Quick summary
Adult children and their parents often have trouble talking effectively. Small disagreements can be irksome and frustrating; if they simmer and grow, they can poison your last precious months and years together.
What causes these misunderstandings? According to David Solie, author of How to Say It to Seniors, they occur in part because the needs and developmental tasks older parents face are starkly different from -- and at times even conflict with -- those of their middle-aged children.
My mother has many health issues, and has just went through open heart surgery. There are 4 siblings and many grandchildren who were never around until they thought she may not make it through this latest surgery. I live in the Boston area, with 1 sister in CA who has been caring for our Mother, taking her to Drs. appointments, grocery store, and out to lunch or dinner. Our Mother is no longer driving, and is on a very limited budget. While our Mom was in the hosptital, my sister collected her bills for her, and we decided to pay off all of her credit cards so when she come home she would not have to worry so much about the bills that might occur with her many new medications. There are two other sisters that are not able to help out finacially, and they have only started to visit again. When our Mother found out my sister and I had paid off her cards, she was livid, and now wants nothing to do with us. If we even ment ioned bringing in a mentiator she will never ever speck to us. Our Mother doesn't have anything except a very small house, so there isn't really any estate to speak of. Our hearts were in the right place, but how do we resolve the problem. I have choosen to step back for a while, as the other family believes our upseting Mom by paying as many bills as we could cover with our own money was a mistake. We are not looking to be repaid, we just wanted to give her a little relief from the stress. A granddaghter is now in charge of her checkbook, and this granddaughter has been a problem for years with the entire family, exceept with our Mother. Ouch! (She doesn't trust her own daughters to look out for her.) We understand this generation is very secretive about their personal finance, but we are all concerned for her welfare, and she refuses to sort out any of her affairs. She has been very good about pinning the siblings against each other during her recovery. Does anyone have any idea's?
this is completely one-sided. the elderly used to EARN respect by gaining wisdom through life experience, not by raging through senior life in stubborn denial. seniors have a responsibility to face their stage of life head-on..doctors and children should be able to bluntly point out reality when they refuse to look - as any caring individual would do for their, children, friend or partner. "Hey Dad, you can't buckle the seat belt on your own, you are unable to turn your head to see in the blind spot and your vision is failing. Stop being selfish and a danger to others and agree to stop driving. What kind of alternative arrangements can we make?" If they don't want to be treated like children - then they can act like responsible adults. Its not anyone's job to walk on eggshells and lie to them about their dimished capabilities. For myself, I would rather die in a cave than be this kind of burden to my children when they are in the midst of raising their own family. And before someone starts in with the "hey they took care of you, now you take care of them.." NO, they have already been taken care of when they were children by their own parents. Children have the right to be taken care of without any expectation of a debt to be repaid. Your parents are ADULTS. Expect them to behave like one.
Helpful article but pretty basic. In our situation, Dad had made a late life marriage to a lady who was very hard to get along with and jealous of his past marriage and children. He had been lonely and was also looking for someone who could run the household as he was in failing health and unable to live there alone. They refused, in spite of several health crises, to discuss "Plan B": what they wanted their life to look like once living independently was impossible. We had to finally take Dad's license away as he was having blackouts; he kept trying to drive anyway. This left his wife under considerable pressure to drive in spite of poor skills, worsening cataracts. Her children refused to ask her to stop driving. Dad began skipping doctor's appointments to avoid hospitalization, and they were both were hiding high blood pressure and TIA's. Finally, she crashed the car, mercifully without killing herself or anyone else. With her injury, their world fell apart...Dad could not live alone, and she was not eligible for a hospital bed in our area. We ended up bringing them both home to our house to recover and plan their next steps. In the middle of that, Dad had a heart attack and passed away. In spite of her considerable confusion, her children began badgering her to get the house and wanted to know what she got in Dad's will...but they left her with us. After two weeks we asked them to come up with a plan for their mother's future, and by this time she was having tantrums daily, insisting she was going to move back to the house and buy a new car. They finally came and picked her up, but one of them moved into Dad's house (which was not left to his wife) and refused to leave. The house was strip mined. She wound up in a care facililty she had never seen. It was a really painful experience. I wish now we had been more assertive about how they needed to address their advancing infirmities and pushed harder on them moving to more manageable circumstances nearby, where we could support them. Then, if one of them had passed away, the other would not have been left to face all these tough transitions alone. It was an outcome they never imagined, but it happens all the time.
Very helpful in caring for my parents I am incline to want to organise them. I tend to be so work focused that I am trying to run the situation like a business implementing process and procedures. I need to remember that even if they do not express their feelings it doesn't mean they do not have any.
helpful but most direct communication will be met with resistance