How does the baby handle older siblings and aging parents?
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How does the baby handle older siblings and aging parents?
I am the youngest of my siblings... I am 44, my brother is 54 and my sister is 60. Dad is 88 and Mom is 84. I live 600 miles away and my brother about 400. My sister is 3 hours from them. My dad has been homebound and unable to get around without a lot of help and a wheelchair for a couple of years now. We are trying to make life easier for Mom by hiring a woman to come in and stay with Dad for a couple of hours a week so she can run errands; we've gotten them a medical alarm system so if they need help it's there; and we are trying all kinds of doo-dads to make things easier. Trouble is, they don't always want to use these things, and (with me, anyway) Mom is getting a bit "firm" when she tells me she's fine and doesn't need the things we're trying to push on them. I feel that, as their child, I don't have the right to bully them into something they don't want (since they are both in full control of their faculties and able to make decisions). My sister, on the other hand, feels it's our duty to get them to see reason, and is constantly telling me that I should talk to them about issues. My role in our family has always been peacemaker and going with the flow. I don't make waves and I tend to avoid difficult confrontations. My siblings and I didn't really grow up together, so we've never really had any big issues to deal with, and I hate what's happening. Am I just not dealing with reality?
I think you are dealing with reality better than your sister is. Your parents are adults and in possession of their faculties. They - your mom and dad - know better than anyone else what their lives are like. You can't wrap them in cotton wool and take charge of their lives without diminishing them - even if they would let you, which clearly they won't.
From what you say, you are the one who is treating your parents like adults, and your sister wants to treat them like children. Sure, that would make life easier for your sister and other sibs and you - but it would probably make life very unpleasant for your parents and make them feel like their children don't understand what they want and need.
I do have a couple of practical suggestions. Given your parents' ages, the county Office of Aging in the county where they live would probably come out and make a free assessment of their home and make suggestions as to changes that could be made to make their lives safer and possibly easier. And, perhaps your parents could get on a list for free in-home services to pick up some of the things you are presently paying for. The Office of Aging might also know of programs your parents would be eligible for in terms of home remodeling to accomodate your dad's needs, with him being wheelchair bound, and other kinds of programs. It is worth looking into. When we used the Office of Aging services, they made an estimate of what we *could* pay monthly for the services they provided, but that was a suggestion, not a requirement.
Finally, if your parents haven't thought about Living Wills and designating health care surrogates, is that something that can be raised with them? From personal experience, I can tell you that having those documents available made things much easier for my mom when my dad was having medical emergencies.
But, overall, as long as your parents are capable of making their own decisions, aren't letting important bills (utilities, etc.) go unpaid so that the power gets shut off, have a good doctor and other medical providers available that will take good care of them, and can generally manage their lives - that's what I'd let them do. And God bless them - at 80 and 84 - for being able to continue to control their lives and living situation.
Your sister says "see reason", but "reason" is very subjective. Unless there are objective, measurable and significant ways in which your parents' lives are being negatively affected by their refusal to be wrapped on cotton wool, I don't think your parents are being unreasonable.
Ginny, first of all, thanks for the positive feedback. I don't know if I'm seeing things clearly (do we ever, when our parents are concerned?), but I'm trying. The agency that they are using for respite care has come out to do a home screening, and has made several suggestions to make things easier. Some, Mom & Dad have tried, but others they have not. My sister gets very frustrated when they choose not to do something, as do we all, but I'm more apt to just let it go than she is. They are taking care of bills, the house isn't a pigsty (Mom still enjoys cleaning and taking care of it...she's very active), and although we worry about her ability to care for Dad (if she gets sick, things will be dire), she seems to be doing fairly well. She has admitted to feeling overwhelmed at times, but when pressed, she says this is what she wants to be doing.
The three of us siblings will be meeting at the end of September (my sister says we need to have a family conference), and I'm not looking forward to it. We did that last year and it turned into kind of a strong-arm session with our parents. They seemed to agree with a lot of things that were said, a semblence of decisions were made, but then after we all left, they went back to doing what they've been doing.
I don't know.
No, we don't see things clearly where our parents are concerned, which is why it is so important to listen to what our parents say they want.
