Aging Parents and Eldercare Dilemmas
One of the top aging parents and eldercare dilemmas is where elderly parents should live when they need care. The obvious and most preferred wish of parents is to stay living in their homes.
But unfortunately, due to an increasing number of health diagnoses, physical weakness, and disabilities, staying in the home, being able to take care of oneself, and maintaining the home can become challenging for older adults.
Aging care problems most often result from health and physical declines. So, no matter your age,
pay more attention to preventing health issues and remaining physically strong and able. While health and physical declines can occur with age, there are many things one can do to improve their health and perform activities of daily living independently.
Living With Elderly Loved Ones
If you are considering living with family members, consider the following aspects before making the decision. If you are already a family caregiver living with elderly family members, identify the warning signs that an exit strategy may be needed to move a parent out of your home or, as a caregiver, to move out of your parent’s home.
Everyone involved in family caregiving situations needs to recognize and agree that situations can change. Caregiving involves the unexpected. So, it is essential to have a Plan A, Plan B, and sometimes a Plan C to respond to unpredictable situations around aging parents and
eldercare planning.
Memories of Living With Parents
Let’s talk about the idea of living with elderly parents. Think back to childhood. What did you like and dislike about living in your parents’ home?
- Too many people
- Difficult relationships with siblings
- A noisy house with a lot of commotion
- Family members coming and going at different times of day
- Being unable to watch specific television programs
- Designated quiet times
- Sharing a bathroom or having to schedule shower time
- Set meal times
- Financially contributing to household expenses
- Taking care of pets
- Helping with home maintenance, lawn mowing, snow shoveling
- Running errands or taking siblings to events or meetings
- Buying your own groceries so you had food you preferred to eat
All those things that you wanted to get away from by moving out of your parents’ home, probably haven’t changed.
Look at how and where you live today.
- What are your lifestyle preferences?
- Do you have your own spaces?
- Do you enjoy watching television or listening to loud music?
- Do you have to worry about waking other people up in the morning if you get up early?
- Do other people who get up early wake you up?
- Are you organized or messy?
- Do you like a clean house, or do you barely clean?
Caring for Aging Parents Dilemmas
When thinking about moving an elderly mother or father into your home or living with them, realize that love only goes so far. Eventually,
patience wears out.Usually, the little things, like in any relationship, become big things that add up and become irritating. So, if your parents have habits now that you don’t like, living with them will not change these habits. If you have habits your parents don’t like, they may be irritated living with you.
Learn more about the
habits of aging well by checking out Episode 189 of The Caring Generation podcast.
Considerations Around Life and Family Situations
There are many considerations around aging parents and eldercare related to where parents will live when they can no longer live alone.
Are you a caregiver who lives alone or lives with a spouse and has no children, or the children are grown up and out of the house? Maybe you are near retirement and look forward to doing all the things you have wanted to do for years.
How will moving an elderly mother, father, or both parents into your home
change your daily routine and plans for your life?
While you may dismiss the changes that can occur due to a sense of duty and responsibility, moving elderly family members into your home is a serious consideration. This is like giving up your living space or home to move in and care for an elderly family member.
While you may think your life will not change significantly, if your parent needs care today, as time passes, you will likely devote more of your time to caring for an elderly parent,
trading time you once devoted to yourself.Caregiving Can Be a Major Time Commitment
Many caregivers say, I never thought Mom or Dad would live this long. I expected this living together situation to be for one or two years. Today, it is five years later. It doesn’t look like Mom or Dad will die anytime soon.
While these may seem like selfish comments, they are not. If you are not personally in this situation, do not judge family members who have made sacrifices and want more control over their lives.
Sometimes promises made to care for elderly parents are impractical to keep.Inviting elderly family members to live in your home or agreeing to move into their home is a much bigger commitment than you might ever imagine.
Let’s fast forward a few years to see how aging parents and eldercare needs can become all-encompassing.
