Baby Mine Ep 3 discusses the bombastic record Pound Cake by Blvck Bvunnie’s Thot Squad. We dig into what this song may be about as well as the caregiving role that Blvck Bunnie has with “Grandma” who features in several of her posts on TikTok and Instagram.

Listen to Thot Squad's Pound Cake

Check out Blvck Bunnie and Grandma on Instagram (now that's what I call caregiving!)

This episode discusses how caregiving involves the most intimate areas of our human experiences. Although we may consider the bathing, grooming, and toileting tasks as the most intimate of caregiving tasks, the act of preparing meals for someone else is equally as sacred. We all have preferences for the way we like our food prepared, from the amount of cream we want in our coffee, to the way we want our sandwiches cut. People who have low support needs may be able to make meals without help, but lots of folks rely on others to make all of their meals. The people making this food aren’t waiters, they are often paid providers just checking duties off of a list. If the caregiver isn’t intimately aware of the tastes of the person they work with, they are likely to put mustard on a sandwich instead of the preferred ketchup and turn lunch into a traumatic experience for everyone.

Food is our sustenance but it’s so much more. Our daughter Kathleen needed to have her meals and menu written down for the entire week. She would reference her menu frequently throughout the day. Whole days of the week were dedicated to particular items; Monday Fast Food Night, Thursday night Frosties, Friday was Pizza Night. She couldn’t control who was going to make her food, but for her own sanity she needed to know what to expect to eat.

In addition to yapping about food, Tim brings up the issues involved in caregiving and relationships. As private insurance companies take more control of the types of care available, they are rapidly encouraging AI technologies to assist people in their own homes. A google search for assistive technology will net pages of results for providers and wonderful examples of truly transformative technologies. For people with intellectual disabilities, monitoring systems and call pendants to reach staff that may be working in other locations are very popular. However, as Tim pointed out, caregiving is all about a relationship. Are we serving people well by taking the people out of caregiving? Obviously there is lots of gray area between an iPad and a human staff who dedicates their entire life to another human. What we can expect of a human caregiver and what we can expect from an electronic device as a caregiver covers a lot of ethical ground. We look forward to exploring this theme as we go forward with the podcast.

Wrapping up with something stupid, we chat a bit about David Lynch and how his movies have brought us together to the BIG screen as Dir. Lynch would have wanted. We also reminisce about the improbable connection we have with the 2001 Comedy Central TV game show, Beat the Geeks. What can we say except we live a charmed life. Oh, and always get to know the projectionist!

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