Parenting Her Aging Parents

Gently pulling up the blanket, she looks at the peaceful sleeping face. Oh the times we spent making clover chains in the park. And the tea parties that gave way to sleepovers were no less memorable than the annual holiday cookie baking weekends. You remember the good ole days while I have to remember the endless details to get through today. You are still my mother, but now I am your mother too.  Among the 8.9 million family caregivers of older adults, 59–75% are women (National Alliance for Caregiving, 2004). Half of those women are adult daughters and daughter-in-laws, but primarily daughters who range in age from 40-64 (Kaiser Family Foundation, 2002). During the middle to pre-retirement years, the caregiving daughter is often raising her children and launching them onto college or career. At the same time, most caregiving daughters are married and many continue to work outside the home.

She understands the term, “sandwich generation,” being caught between the demands of wife, mother, employee, and parent to an aging parent.  Which call do you answer first when your daughter needs you to check her homework, your son lost his soccer shirt, your mother does not want to take her medication and your husband is tapping his foot at the door waiting for you to go with him to a reunion dinner? Welcome to a day in the life of a caregiving daughter. If her spouse and children participate in caringfor the elder adult, the burden is manageable. Without support from her husband and cooperation from the children, over time caregiving daughters reach role overload, facing exhaustion, depression and physical depletion.

Honey, I promise that I will go with you on the next trip. I really am proud of you for winning the sales award. But even if the children stay with the neighbors, there’s no one who knows how to care for Mom. Caregiving is rarely a short-term commitment. Most women expect to spend no longer than two years as primary caregivers, not knowing that eight to ten years is the average time spent in caregiving for older adults (MetLife, November 1999).  Yes, your work evaluations are excellent, but you frequently take time off during the day. Surely you understand why we gave the promotion to someone else. Half of the female caregivers continue to work, often with reduced hours, until caregiving demands require full-time commitment. Employers say they understand, yet caregiving daughters are more likely to lose seniority and status, as well as compensation in the workplace (Pavalko & Artis, 1997).

I can’t believe I was so impatient with my Dad. I know it’s the Alzheimer’s talking, not him. And Mama refuses to accept that she needs to take her medication. God’s word says to “honor thy father and thy mother;” what about when they act like cranky children? No matter how good the intentions, the stresses of longterm caregiving, particularly with cognitive impairment, places the caregiver at risk for depression, anxiety and frustration that can give way to elder abuse (Beach, et al., 2005).  Becoming the parent to your parents is a role reversal for which no one is truly prepared. The “empty nest” years are increasingly being filled Kathie Erwin with elder care responsibilities.

The medical advances that allow us to live longer also extend the years of potential dependency for older adults. And there is the distance factor; families are more mobile, as likely to live across the country as down the block from the grandparents. In spite of the complications, Christian families are struggling to find ways to fulfill the biblical imperative, “to put their religion into practice by caring for their own family and so repaying their parents and grandparents (1 Timothy 5:4, NIV).”  With the burden of caregiving falling to the daughter (and daughter-inlaws), how can Christian counselors and church ministries meet her needs and sustain her efforts?     Give her a safe outlet to discuss her feelings, frustrations and fears in counseling or caregiver support group.    Remain alert for signs of depression or anxiety that need medical evaluation and intervention.Take help from internet counseing .

Connect her to community-based old_resources for respite care, adult day care, congregate dining and home health care.    Reassure her that taking time to be with her husband and children is not neglecting her caregiving role, even if the elder parent reacts negatively.     Find ways to keep her connected to the church family. Reaching out to caregivers, including elder spouses, as well as daughters, needs to become a vital part of Women’s Ministries. Finally, like the four friends who brought the disabled man to Jesus, the caregiving daughter desperately needs a group of Christian women friends to nurture, encourage, laugh, cry and pray with her as she parents her aging parents.    _Kathie Erwin, Ed.D., is a National Certified Gerontological Counselor, National Certified Psychologist, and Licensed Mental Health Counselor in Largo, Florida. She is the author of Group Techniques for Aging Adults, Lifeline to Care with Dignity, Maintaining Family Bonds When Care Needs Change, Foundations of Gerontology, and How to Start and Manage a Counseling Business.