Anyone who is charged with the task of caring for an aging parent, particularly the only surviving aging parent, faces a tough decision at some time in the time of their caregiver years. And that decision is whether to have mom or dad move in with you.
When that idea first comes to mind, you can probably think of more negatives than positives. It really goes against your orientation since you moved out of your parent’s home as a youth. Since then your entire goal was to live separately from your parents, not to combine them again.
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Providing care for your adult parent during their retirement years can be a demanding job. And the job continues to become more demanding as your parent gets older and his or her health declines. You will have to make more and more difficult decisions as the end grows closer and many of them you will make without the consultation your elderly parent if his mental abilities have slipped away due to the affects of aging.
If the senior citizen you are caring for is dealing with a terminal illness that lingers, those demands will become virtually overwhelming. When the end is near like this, your need for assistance will become acute. This is no time to try to be stoic. Dealing with a dying senior citizen is something that is usually outside of the abilities of caregiver children.
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There comes a time in the adult lives of children and their parents when it dawns on you that you might have to step in and begin having a more active in your parent’s lives, not as a child but as a caregiver. For every family, that time seems to come as a shock.
It’s strange because we all see reports on television about the transition that we go through when the parent becomes the dependent one and the child becomes the boss in the relationship. And the hardest part of that transition may be the first time you have to step in and “stage an intervention” because there is an area of life that your parent needs to let go of and you know they won’t want to. So what are the signs that its time to step in and suggest or directly take action to make that change in your parents lives?
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The generation born between 1950 and 1970 has often been called The Baby Boomer Generation. There have been some variations on that title including The Me Generation, The Vietnam Generation and even for the sake of a certain comedian, The Al Frankin Generation. But the title that is most appropriate to where we are now, as we become caregivers for our children as well as our aging parents is “The Sandwich Generation”.
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Perhaps the hardest task you will ever be faced with is to help one of your parents cope with the loss of her spouse. Naturally, this is going to be a traumatic time for the whole family because as much as mom lost her husband and the father of her children, you have lost your daddy and you have grief yourself. So how do you help your mom and grandma to your kids get through this very difficult transition?
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Being a caregiver for your aging mom or dad could be compared to a battle. This is even more so if you are caring for a loved one who is terminally ill. That is because the battle you are fighting will ultimately end in the passing of your loved one. But you are committed to their health, happiness and well being and to do all you can to make their golden years as peaceful and enjoyable if you can.
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There is a balance between the jobs of a caregiver and the feelings of a caregiver. If you can detach yourself from the many emotions you feel when you have taken on this hard job, many of the “tasks” are fairly routine. Whether it’s doing your mom and dad’s laundry or grocery shopping or paying the bills or filling out the Medicare paperwork, much of the “stuff” of being a caregiver is pretty humdrum.
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Have you ever heard the phrase, “The 200 pound gorilla in the room”? It’s a phrase that refers to a topic that nobody talks about but it so dominates everybody’s thoughts. Everyone knows the gorilla is there but nobody gets anxious because, after all, you don’t want to upset the gorilla.
There is a 200 pound gorilla in the room in any time being spent with a senior citizen. It is a topic that is blatantly pertinent to anyone in their golden years but it is a topic that nobody talks about either because it’s too upsetting or nobody knows how to talk about it. But it is a topic that weighs on the mind of your senior citizen mom and dad virtually every day. The 200 pound gorilla in the room is death and the end of life issues that are ahead for every senior citizen at some point or another.
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The job of becoming the primary caregiver for your aging parent is universally recognized as one of the most difficult transitions we will go through. To start with, it’s hard to go through the reversal of parent and child. All your life, mom or dad were the strong ones. They were the ones you ran to for help and who were always there to tell you, “It’s ok. Everything will be all right.”
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Sometimes when you and your elderly parent are partnering for their care, it seems like an “us against the world” situation. But since the senior citizen you are caring for has little fight left in them, it seems it’s up to you to make sure that your elderly mom or dad get all they have coming. Just because a person becomes a senior citizen, that doesn’t mean their fundamental rights go away. They deserve and should expect to be treated with respect and for those serving them to live up to expectations.
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