Quick summary
Care giving is difficult in the best of situations. When your parent has always been hard to get along with, it becomes even tougher. But believe it or not, it's possible to make your relationship work more smoothly so that you can help your parent through this stage of life.
Old baggage, new responsibilities
Being a caregiver is never easy, but if you've spent much of your adult life trying just get along with your parent, being thrust into the role of your parent's caregiver may be excruciating.
The bad news is that if your parent has always been critical, grumpy, intrusive, or just plain mean, it's unlikely that old age and poor health will improve her personality much. The good news is that as an adult, you've probably become more confident in yourself and have learned to deal with your parent more effectively -- and if you haven't, now is your chance to learn.
Difficult parents come in all varieties, from self-absorbed and demanding to angry and remote. Care-giving situations vary widely, too, of course: Your experience will be different depending on whether you're providing daily care, supplying occasional care, or coordinating care from a distance. No single approach will address every dilemma, but the following tips should make caring for your parent a little easier.
Getting started
You've had the double "oh no" moment -- that is, it's become clear that your parent needs help and that you need to take a greater role in her care, and this means you'll be spending more time with someone you find difficult to be around. Perhaps you'll need to help your mother move to a nursing home or arrange a treatment schedule for her after her cancer diagnosis. Whatever the details, the relationship you've had is about to change. Here are some steps you can take to ease the transition:
- Take time to prepare yourself. Faced with a crisis, it's tempting to make decisions quickly without thinking them through. If you have a difficult relationship with your parent, the pressure is even more intense, and every decision is fraught. Try to spend some quiet time before you jump onto the care-giving roller coaster. Write in your journal, talk to friends, think about what has made your relationship with your parent difficult in the past and how you can approach it differently this time.
- Line up support. It's important to have buffers so you won't be standing on the front line all by yourself. Have a family meeting with siblings or other relatives so you can divide the labor early on, if possible.
- Bring in the experts. If you don't have family support, you live far from your parent, your relationship is explosive, or your parent's situation is complicated, consider hiring a geriatric care manager. She can help by providing support and concrete advice about community resources, skilled nursing facilities, and other such topics. If you live far away, the manager can help you coordinate your parent's care from a distance. Take the time to find someone that you and your parent both trust. If you find the right person, she'll help you communicate more effectively with your difficult parent.
- Consider your own role. As you enter this new stage in your relationship with your parent, it's important to remember that you can't control how she acts -- but you can control how you respond. Take time to honestly consider your own role in the conflicts you've had in the past and think about how you can handle things differently. This might be a good time to see a counselor to sort through some of the guilt, fear, anger, and resentment that may have haunted your relationship with your parent -- and likely compromised other relationships in your life as well.
Coping day to day
Once your parent is settled and you've established a care-giving routine, she's likely to resume her usual patterns of behavior -- and may even become more difficult. Crises are frightening, but the long haul can be harder. It'll probably last a lot longer, too. You may require additional strategies to help you care for your difficult parent on a daily basis.
- Talk it through. Try addressing the situation directly as soon as problems arise. Say something like, "I know we've had problems getting along, but I'd like to do it differently from now on. Can we talk about how to do that?" Try to listen to what your parent has to say without getting defensive. Use "I statements" when you explain your experience ("I felt as if you were angry at me just now" rather than accusations such as "You act like you hate me").
- Prepare to have your buttons pushed. If you consider the history of your relationship with your parent, you will likely find some recurring themes. Maybe your mother always compares you unfavorably to your siblings or routinely blames you for your two failed marriages. Identify these common trigger points ahead of time and simply ignore her when she touches on them. Instead of reacting angrily or getting hurt, gently change the subject -- as many times as you need to -- until she gets it.
- Try something different. If your interactions with your parent are uniformly negative, think about how to change the dynamic. Are there less stressful ways that you can spend time together? If sitting together and talking usually ends in an argument, offer to clean her attic, weed her garden, or cook her a special meal -- something that will help her but also give you both some space. If you visit her at the nursing home and all she does is complain, suggest taking her out for a drive or lunch and a manicure. Or take a tape recorder and interview her about her past. Read a book together, if she's up to it, or help her put her photos in an album as a [link]legacy project[link to How to Help Your Parents Create a Lasting Legacy]. A tangible project that you can do together can help you be close without treading on perilous ground.
- Set boundaries. It's important for anyone in a care-giving position to set and maintain solid boundaries, but this is especially true if you have a difficult relationship with your parent. If you're clear about how much you're able and willing to do and stick to that, you'll be less susceptible to guilt trips and manipulative behavior. You can also set limits for how much emotional abuse you'll put up with; if your mother won't stop criticizing, maybe it's time to go make yourself a cup of tea.
- Take care of yourself. If you're spending a great deal of time with your parent, make sure that you're doing things to replenish yourself -- body and soul. This will help you stay balanced and less reactive when caring for your difficult parent. Maintain a regular exercise regime to blow off steam, and arrange for regular weekends off and vacation time if you can. Some people find that being in nature or meditating helps them maintain their perspective.
If your schedule doesn't permit regular breaks or time for yourself, you're headed for burnout and you need to do something to remedy the situation. If no one in your family or community can step in, check with your local agency on aging to find out if there are any respite care services available.
- Join a support group. A caregiver support groupgives you a place to unwind and share your story with people who are having similar experiences. Exchanging ideas and empathizing with one another's situations can be restorative.
When the going gets tough
- Seek counseling or mediation. If your parent is able and willing, try seeing a counselor together. He can help you and your parent communicate more effectively and change some of the lifelong patterns that have poisoned your relationship.
- The tough get going. If you've tried everything and your interactions with your parent are uniformly unpleasant or worse, it's time to consider other alternatives. Talk to other family members and see if you can find ways to minimize your contact with your parent. Offer to take on care-giving jobs that don't require much interaction, such as paying bills or dropping off meals. If all your siblings have problematic relationships with your parent, pitch in to hire someone, if you can afford it. Care giving is bound to be hard, but no caregiver should be abused.
- Have reasonable expectations. With patience and lots of luck, you may be able to make a breakthrough in your relationship with your difficult parent. But it's important to keep your expectations relatively low and to be willing to practice a little acceptance when things get rough.
The fact is that most people don't change much: Your parent is unlikely to grow substantially less difficult, no matter what you do. You could have years of care giving ahead; if you go into it with an open heart and open eyes, it can present an opportunity for growth and healing -- despite the many frustrations along the way.
- Be open to a new relationship with your difficult parent. In the movie The Savages, two adult children are wrenched from their respective lives and thrown together to care for their elderly father. The father was abusive and distant when they were young, and they haven't seen him in years. The movie neither dwells on this history nor glosses over it, and there are no tearful reproaches, apologies, or reconciliations. The fact is that the father is now a confused and helpless old man -- and his children rally to help him.
In the same way, you may find that being your parent's caregiver is different from being that parent's child. No matter how flawed your parent is, in the end she's still your parent, and she needs your help.
