Why can't parents accept that they have become elderly?
Last week I was so excited about this wonderful retirement community that I had visited, that is like living in a high rated resort. My Dad looked at the brochure and said that would be great place to move to in a couple of years for him and Mom.... HELLO.... you are 92 and 96.
My Mom doesn't like her geriatric Doctor because this doctor will tell Mom that her medical problems, such as her eyes and ears, walking, etc. are age related and that there isn't anything to reverse that. What a face my Mom will make.
Same Doctor suggested to Dad to get one of those Life-Alerts because he will fall occasionally, especially if he is working in the yard. Dad said "that's for old people". Oh well, guess we will leave Dad face down in the dirt and leaves until Mom finds him an hour later. Mom is almost deaf so Dad calling out won't help. Hopefully a neighbor will hear his calls.
I'm ready to help my parents pack to go to a safer environment as their 3-story single family home scares me to death as it is NOT elder proof. All those stairs that they are struggling to go up and down. All that yard work they can barely do anymore [finally they hired someone to mow]... and when it snows, don't get me started on that.
I know what you mean though FF - my mother hates anyone drawing attention to her age. I find it a bit irritating: surely it's better to milk it for all you're worth? I wish everyone were like Mary Ann Sailors in 'Under Milk Wood' calling "I'm 85 years, 3 months and a day!" from her window to greet the morning. But then I also claim to be 39 cough cough cough splutter
I think also that there are so many pre-conceived notions about what elders are supposed to be like and do that it can create resentment from those who are pre-judging.
There's also the fear of how much decline will take place, how much mobility will be limited, life in a facility instead of home, not to mention the ego aspect of becoming less than you have been all your life.
I know it isn't something I want to think about! But I'm having to face it with my father who still insists on doing things that aren't safe. He feels he knows himself well enough to handle these tasks, and he may to a certain extent, but there are always frailties that don't pop up like a computer printout to warn him what to watch out for.
There's also some delusion involved, I think, as a way of rejecting the fact that one is becoming more limited and will need help.
Back in the early 2000s I had just started a new job at a law firm and was the oldest person there. One of the secretaries, a rather precocious and self-absorbed one, had the audacity to ask why I was even working in my 50's and why I wasn't ready to retire.
The question was so stupid that I didn't even bother to answer.
Dang, I wish I could remember which two actresses it was, but anyway: one gives way to another at a doorway with a smile and the words "please… age before beauty!" The older one (it must have been Bette Davis, surely?) sweeps past and throws back the remark "thank you! … and pearls before swine."
My greatest fear is that my parents will want me to be their caregivers.... but I am too old to do that, I can barely take care of myself at times :(
My mother has been in the NH over a year and her house and vehicles are still like the day she left.
Neither me or my sister live within 1500 miles of her. I don't know what Mother thinks will happen to her house. By the way, my sister is 75.
I am determined not to leave my kids a mess to clean up. It would takes months.
Good luck to you. I would think that you would be tempted to wash your hands of the whole mess.
Well, looks like you and I are learning what NOT to do when we get older. It will feel good to have everything in order for each new step in our lives.
I came across a really good book "Because You Can't Take it With You" written by Marguerite Smolen... what an eye opener regarding what all needs to be in place. It's an easy read. In fact, I gave my Dad this book yesterday and asked him to look it over and to follower her advice ASAP. Told Dad that I was doing the same thing, and so is my significant other.
As a smart little six year old once said "you can lead a horse to water, but how?"
My dad was in his 90s and referred to other elders as "old" as if excluding himself from the classification.
BUT my husbands parents were absolutely awful. It hurts to think they thought so little of us as to leave a big giant mess!!
My MIL with alzheimers lives with me now and that only complicates the mess.
My own mom (age 89) is needy but sooooooooooooo much easier.
She and my father did make some good arrangements re-their final wishes, and they were truly awesome about saving and investing, so that is a huge relief. But when I took over her finances, I discovered a lot of mess and disorganization, and a lot of questions which can now not be answered by her.
And the STUFF -- don't get me started on their STUFF!!! They weren't hoarders, but have accumulated a lifetime of stuff, and my mother never got rid of anything. So that will be a huge undertaking. When I can't sleep (which is often), instead of counting sheep, I plan out exactly how I will get rid of their stuff, step by step....
"Aging Ain't For Sissies", Betty Davis.
