has a disability. My sister is a nurse. We joke among ourselves that it was a natural career choice for her. She has in many ways been nursing her whole life simply by virtue of living with me and dealing with my disability. She jokes that she's been nursing her whole life; now she just gets paid for it. :-)
Interestingly, we both have elements of parentification. While she was far more physical caregiver, I was the socioemotional caregiver. That doesn't apply here with Flip and Alexa necessarily. I just wanted to point out that it is sometimes split in this way and other ways.
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dancing_serpent
Roots
Date: 2014-06-02 07:32 pm (UTC)There's so much truth here about the reality with a family member who has a disability. My sister is a nurse. We joke among ourselves that it was a natural career choice for her. She has in many ways been nursing her whole life simply by virtue of living with me and dealing with my disability. She jokes that she's been nursing her whole life; now she just gets paid for it. :-)
Interestingly, we both have elements of parentification. While she was far more physical caregiver, I was the socioemotional caregiver. That doesn't apply here with Flip and Alexa necessarily. I just wanted to point out that it is sometimes split in this way and other ways.