With Father's Day approaching, and with it all the stereotypes of dad as a larger-than-life hero, I'd like to say that heroes come in all shapes and sizes, and in all temperaments. As a social worker and elder care specialist, I've seen more than my share of heroic dads struggling just to make things right for the people they love.

As a child, my own father always seemed to have a sixth sense when it came to our safety and welfare. When I was 6, I fell off my bike and broke my arm. Dad felt that something was wrong. He found me several blocks from the house and took me to the hospital. He took care of me and my brother and sister when we were sick. He loved soothing our aches and sniffles with his never-the-same-twice homemade soup, made by throwing just about any leftovers into the pot.

Although my father is an educated man with a PhD in psychology, he always had a child-like sense of fun and mischievousness. He loved amusement park rides, especially go carts and bumper cars. Once he even got kicked off the go cart track for bumping into his kids!

Through his instincts and exploits, my father taught me how to care for people, how to take chances and how to enjoy every minute on this earth.

Dad is 86 now and he's had dementia for more than 10 years. He's been living in a nursing home for the past five years. During that time, he has continued to teach me about life. Dad's ability to express love and contentment, despite his limitations, is a testament to his connection to family. Certainly, it's a tribute to my mother, whose daily and engaging visits have been life sustaining. But I know that somewhere inside, he still has that sixth sense about my well-being and happiness. He shows it through his sense of humor and the mischievous twinkle in his eye. On a given day, he may not remember my name, but he knows we're connected.

My father also displays an impressive level of equanimity and contentment about life, despite his dementia.

To read the rest of this post by Jody Gastfriend, LICSW, check out her blog at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jody-gastfriend/fathers-day_b_1596872.html

My friend Jane is trapped with a so-called boomerang kid. We all know someone like Jane, whose beloved offspring made failed attempts at leaving the nest and finally decided that home is where it is at. So there they stay, parking their grown-up bodies and independent personalities into the same bed they slept in as 10 year olds.

According to the Pew Research Center, more than half of today's 18 to 24-year-olds moved back to their parents' homes within the past few years. Other surveys say 85-percent of college students expect to move back home for a while after graduation and are facing a bleak job market. Meanwhile, their parents -- many of whom have begun to shift their attentions to the physical and financial needs of elderly relatives -- are at a loss. As Jane says, "What am I going to do? Tell him to go live in his car...that I insure, by the way?"

Jane truly loves her adult son. She loves him so much that she worked a full-time accounting job plus took in freelance clients to ensure that he could finish college without huge student loans. She loves him so much that she supported his right to "follow his passion" when he switched his major from engineering to humanities in his junior year. And yes, Jane loves her son so much that when he got his B.A. with no job prospects in sight, and no plans to go to graduate school, she welcomed him back home with open arms.

But that was almost a year ago. Her pride-and-joy now eschews "menial" jobs like flipping burgers, but has no problem complaining about the economy while he takes advantage of Jane's "bottomless" refrigerator. He also enjoys her cable TV and Internet, laundry facilities, utilities, health benefits and cell phone family plan ... just as he did in high school.

I have great sympathy for Jane and all the other boomerang parents. According to a recent NPR report, my hometown of Newton, MA has a high percentage of "generation jobless" graduates who return home. And since I'm an eldercare professional, I also see many members of the sandwich generation try to cope with three generations of adults living under the same roof. (Sometimes I even see four generations in the house, which in pop demographic-speak is a "club sandwich.")

When Jane and I graduated from college, we would never have dreamed of moving back home. We treasured our hard-won freedoms. We signed on a slew of roommates, lived in a modest (read: rundown) flat, ate noodles and put up with the occasional cockroach or rodent infestation. We did what we had to do to maintain our independence. Then again, our tech needs were pretty much limited to a hard-wired telephone, a stereo and if lucky, a TV that worked. Our children consider the lack of cable TV, a laptop, high-speed Internet access and a smartphone with an unlimited data plan to be unbearably primitive. And as they quickly discover, those things cost money.

As for my friend Jane, she's come up with a temporary, but effective, solution to her problem.

To read more of this post by Jody Gastfriend, LICSW, check out her blog at

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jody-gastfriend/boomerangers-returning-to_b_1578537.html