Christian Harriott 2/11/25

(This interview has been edited and condensed for length)

Zack:  Tell us a little bit about your caregiver journey.

Christian:  Thank you. It's an honor to be asked… So it started with my mother. Trying to make sure that I flew up to Boston on a regular basis monthly, bimonthly, sometimes four times depending upon the urgency of her needs… she was aging and retired. Then she fell and broke her hip. I'm from a West Indian descent, stubborn woman who did not even call anybody except for me and say, “I fell down the stairs. I'm alright.”

So, I fly up to Boston on an emergency basis. I find out that she fell down the stairs two weeks ago… and survived on her own… for two weeks until my uncle went by the house, picked her up, took her to the hospital. She had immediate urgent surgery to… repair her hip… My mother was a nurse for 40 years, a psychiatric nurse. She dealt with a lot of people with mental challenges. Well, when she was a patient, she had a mental challenge which was she thought she knew everything… So I became not only her caregiver, her personal trainer, her physical therapist because I was the only one that she would listen to….

And so when you have cognitive decline and physical decline and other things that go on, it forces everybody who's in that circle into who's going to step up and be the caregiver. So my sister and I stepped up. During COVID when I couldn't get up there to Connecticut or to Boston, my sister moved her down to Connecticut for rehab, took over much of the caregiver responsibilities because of the proximity, but I still flew up there, took care of the house in Boston, took care of everything else.

In the meantime… in September of 2023, my father started calling me with urgent messages saying, “I need you. Get up here right away.” And what happened was his wife decided to move out to live with her daughter and her sister and told him, “Move to Maryland with Christian.” So, I had no planning, no time…. I ended up, driving up to Boston, packing up much of his stuff, moving him down here… About my dad… he's a heart attack survivor … He's a prostate cancer survivor. …. I brought him down here.  He thought he was going to live in my house. He lived here for about three weeks. But one morning…. He fell down the stairs…. Then I had to put him in assisted living from there. 

That was a challenge because his lack of independence… then you add to that, Alzheimer's and dementia… led to a very tense situation with him and the adjustment from 90 years of living in Boston under his own independence and coming down here and being under my guidance. So my sister takes care of my mother in Connecticut at a Sunrise facility… I take care of my dad down here… I've had to adjust because I thought well, because I was feeling guilty, I had to be up there [at the facility] every day because I took him from this situation and made him uncomfortable.

I had to get comfortable with managing the assisted living facility arrangements… My sister, after taking care of my mother for this time, said, “Christian, you're stressing yourself. You don't have to be there every day. Trust in the people that are there. You can take two days off and not see him and you'll be alright.” And I gradually ease into that type of caregiving understanding, but that came with the wisdom and experience that I had to do it.… You have to manage your energy, especially when you get into your fifties and sixties, and then when you become a caregiver. So I had to start managing my own personal energy, the energy to manage my father, and other ventures that I have going on. Trying to become productive in my job being a caregiver and a professional. When I had a choice between two job offers, I had to factor in the caregiver responsibilities into the decision making process for both jobs. And I ended up taking a job that paid me less because of the autonomy or ability to continue in the caregiver role that I am.

Zack:  Did you discuss that in the interview process?

Christian:  No…. I chose to… not tell them much about my private situation because I have to manage that behind the scenes myself.

Selma:  So, you said that at one time you were a long-distance caregiver for both of your parents?

Christian:  Yes. Long distance. I live in suburban Washington, DC. They live in Boston. They're lifelong residents of Boston since the sixties… I either drove up nine and a half hours depending upon New York traffic, or I flew an hour and a half…  you just did what you had to do….

Selma:  Looking back on that time when you were caregiving for both parents, trying to hold down your job, flying back and forth or driving back and forth, is there anything you would have changed about that scenario that would have made it easier for you?

Christian:  Yes.  Communication… communication with [my] parents. The one thing that I've learned that I will be passing on to my sons that they are clearly observing now, you got to address this in your fifties, sixties and set the foundation and set all of the parameters. Learn everything you can both legally, financially… and I'm not just talking about trying to get on Medicaid by dispersing all your assets five years before you applied for it. But simply, what do you want, mom? What do you want, dad? Get it written down, taped, or whatever… When I saw my dad slipping, I made sure I had a… notarized power of attorney back in 2022 when I first started noticing repetitive questions and everything else. So preparing them when they're in their solid frame of mind and having that difficult discussion. 

Selma:  A lot of the people we talk to mention how they get pushback and resistance when they're trying to help their parents. How have you dealt with making decisions that your parents are not comfortable with? How do you get them on board?

Christian:  Being comfortable with uncomfortable conversations… And then establish my authority… but then you also have to have other people, the caregivers, the physical therapists, the occupational therapists, the nurses. Have everybody understand the situation because there has to be a voice in their ear when you're not around. And the thing about it is because I'm his son, took [my dad] nine months to get out of his head, this is not Christian the teenager…. This is Christian, father of three… and you need to listen. Period.

Zack:  Today, it's a little bit easier to get resources than it was 10 years ago. How did you know to make sure you get POAs in place and what to look for in assisted living centers? Can you give our readers some insight into how you went about that? You were working a full-time job during all this, how did you find resources?

Christian:  Reading. Understanding.… Being my background was finance… and I worked for AG Edwards, investment firm. I worked at Sibley Hospital, in the health care industry, so I understood the two biggest things that people are going to face -- health care and estate planning….And it just became organic because of reading, listening. Every time I was flying in the airport, I stopped getting my Golf and Sports Illustrated magazines and I started getting retirement planning and just understanding research….And I'll just tell you, I just had conversation with all three of my sons…. Because you got to understand it's got to be traditionalized and passed down… like running a corporation, identifying who's the capable ones. Thank God I've been blessed with three great sons that are willing to take on this responsibility.

