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?
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Aging Parents of Adult Children
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2 comments:
I have had so many single boomers caring for their aging parents now ask that question- who will care for me? I also just witnesses a woman try and be compassionate toward her mother but she has not had kids or cared for anyone but herself and it was a disaster for both of them But we ended our discussion on how she is your mother and no matter how you feel about your childhood, she did the best she could and that is all you can offer her.
This has been on my mind lately. Who will care for me? I have been watching my in-laws slowly go downhill for the last few years. When we noticed they were not remembering things we realized that someone needed to go with them to every doctors appt. Now, they are in a nursing home (check out Avalon by Otterbein, it's wonderful) and Dad is dying from lung cancer and Mom has early stage alzheimer's. I'm sure you would not be surprised to learn that out of 9 children there are only 2 who are involved in their care.
Anyway, all this has caused me to wonder if, having no children, I might be stuck in some nursing home with no visitors, waiting to die. I can only hope that by the time that might happen, assisted suicide will be legal and I will have a deal with my doctor.
Actually, I don't dwell on it too much. In reality, there is no future or past, only this moment.
Glad you're blogging again, Deb!
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