- Your mom or dad has many health problems
- In addition to a primary care doctor, mom or dad sees a cardiologist, a pulmonologist, an orthopedist, and an endocrinologist
- Medical appointments are every 90 days
These appointments consume 5 days of your time every three months or 20 days a year.
Working with medical providers to manage elderly parents’ healthcare needs is a learned skill.
If you work, how much vacation time do you have? How much time can you take off work to take your parents to these appointments?
Add picking up medications prescribed by these doctors every month to your list of caregiving tasks. It is likely you also set up their medication boxes.
There may be communication with the doctors between the quarterly appointments. Then you may be dealing with Medicare or their Medicare Advantage plan regarding insurance approvals or denials.
Due to an elderly parent’s health issues, you make an extra effort to ensure they eat a healthy diet, which can have the added benefit of helping you, as the caregiver, eat healthier.
My Elderly Mother Lives With Me, and I Hate It
Click the red arrow button in the picture below to watch the video.
Watch More Videos About Caregiving, Aging, and Health on
Pamela’s YouTube ChannelWork and Family Caregiver Pressures
If you work all day, your parents may expect you to be their entertainment when you get home. After work, all you can think of is that you want is some time for yourself without anyone else asking you to do one more thing.
There may even be some days you stay late at work to avoid going home. Some caregivers dream about running away or not waking up the next day because caring for elderly parents is stressful and draining.
And what if you have a spouse or are also raising young children? How does the time you devote to caring for an elderly parent affect these relationships?
It is not easy. Trying to balance aging parents and eldercare dilemmas around where caregivers commit their time and effort can be a struggle.
Sometimes, elderly parents expect too much.Aging Parents and Eldercare Dilemmas Around Living Situations, Short and Long-Term
There can be many unexpected twists and turns when caring for elderly parents that relate to living situations. Some may be temporary or short-term.
- Are you in a situation where Mom or Dad needs to move in for a short period of time to get their health back to normal after a surgery or a hospitalization?
The first wrong turn a caregiver can make in this situation is not putting a timeline on “moving in.” For example, a time frame of 30, 60, or 90 days. The elderly who recover in nursing homes are offered 20 days of coverage by Medicare before transitioning to a cost-sharing basis for up to 100 days.
Therefore, it would be more than reasonable to agree that an elderly parent committed to improvement will return home in less than three months.
Committed is the key term that caregivers and the aging parent must agree on.Committed means participating in daily physical therapy activities to regain physical muscle strength and balance. Committed means doing work around the caregiver’s home, such as the tasks an elderly parent would typically do to maintain their own home. Committed means cooking meals and eating healthy.
This temporary living situation is not a vacation. It must be agreed that daily work and effort are required to support the elderly parent to return to their own home to live independently.
Caregiving Conversations Around Temporary Stays in the Home
During this time, caregivers must continue to say, “when you return home” or “when you move into your new place” if a parent is in between selling a home and moving to assisted living.
Do not let Mom or Dad become too comfortable, expecting the caregiver to meet their every need. These actions do not support recovery. Instead, they support dependency.
Caregivers overhelp and then wonder why they are burned out and exhausted. Set up clear expectations at the beginning for short-term stays for a parent in your home.
Long Term Stays
Long-term stays are situations where conflicts can arise, and if not dealt with immediately, can cause serious harm to family relationships.
For example, mom comments on everything a caregiver does in raising their children, saying this or that should not be done. Maybe Mom gives the children candy when the house was previously a candy-free zone. Or Mom questions the house rules, such as cleaning up dishes in the sink, bedtime, or staying up late using technology.
Maybe mom does not like your husband or wife, or vice versa, your husband or wife doesn’t like your parent or parents. This can be a big problem.
Elderly parents can come between spouses, especially if your spouse really doesn’t like your mom or dad, but only puts up with them. This conflict may only last so long until your spouse says, “I’ve had enough, make a choice.”
Did you get married to be with your spouse or your mother?
