Thomas Anthony Fiction & Practical Guides

Practical Guides

Caring for an Aging Parent

Practical systems for the calls, appointments, paperwork, emergencies and decisions that gradually become your responsibility.

Nobody hands you this job. It accumulates. One month you are answering a question about a prescription, and a year later you are the person the hospital calls at two in the morning.

These resources are about getting the important things out of your own head and into a form somebody else could use, ideally well before anyone needs them to.

Start here

Where to begin if this has recently become your responsibility.

Practical Guides Only Child Caring for Aging Parents: Where to StartThe first five moves when you are the whole support system and nobody handed you a plan. Free printable Free No Siblings, No Backup Companion WorksheetsFull-size, print-and-fill versions of every tool in the book. No signup, no email address, no separate purchase.

Building backup

Backup is a network, not one substitute sibling.

Practical Guides How to Build a Backup Plan When You Have No SiblingsThe five seats worth filling, how to ask so people say yes, and what to do when they say no. Practical Guides If I Am Unavailable: What Another Person Needs to KnowThe single page that lets someone else keep your parent safe for two weeks without you.

Before a crisis

The work that is only possible while nothing is on fire.

Practical Guides What Information to Organize Before an Aging-Parent EmergencyThe seven questions you will be asked in the first hour, and the one page that answers all of them.

Caring from a distance

Distance as a design constraint rather than a failure.

Practical Guides Long-Distance Caregiving When You're an Only ChildYou are the only sensor, and you are four states away. How to get real information and make visits count.

Need the complete system?

No Siblings, No Backup builds the whole thing: people, permissions, information and plans, assembled before you need them.

Explore No Siblings, No Backup Download the free worksheets