Partnering with an Aging Parent

Caring for an aging parent can be a delicate balancing act between aiding and enabling, guiding and pushing, kindness and condescending. It's hard to know which way to lean at times. It's too easy to see them as senile when they are just relaxing a tight grip on control.

You relied on your parents for advice, support, loving care, babysitting, teaching, and myriad other talents as you grew up. Now, they rely on you for many, if not all of these things. It's tough watching them diminish physically and mentally. It can be harder to accept.

When a parent moves in with you, the rules laid down when you were very young change - for you and for them. The old "my house, my rules" roles are reversed. This can be hard to accept for both of you. While they may be crankier, you may be more patient. Where they are not as particular about housekeeping, you probably became more set on your own ways.

It can be very tempting to enforce your standards on your mom or dad, but how do you think they feel about it? Chances are, they have already let you know loud and clear. So which way to you go? My way or the highway is no more an option than it was for them when you were a kid.

A phrase that I once heard, care partner, seems to be the most centered way to go.  Most of us think of ourselves as caregivers and our parent as a care receiver, but a partner is far more pallatable for all. I help you help yourself. Use heaping helpings of give and take, making them an active member of the household, as much as they can anyway.

For instance, if they can, ask them if they would mind helping you with any tasks they are able to manage. Folding clothes, drying dishes, crocheting or knitting potholders or other small items, reading a story to the grandchildren, brushing the dog, sweeping a floor, dusting, or setting the table for dinner helps them to make a contribution to the family and the household. They are doing their part; earning their keep so to speak.

The way you ask is as important as the question.  Asking them to help gives them choices.  It lets them have their say about what and how they do it.  These simple tasks can also help them to feel useful, to be responsible for more than just sitting back and watching everyone else live their lives. And living, not just existing, is what it is all about for most of us.  Imagine how maddening it would be for you to be stripped of your home, your car, your mobility, with little or no input on finances, lifestyle, or what you can or cannot do. No job, no responsibilities, just being alive and taken care of. I don't know about you, but that thought is fun for about two minutes.  When the full implications hit home, it would drive me crazy!

I have noticed that most older folks are the same people they were at twenty, just more mature, hopefully wiser, and a little more limited physically than they used to be. I saw a Maxine cartoon where she says "I feel like an eighteen year old trapped in an seventy year old body, and the old broad won't let me out!" Put yourself in that spot for a moment.

Some lucky people don't seem to let old age get to them. I laugh at the story about my mother- and father-in law (she'll be ninety tomorrow, he'll be eighty-five in a couple of weeks). The two of them were out at six in the morning clearing the neighbors' sidewalk of snow and ice. When asked why they were doing such a thing, they replied "you gotta help the old people." Incredible!

The two of them are blessed with good health and remarkable genes. But they are also blessed with a wonderful, outward-focused attitude. They can usually be found helping someone else, doing community/church volunteer work, or just plain working. Yes, my ninety year old mother-in-law still works part-time cleaning for a doctor and a disabled neighbor - for what they used to call "pin money". She has a bad hip, is too old for surgery, and refuses to let it stop her. He plays pinochle every week and takes great joy in playing cards with his longtime friends (his favorite part is still when he wins).

On the other hand, my mother lived to be eighty and was in extremely bad health. She focused inward, and let every ache and pain become a liability. She needed constant care and attention, accentuated by dementia. There was little she could do for herself, let alone around the house. She was a balancing act. And yet, she folded laundry, brushed the dog, and crocheted. She even tried scraping the plates to help the dinner table. It made her feel better to do these things. And her opinions got heard just like the rest of us.  Her feelings were as important as our feelings.

I know there are other folks out there who live in the gap between these two extremes. And their children live there with them.  Still the partnership requires everyone's full participation, patience on all sides, and plain old hard work and human decency.