There’s nothing easy about watching your mother or father get older. Meeting the challenges of supporting an aging parent is no simple matter. As we grow up and make our own way in the world, making peace with the parents who raised us can be challenging even under the best of circumstances. As our own adult lives take shape, and often without warning, the roles begin to reverse. We find ourselves becoming our parents’ caregiver and, as with every new season of life, do our best to summon the strength, weather the storms, and harvest the opportunities.
Turning the pages of life and caring for an aging parent means going back to school. Advanced degrees in patience, understanding, loving kindness, and compassion teach us how to support them through painful, difficult transitions, help them make life-altering decisions, adjust to unwelcome changes, and ripen into the better versions of themselves. Some of us become overwhelmed and resentful. We grow distant because it’s just too much! And some of us roll up our sleeves and take on the challenges. Standing in for our parents can lead to a newfound closeness and add immeasurably to our lives, even when the challenges become painstakingly exhausting, heart-wrenching, and unspeakably difficult. No matter what has happened in your family over the years or what position you have taken as your parents age, each of us does our best to find the patience, support, and understanding to meet these challenges.
Watching someone who was a pillar of strength slow down mentally or physically, go through a debilitating health crisis, lose their smile, or suffer a loss can be excruciating. And when that person is finding it difficult to ask for help moving from the family home into a retirement community, coming to terms with the loss of their spouse, or facing the end of their lives, it presents us with a moment of truth.
Meeting that moment requires four things: self-compassion, self-care, clarity, and forgiveness. Cultivating these qualities helps us meet the challenges of becoming our parents’ caregivers.
1. Self-Compassion
Self-Compassion is the kindness, understanding, patience, and permission we show ourselves. How could we not be sad watching the man or woman we saw as a larger-than-life superhero needing our help to get to the bathroom? How could we not be heartbroken looking into the sad eyes of their grandchildren as they watch our parents, who seemed to know everything and take care of themselves, be unable to remember anything, including which pill to take at what hour? Showing ourselves kindness as we manage these emotions is key.
2. Self-Care
Self-Care is the willingness to factor our own well-being into the mental and physical energy that it’s taking to care for our parent. How could we not find ourselves exhausted, telling the dad who drove us everywhere to turn over his car keys because he’s become a danger to himself and others? Add to this the demands of our own lives as spouses, parents, and breadwinners. It’s not like we have all the time in the world to step away from our own lives to take care of Mom and Dad. But we’re doing it anyway. Caregiving comes at a cost, and it is easy to forget our own needs while focusing on everybody else’s. We must become masters of our own health and well-being by delegating support to others, setting healthy boundaries, and scheduling time to rest and rejuvenate.
3. Clarity
Clarity is what it takes to be an effective caregiver. Much as your parents might not admit it, they need your caring support. Without you, sorting out legal, medical, financial, and psychological matters would be impossible. Whether your parents acknowledge it or not, they are now depending on and trusting you, and learning how to be on the receiving end of care. Deciding whether and how we’re going to show up for them as they get older, and whether to outsource their care to pros or siblings, is something we must decide — and will have to live with. We need to assess their needs, determine just how involved we can become, and forge a clear plan. I felt fearfully unprepared, uncertain, and unqualified to care for my mother in the beginning. Her brushes with decline and death also triggered my own fears of aging and dying. I had to find the courage to face her actual needs and set a gold standard for my mother’s care.
4. Forgiveness
Loving kindness and forgiveness are the core of caregiving for aging parents. Some of us struggle to let go of the things that prevent us from giving our parents the loving care, support, and understanding they need. And some of us have forged a closeness and trust that allows us to become their caregiver. We may need help establishing healthy boundaries for self-care before giving them our time, love, and attention.
When it comes to making peace with our aging parents, there’s no perfect answer. Nor is there a cookie-cutter solution to becoming their caregivers. If we do decide to step up, we need to do our very best to care for them and for ourselves. There’s no limit to the love and gratitude we can share with our parents and pass on to future generations of our family.
Author’s Note: This post is adapted from my book, Raising an Aging Parent: Conversations for the Second Half of Life. It is the first installment in a three-part series exploring the changing dynamics of aging families. This post focuses on the experience of adult children as they navigate the transition from child to caregiver. Part 2 will examine the role aging parents play in fostering communication, connection, and mutual understanding within the family. Part 3 will explore sibling relationships and the role they play in easing—or complicating—their families of origin: deescalating rivalries, healing wounds, finding forgiveness, and supporting one another with compassion and clarity.
