2009 -- it was a very good year

I must have been very busy this year since I haven't blogged since January! Business is still supporting me; new referrals come in every month. I love counseling seniors and caregivers and I love helping adult children with their aging parents. I have a dog now, having had cats all my adult life and no dog since my first marriage in Wichita! Zelda is 9 months old now, a German Shepherd, Schutzhund quality sable coated brainiac. She's smarter than I am!

oh, and i'm married again. Yes, again. But this time, three's a charm, right? Martin Roidl and I have known each other through Taoist Tai Chi(r) for over 8 years. We were both married to others when we first met. Things happen for a reason, and at the right time, and we married on August 15th in Columbus at the Columbus Tai Chi Center. We honeymooned in the Upper Peninsula and now know what a Yooper is.

I've broadened my interests, focused my energies, and found that what does not kill me actually does make me stronger. Just call me Wonder Woman.

Aging Parents of Adult Children

Yes, I know; the topic is usually the other way around: how aging Baby Boomers are dealing with their aging parents.

But think about it from your parents’ perspective. Just for a minute. Look at your own child to whom you gave birth a mere 10 to to 20 or even 30 years go, and imagine having THEM in charge of YOUR life.

No matter the mental age of a person in winter life stage, their children are still their children.

However, the mental age of a person in winter life DOES have to do with how much they can understand and/or retain of what they need to know to remain independent. They begin leaning on you, calling you, guilt-tripping you into taking them to their physician appointments; regardless of your being in trouble with the boss already in this job-risky economy.

And you DO want to do those things for your parents. Even if they have been less than perfect parents (show me a perfect parent, I’ll show you a Ph.D. study topic). Society expects, and we expect of ourselves, that we will care for our aging parents whether we are good at it or not.

Let’s face it. Some of us are not good at taking care of our own parents. And the long term options, bureaucracy, and lack of continuity make it a more than part-time hobby. Surgeons do not operate on their relatives; counselors cannot counsel their own relatives, so what makes people think they’re obligated to become sudden experts in the face of audacious and meandering system of unrelenting menu choices on a doctor's office's or insurance company's telephone service.

So, we need to flesh out several topics from the above:

*No matter the mental age of a person in winter life stage, their children are still their children.

*The mental age of a person in winter life DOES have to do with how much they can understand and/or retain of what they need to know to remain independent.

*Some of us are not good at taking care of our own parents. And the long term options, bureaucracy, and lack of continuity make it a more than part-time hobby.

*Just who IS going to take care of US? And who do we want helping us take better care of our oldest generation?