Background: In late 1991 my mom called and said "it's time for us to live together". Now, bear in mind that I was single, and all my kids had long since moved out, and this was something we had talked about - though in the context of "after daddy dies". But, my dad had Parkinsons, and multi-infarct dementia. He had already had 2 bad strokes, was using a walker, and it was clear within a year or 18 months he'd be wheelchair bound. Because of the dementia, my mom felt she could not leave him alone - he had wandered a couple of times, and would unlock the doors or turn on the stove.
So in October 1992 (it took that long to find the right house), we started living together. The house had/has a first floor bedroom and bathroom which is wheelchair accessibl, so my parents had essentially one-floor living, and it had a 2nd floor bedroom, sitting room and full bath, and we could afford it. About a year after that, my dad had another bad stroke, and to all intents and purposes, the "person" who was my daddy was gone. He was entirely wheelchair bound, could not feed himself, and was totally incontinent. Mom was adamant, she would not even think about a nursing home. Through the County office of Aging we got a survey, some advice on grab bars, etc., and because my dad was deemed "nursing home eligible" got a home health aide 2 hours a day 4 days a week to bathe and dress dad, straighten up the bedroom, feed him his breakfast, and move him from the bed to wheelchair to the recliner chair. One day a week the aide was there 6 hours so mom could go out. Of course, I was home most evenings and weekends, and shared in daddy's care. (This was in a time of better federal and state funding for such programs. And the program paid for the incontenence supplies.) In 1994 he developed severe swallowing problems (typical of Parkinson's) and had pneumonia. The doctors recommended an implanted feeding tube, and that was what mom decided. (Medicare paid for the special liquid food.) I wouldn't have, because my "daddy" was long gone and this was an empty body we were caring for, imo. But to my mom, this was her husband of almost 60 years and she would care for him as long as she could. He died in October of 1995, after a week's hospitalization, of pneumonia and congestive heart failure.
I could look at the situation somewhat objectively, and say that he was a burden to my mom, he wouldn't have known the difference if he were in a nursing home, and it was just too much. But, it wasn't my decision. And I have no regrets. Nor did my mom.
I feel very strongly that as long as your parents are capable of managing most of their own lives (daily living, health care, finances), they are entitled to do so. It isn't a question of "allowing" them to do so. Children have no business even thinking about "allowing" their parents to make decisions as long as the parents are not asking the children for help in ways that is disruptive to the children's lives. It is a matter of respect, both for who they are and who they were. You are not talking about and making decisions for two people in some social work "problem" - you are talking about your parents, who nurtured and raised you, and who have been managing their lives pretty well for a long, long time.
Yes, long-distance care giving is sometimes difficult, inconvenient, and worrisome. I made a couple of quick trips from Philadelphia to Chicago, once 2 weeks after I had started a new job, because of my dad's health care crises and my mom's inability to make the system function properly. (You can imagine, that was a big part of my role - hassling the systems and making them work.)
But, if you love your parents - and of course, you do - you have to allow them to be adults and to make decisions the way that adults do. My guess is that they cherish their independence - and that they don't want to be or feel a burden to you. If I self-edit - insert "had a" dollar for every time my mom said she felt like she was a burden to me, or that she didn't want to be a burden to me, I'd have a much nicer car, for sure.
There are some ways you can express to your parents how your worry about them is a bit of a burden. For example, my mom had a bad knee and bad arthritis. But she would take a basket of laundry down to the basement, going backwards one step at a time, drag it across the floor to the laundry area with a rope, and then drag the basket of clean clothes back and hump it up the stairs one step at a time. She kept saying "Honey, I need to do it myself." I finally convinced her by saying - look, mom, I feel really guilty that you work so hard to do something that I can do so easily - would you please let me take the baskets up and down? You can get things in and out of the washer and dryer and fold them, but let me do the stairs. She thought about it, and did.
Maybe there are ways you can present things to your parents - things they would consent to because it is a compromise that will ease their children's minds. But it should be a compromise, not a "I think you should and therefore you will" kind of thing, and not a demand.
If Mom feels pressed, maybe there is a way to get some more help for her and some additional respite care. That's worth exploring, and I do recommend starting with the County Office of Aging, and, if your parents are church members, with the church.
