Family

With a combination of love, commitment, frustration, obligation, guilt, and sense of responsibility, we rearrange our schedules to drive them to their appointments—and if they are out without us, we worry that they’ll get home okay; we disagree over what they are and are not capable of doing but want to respect their independence; we get used to being challenged or corrected when we are not even wrong, or at least we don’t think we’re wrong; we are alerted to any cough, sneeze, or sniffle, hoping it’s not the start of something worse; we have to suggest things in such a way that they think the idea was theirs; we sometimes see ourselves when we look into their faces, ever more so with every passing day; we find ourselves doing things that annoyed us when they did it and sometimes still does; we still hate to admit that we enjoy their bragging about us to their friends; and most of all, we find it difficult to watch them move through the aging process. Loving a parent is not always easy.

To many of us, our parents, along with our children and spouses, are the bedrock of our most precious and meaningful relationships. So for whatever faults, habits, or characteristics they may have, acquire, or amplify in older age, we hope that we have our parents available to participate in our lives and our children’s lives for as many years as possible.

Confronting the fact that our parents are aging is not easy. (It’s hard enough confronting our own aging.) Between our busy schedules, their equally busy schedules, and the unpopular nature of some issues relevant to their aging, it is easy to continue to not address the matter. But to reduce the potential financial and emotional costs, it must be addressed—and hopefully early on and together, because some of the potential burden and uncertainty about the future can be lessened through sound planning. Although planning can’t erase the fear of illness, the burden of care, and the sorrow of death, it can lighten some of the load that accompanies such potentially difficult times.

Having a better understanding of the diverse issues that our parents face as they enter the latter phases of their lives will not only allow us to be a greater resource for them but will also give us a view of what we might expect for ourselves. Also, being more sensitive to these matters will enable us to formulate and ask questions that our parents may not raise on their own. Too often our parents are accepting of the status quo or answers given by doctors, lawyers, and other professionals and institutions, because their assumption has been that any answer they receive from such sources is correct, and they trust that it is definitive. Having been raised in more skeptical times, we do not necessarily accept everything at face value, or we recognize that often there are alternatives to one professional’s advice. Most qualified professionals are not offended by constructive advocacy so we can often help our parents reach a more satisfactory resolution. Even if it is the same as the original one, we can make them more comfortable in understanding how the answer was reached.

The following section explores many issues relevant to our parents that can both enhance our relationship with and facilitate our assistance to them. Whether the discussions are initiated while golfing with our parents, picking our kids up after our parents have watched them, or sitting down with them and a professional advisor, this material can help them get the process started. Alternatively, if the discussions are initiated because a parent is in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease, a debilitating illness, or death, the following section can minimize some of the confusion, misinformation, and anxiety surrounding the situation. Either way, we should be ready, willing, and more able to reprioritize our lives as necessary to become the resource our parents now need or will need in the not-too-distant future.

Regardless of whether we appreciate our parents because they made us talented, successful, thoughtful, hardworking, athletic, or caring or only because they simply made us, and although their interaction with us may not always be beneficial or welcomed, we ultimately want to be a resource for them to the fullest extent possible.