My mom has shot herself and her finances in the foot. If she had been willing to work with me and the bank years ago, she would have a lot more funds to use now that she is in nursing home care. But nope. She might have a year of money available now. There will be no inheritance. Every penny there is will be used to private pay until Medicaid can kick in. There are no trusts, no annuities, no gifted money. The real property will have to be sold. We are past the point of no return now, and it's sad. I know my dad worked his tail off for decades so there would be some kind of legacy to pass on, and there won't be in terms of money or stuff. All because mom got her heels dug in and refused to act like a grown up and do the appropriate things for her assets. Or let anyone else on her behalf. I can't even gripe to her about it because of the dementia.
When mom had been in her senior apartment for about a week, she was complaining about "all these old people" in the dining room. She didn't want to be around all these people (her same age group) who are old. "Why did you put me here with these nasty old people!?" Now that she's in the nursing home, she is super mad about having to live amongst "old biddies who don't have a d_mn bit of sense!!!" It's a dementia unit...It's not the Howard Johnson's at Disney.
My parents generation on the other hand... oh brother! Both sets of my inlaws who are gone now (I've been married twice) AND my own parents resist/resisted any kind an elder identity and refuse/refused to adapt.
Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that our society seems to worship youth more and more and the worth of our elders has been diminished. I have a friend from India and one day she asked me why our old people try to pretend they are not old. She said that in her culture old people accept the position of elder with pride. Yes this is just one person and she does not in anyway speak for all of Indian culture but I did find her question interesting.
In Native American and some Asian cultures, older people are respected if not revered. And all over the world, they've seen and lived through crises, local and international, that most of their children and grandchildren hopefully will never experience.
In the US, they've gone through the Great Depression and didn't have debit or credit cards to rely on when they had no bread. They grew up in houses with no indoor plumbing or central heating.
Yet American society does gravitate and I think sometimes does emphasize the younger people, many of whom today have no idea what life is all about beyond their wireless devices.
It's no wonder that older folk don't feel valued and resent being shuffled off to institutional placements; they probably cared for their own parents and expect that of their children.
And medicine has enabled them to live longer, but that hasn't always been accompanied by an improved quality of living.
Coupled with that is the increased mobility of their adult children and frequently dual incomes and dual careers (not that there's anything wrong with that).
I wonder sometimes how the whole assisted living movement began; it certainly has benefited many caregivers but also the institutional movement itself. As with other aspects of life, it's provided an alternative for as aspect of life that probably would otherwise be taken care of by the family.
I think that's also a trend in other areas of life - I can't imagine that after WWII families would consider hiring lifestyle consultants, professional organizers, and others who make decisions that our parents easily and proudly made for themselves.
I don't know how I'll feel when I reach the age that my mobility and health are so compromised that I can't life a full life but I know that I don't intend to spend it in an institution. If I can't be gardening in one way or another, I don't want to be here!
I am super SUPER grateful we have more and better senior residential care options than ever before. A long time ago people didn't live so long with such serious conditions. People fell down in the field with "dropsy". Lots of people died from cancer, diabetes, heart attack, stroke, and other totally treatable conditions. There was not the heroic ER rescue like there is today.
Today we are looking at a full time caregiving obligation that can last 8-20 years. TWENTY YEARS of care giving?! I can't sign up for that. I just can't. I'm a bad person. Not unless it was one of my children. I'd do it for them. Long ago, the caregiving obligation was drastically shorter. It was a temporary thing. Ten or fifteen years of caregiving is not a temporary thing at all. When my grandmother fell ill in her later years, she was nursed in the living room of one of my aunts. And then she died. It didn't go on a year.
The blame is not women working. I hear that a lot as the core problem at hand (e.g. why babies have to be in daycare...) and it isn't the problem. We don't live in the large family groups we used to, where there were lots of family around in close proximity to come provide respite and relief - men and women. We don't live in the agriculture based groups we used to, where there is some flexibility in the day (or more than if you work shift work by the hour!) If it's you, your husband, kids, and now a full time care grandma or dad, there isn't anyone to fill in for the rest of the family who are missing. If it's just you and your kids & grandma, you have an impossible row to hoe. Help has to come from somewhere.
I do not want to be a burden on my children's families. I don't want to be in their home, preventing them from having hobbies and interests or fun. I don't want to need them to wipe my butt. If I get that debilitated PLEASE put me somewhere clean & safe. If I'm raving out of my mind, PLEASE sedate me. It would break my heart to think I had caused my kids & their kids resentment and heartbreak from me being needy and difficult for any amount of time.
I always say there's a reason nursing home employees work in shifts. Nobody, not even paid professionals, can perform as a full time caregiver around the clock, every day like home caregivers do. Even the professionals get a break. And if you look at how many people are involved in a resident's care, it's more than one or two people like there is at home. Make sure to count the kitchen staff, cleaners, health aids, nurses...