But face it - if your parents don't want to do something, you can't really make them do it unless you are willing to take them to court to try to have them declared incompetent. Is that what your sister wants? Your parents might even agree, and then just go on doing what they want to do. You (a collective you) can't force them to allow more help into the house unless they agree, you can't make them sell their house and move to a retirement community unless they agree - you can't really make them do anything they don't want to do. And trying to make demands or argue them into doing things they don't want to do will only cause animosity and unhappiness, and hurt everyone. Better to find some compromises your parents are comfortable with, and demonstate that you really want to help them to maintain as much independence and self-sufficiency as possible and to find acceptable compromises. Your mom is much more likely to ask her children for help when she really needs it if she knows that they respect her as an adult, competent person now.
Anyhow, that's what I think. I suspect that AARP may have some good books and/or advice and suggestions on their web site. It's worth looking at.
Good luck to you in trying to stand up to your older sibs. It won't be easy, but if you start thinking about it and planning for it now, and especially if you explore resources that may be available to help your parents remain independent, you will be better prepared for the family meeting.
P.S. My aunt, my mom's sister, is 88, had surgery for a goiter about 3 years ago, for a hernia about 18 months ago, lives alone in a small town in Missouri, has arthritis and other problems. Her daughter, who lives in Texas, visits every couple of months, keeps in close touch with the doctors (which is why the Health Care Power of Attorney is so important), has persuaded her mom to some alterations to the house to make her life easier, and essentially keeps in close touch with her mother but doesn't try to run her mother's life. I expect my aunt will still be around, in much the same situation, for another 2-3 years at least. I surely hope so.
Oh, and your sister is used to be the oldest, and used to being "in charge", I suspect. And, because she lives closer, she may visit more often and see things that she thinks should be worried about more often. I can understand that, being the older of the two of us, and being the one who was always called upon when there was a crisis. But, she needs to remember that her parents are competent adults, and take a deep breath and step back. When the time for real worrying comes, if you do some research you will be prepared - maybe better prepared than she. That she is older than you is hardly relevant at this stage of your lives. You are all adults, and all equally your parents' children. So don't let her keep pulling the "older sister" stuff that was set up when you were all children. There is no great difference between 44 and 60 (unlike 14 and 30). She is riding on old patterns and responses that both of you should set aside - imo.
I wish I could hug you right now! {{Ginny}} Thanks so much for telling me about your parents and especially your mom. It helps.  And that's a good idea, checking into the AARP website. I'll do some fishing tomorrow. Thanks again--I value your opinion!
Thought - yard work and outside stuff might be a hassle for your mom. My mom loved gardening, but wasn't up to heavy stuff, so I either did the mowing and heavy work and snow-shoveling or hired a teenager to do it. Is there a teenager who can be hired for heavy hard work, snow-shoveling, moving heavy trash to the right place, window-cleaning, etc., and maybe even occasional errands? Is there a program that would provide transportation for your mom (or an older teen) for grocery shopping, errands, etc. I would guess that if she is driving now, she will have to stop fairly soon, and reliable transportation can be very important.
Things to look into - programs that do home-repairs for elderly at no or low-cost, transportation, outside worker. Maybe the women's group at the church has a visiting program or can start one - if your mom and dad would like visitors. And please, do check with the County Office of Aging for what programs they have and what other kinds of programs exist in the county where your parents live. Sometimes there are wonderful programs, but people don't know about them.
And, Living Will, Health Care Power of Attorney, and your parents making sure their wills and long-term financial setup are in order. Often these things are set up at a time when needs or potential needs are not so great, and they do need to be reviewed. If your parents aren't comfortable in having one of their (sometimes bossy) children review these things with them, see if there is an AARP program and/or AARP volunteer who could do this. AARP has many volunteer programs and keeps track of others. AARP might even have a program of volunteers who mediate in situations where aging parents and children don't agree on what the parents should do.
Oh, and hugs back, Janet. You still have to deal with your older sister and brother - and, to some extent, your parents. It probably won't be easy. I do suggest that the more homework you do in advance, and the more you prepare yourself, the easier it will be to manage.
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