Zack:  Did you talk to anybody at work about this and try to get some help from work?

Christian: …  I was more focused on just professional development… I chose to not share my experiences work wise… I don’t trust the informational system. So, I'm not going to tell you if I'm having problems. Those problems are mine and internalized. Not necessarily the wisest thing to do because I should have sought outside help in thought processing…

Selma:  Based on your caregiving experience, has that influenced the way that you work with your colleagues or people going through similar caregiving situations?

Christian:  Well, I've got a big mouth. I talked too much in the past. I listen more now. If somebody has an experience that I can relate to and understand, I'm not going to say anything, but I'll pull them aside and have a conversation…. [You can] become a caregiver at age 16. You can become a caregiver at age 57 and anywhere in between… My goal is to make sure everybody who's younger than me that has no gray hairs has this wisdom. We can lead them to the water. Hopefully, they'll drink, but we want to make sure that you're armed with this knowledge because everybody's going to go through this. Everybody…This is  a process of learning that there is no guidebook for, until you guys now have written one. So thank you.

Zack:  We appreciate your honesty, Christian. That's why it's important that we really talk to working caregivers like yourself. The honesty is important for not just your peers as working caregivers that you listen to, but employers to hear. I want to go back to the point you made about not being able to maybe trust an organization, to be able to share personal information. What does an employer need to do so that you would in the future share some information? Because at the end of the day, they could come forward and help you with some of this financial, physical, mental, and emotional stress you're going through.

Christian:  … I had a boss called Wanda Lazar. She made us all feel like family, just all part of her children as our leader. She listened to us. We shared stories. We shared stories about caregiving. We didn't know it was called caregiving at the time, but leadership in the open door policy, and the open resource policy in regards to information… An employee should never have to ask for this type of support. We should always say and I was always told that folks at BMS, tell your employees in the interview not in the interview process. When they're signing that final agreement, let them know about the ERGs that are available and what those ERGs have as a resource. And having caregiver support … they should have a process when you come on board. Hey, we know these are situations that you have, whether it's the birth of a child, death of a young child… taking care of caregivers. These are the resources we have available….If your parents are blessed to be alive, that they're in the sixties, 65, they're going to be approaching us. We have these resources to help you understand what to think, how to get that proper work life balance because an unhappy employee is going to be an unproductive employee… I was driving back and forth to Boston, I know I lost productivity time. But I didn't feel like I could trust the organization, and they would understand what my problems were. But that's partly me, partly my fault also. We're not inquiring about it.  Because there's not only resources there in the company, there's resources outside the company. There's books like the one you guys have written. There's just information out there. And even if it's not internal, currently provided by the company or the HR department, at least give them… hyperlinks to these sort of resources that are available that may give  some insight.

 Zack:  What would you tell the Christian BC (before caregiving) today about what to expect, what to do? You mentioned earlier something that you said you would have done differently, and that is more upfront communication with your parents. But what would you tell Christian before he's about to step into this journey? 

Christian:  The same thing. Prepare. Open communication… A lot of the times they were like, you don't know what you're talking about, boy. But I found other people who I trusted that could also deliver the same message with a little bit different credibility. So I'd also enlist the team…. I'm about the village. Part of that village is the expertise that may be able to reach my mother and father earlier to give them some advice… Because establishing all of this and making sure even that third party says, “You know, you need a healthcare proxy. What happens if you're incapacitated and you can't make a decision?  Do you want a DNR? Do you not want a DNR?” I would have definitely, if I can't deliver the information and be the point of authenticity and directness to them, finding that third party thing. 

Selma:  Why do you keep doing this caregiver work? What gives you satisfaction from it?

Christian:  I don't have any good answer for that other than it's my job. As a Jamaican man or Western Indian, I'm a traditionalist in regards to some of their practices, not all their practices, but traditionalist… My grandfather raised me and I got his pictures all around here, you know that we're Maroon. We're a fighting family. We got to sit there and preserve tradition. My father was here for Thanksgiving. He's here for Christmas. He's going to be here for New Year's. We preserve Thanksgiving.  You sit here. I sit here. You know? And keep the tradition alive because tradition caught me. It's my responsibility. I can't run from it. A lot of people said they would've ran from this responsibility. Man, how could we do that? I just wasn't wired that way.

Zack:  We encourage working caregivers that whenever they have gaps in their resume to share that they are a caregiver. If you were to do that in your LinkedIn right now, what would be three top skill sets you would want to share with the world as to why someone needs to hire Christian Harriott?

Christian:  Well, it's the same things that I told my sons when they went to college. I said, college is memorization… That's pretty easy because you got a good brain. But if you can't problem solve through communication and time management, and then, compartmentalize and make sure you allot enough time to focus on it and solve it. So when I'm working… I make sure I get done what I can get done knowing my other obligations… Make sure I spend some time for my wife, my sons, you know, my family. I'm expecting my first grandchild. That now shifts to the highest in the priorities…So just the time management, the communication with everybody involved… There's a lot of competing priorities out here…. But I got to manage them all. And work and the job and all of that is important, but I had to really put that in a tertiary standpoint because I was just with dad yesterday. I was looking in his eyes at age 91… I see him slipping. And the worst feeling in the world could be living life after that knowing you could've done this. You could've done that. You should've done this. You should've done that. 

Zack and Selma: Thank you Christian.