Content Marketing
Did you know that the American “Mothers’ Day” holiday was started by a family caregiver? A well-educated businesswoman, Ann Jarvis shifted her focus in 1904 to care for her mother (her namesake) after her father died and her mother’s health declined. On May 10, 1908 (three years after her mother’s death), Ann held a memorial ceremony to honor her mother and all mothers — and thus began her campaign to establish this national tradition, finally proclaimed as an official holiday in the USA in 1914.
With such a direct correlation to our industry, and the significant numbers of older mothers being cared for by their adult daughters (many of them mothers themselves or “sandwich generation caregivers”), we think this is an excellent topic for your content programming in May, and offer these tips and resources to help.
Content Tips for Any Senior Care Company:
Talk about the challenges that adult children face in caring for elder or frail parents, and how professional senior care services can help ease the burden — so that the family can shift to focusing more on quality time together in their loved ones’ golden years.
To care for her mother, Ann Jarvis moved her into the home Ann shared with her brother — but it did take some time to persuade the elder to leave her own home to live with her children. This is a decision (and challenge) many adult children face: help mom find a senior living community, hire an in-home care agency, and/or move mom into their home — if and when they can convince the senior to accept help in this way. Provide tips and guidance for adult children in having this conversation with their mother and how to proceed with considering the senior care options, such as cost factors or what the different levels of senior living provide.
Consider any tribute crafts or legacy activities that you can share with the elder mothers you serve — as a gift for their family members or as an activity with their loved ones. Write about these projects and their importance.
Photos and quote memes — such as this poem about each letter in the word Mother — can be particularly effective for increasing social media engagement with your Mothers’ Day programming. Sometimes visuals and meaningful quips can be more emotionally moving than long-form prose, and there’s substantial data from platforms like Facebook and Pinterest that images and shorter posts are more popular among social networking users.
Content Tips for Senior Living Communities:
What special activities or dining services do you have planned to help celebrate Mothers Day at your senior living community? Write an overview of how your community is marking the occasion and on your social profiles include great photos (especially the day of or after the event) with photo opt-in by those featured, of course.
Interview a senior resident who is a mother and whose daughter (or son) helped her make the decision to move and found your community. What was the process like for them? How has life improved for the elder mother in her golden years as a result of moving into your community? This personal storytelling can resonate particularly well with prospective residents and their family members too.
Content Tips for Home Care Agencies:
Help family caregivers understand that they don’t have to go it alone — whether their aging mother lives alone, in a senior living community, or moves in with them, an in-home care agency can help with caring for her in several ways. Avoid the sales pitch though — you want to be seen as a helpful, knowledgeable resource they can rely upon, not as an opportunist seizing on their difficult situation.
Interview a senior client who is a mother and whose daughter (or son) helped her accept an in-home caregiver or elder companion and found your agency. What was that experience like for them? How has life improved for the elder mother since then? Real life stories from “people like me” can be particularly helpful to those considering home care for themselves or their elder parents as well.
Additional Resources to Support this Spark:
Caregiving, Mothering Mother, and More — a blog by caregiving expert, Carol O’Dell
About Ann Jarvis — details and sources on the origins of the Mothers Day holiday in the USA
Western Oregon University study, “It’ll Work Out: Older Mothers’ and Adult Daughters’ Perspectives on Future Plans” (2014)
Content Sparks are part of Caring.com’s Content Made Simple program. See all of the Content Sparks.
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Content Marketing
Did you know that the American “Mothers’ Day” holiday was started by a family caregiver? A well-educated businesswoman, Ann Jarvis shifted her focus in 1904 to care for her mother (her namesake) after her father died and her mother’s health declined. On May 10, 1908 (three years after her mother’s death), Ann held a memorial ceremony to honor her mother and all mothers — and thus began her campaign to establish this national tradition, finally proclaimed as an official holiday in the USA in 1914.
With such a direct correlation to our industry, and the significant numbers of older mothers being cared for by their adult daughters (many of them mothers themselves or “sandwich generation caregivers”), we think this is an excellent topic for your content programming in May, and offer these tips and resources to help.
Content Tips for Any Senior Care Company:
Talk about the challenges that adult children face in caring for elder or frail parents, and how professional senior care services can help ease the burden — so that the family can shift to focusing more on quality time together in their loved ones’ golden years.
To care for her mother, Ann Jarvis moved her into the home Ann shared with her brother — but it did take some time to persuade the elder to leave her own home to live with her children. This is a decision (and challenge) many adult children face: help mom find a senior living community, hire an in-home care agency, and/or move mom into their home — if and when they can convince the senior to accept help in this way. Provide tips and guidance for adult children in having this conversation with their mother and how to proceed with considering the senior care options, such as cost factors or what the different levels of senior living provide.
Consider any tribute crafts or legacy activities that you can share with the elder mothers you serve — as a gift for their family members or as an activity with their loved ones. Write about these projects and their importance.
Photos and quote memes — such as this poem about each letter in the word Mother — can be particularly effective for increasing social media engagement with your Mothers’ Day programming. Sometimes visuals and meaningful quips can be more emotionally moving than long-form prose, and there’s substantial data from platforms like Facebook and Pinterest that images and shorter posts are more popular among social networking users.
Content Tips for Senior Living Communities:
What special activities or dining services do you have planned to help celebrate Mothers Day at your senior living community? Write an overview of how your community is marking the occasion and on your social profiles include great photos (especially the day of or after the event) with photo opt-in by those featured, of course.
Interview a senior resident who is a mother and whose daughter (or son) helped her make the decision to move and found your community. What was the process like for them? How has life improved for the elder mother in her golden years as a result of moving into your community? This personal storytelling can resonate particularly well with prospective residents and their family members too.
Content Tips for Home Care Agencies:
Help family caregivers understand that they don’t have to go it alone — whether their aging mother lives alone, in a senior living community, or moves in with them, an in-home care agency can help with caring for her in several ways. Avoid the sales pitch though — you want to be seen as a helpful, knowledgeable resource they can rely upon, not as an opportunist seizing on their difficult situation.
Interview a senior client who is a mother and whose daughter (or son) helped her accept an in-home caregiver or elder companion and found your agency. What was that experience like for them? How has life improved for the elder mother since then? Real life stories from “people like me” can be particularly helpful to those considering home care for themselves or their elder parents as well.
Additional Resources to Support this Spark:
Caregiving, Mothering Mother, and More — a blog by caregiving expert, Carol O’Dell
About Ann Jarvis — details and sources on the origins of the Mothers Day holiday in the USA
Western Oregon University study, “It’ll Work Out: Older Mothers’ and Adult Daughters’ Perspectives on Future Plans” (2014)
Content Sparks are part of Caring.com’s Content Made Simple program. See all of the Content Sparks.