Sometimes
choosing a spouse over an elderly parent is the only way to save a marriage. Boundary setting is an aging parents and eldercare dilemma.
When do you keep information between you and your spouse or share it with a parent who lives with you? Sometimes you may feel as if you can only talk behind closed doors, or Mom begins to interfere. Decide as a couple to stop the interfering behavior by a parent.
Relationships with aging parents can depend a lot on the quality of early parent–child relationships. For example:
- Do you overshare details of your life that might be better kept separate or private from a parent?
- Do you talk to your parents about worries, anxieties, and family drama?
- Does Mom or Dad pull you into family drama that you would rather not know about?
- Is it difficult for you to make decisions without asking your parents?
These can be lifelong habits to break. If you fall into any of these categories, you may never have fully separated your adult life from your parents’ lives.
If this is the case, you are giving your mom or dad who lives with you permission to:
- Make judgments about your spouse, children, and lifestyle choices
- Constantly offer their opinions and be angry if you do not listen—even if you are 40, 50, or 60 years old
- Continue to treat you like a child
If any of this happens and an elderly parent lives in your home, it’s probably time to start the separation process and formalize an exit plan. If so, here are a few steps to take.
- Stop sharing information about your personal life to the best of your ability. The fact that your parent lives with you already reveals a great deal about your daily habits, relationship with your spouse or children, your work life, and your friends.
- Encourage an elderly parent to start doing things independently outside of the family, especially if you have become her “friend support” network.
- Have ongoing discussions about finalizing plans for a parent to live on their own again. Set a timeline and assign tasks to your parents to set the move into motion.
- If Mom or Dad expresses concern about not being able to take care of themselves, give them lists of in-home caregivers and assisted living communities to contact. Focus on independence, not dependence.
When Caregivers Move Into the Homes of Elderly Parents
Now let’s look at the opposite scenario. If you moved to live with an elderly mother, what did you give up?
Did you give up your job, which allowed you to be independent? Doing so is often a significant error in judgment, making the caregiver reliant on a home and a parent’s income. Do you really want to be seventeen again?
In this case, the caregiver’s next step is to let Mom know you are searching for a job and that it’s necessary to find a replacement care situation. You and your mother can begin interviewing care agencies, as it may be necessary to have a care agency in place to give you time to look for work.
This will give mom time to adjust to the new situation. You will have more time to focus on finding a job, saving money for your move, and regaining your independence.
Alternatives to the Living With Elderly Parent Dilemma
Many adult children naively believe that living with an elderly parent will make caregiving easier. When, instead, it makes life more complicated. Family members do not have to be the caregivers in all situations.
Caregivers make an elderly parent dependent on them for everything because of wanting to be helpful, and then feel trapped. There is always an exit plan available, especially if caregivers recognize and
own the choices made when deciding to live with an elderly parent.Both the parent and the caregiver likely agreed that living together was a good plan. But at some point, it was evident that the situation was not equally beneficial.
Care situations work out best when everyone remains self-supporting and self-reliant. This is not always possible in situations where a diagnosis of dementia or cognitive impairment exists. Finding an alternative care situation in these cases is more necessary due to the time and effort involved in caring for a parent on a 24/7 basis.
So, seek out
alternatives for day care, in-home caregivers, and
care communities—schedule family discussions around the care needs of elderly parents.
Do not be the sibling who chooses to give up your life to take care of mom and dad, and then becomes resentful of siblings and your parents. Siblings will be glad you made the sacrifice, and they will go on with their lives. Your elderly parents may regret needing assistance but not know how to change the situation.
Caregiving Decisions Can Have Long-Term Impacts
Family caregiving situations can be very complicated. Before making major decisions, take the time to consider the consequences thoroughly and have a plan in place for what to do if the situation does not turn out as expected.
Living with and caring for aging parents is not easy.
Caregiving is a big, life-changing situation for you and your parent, which is one of the most significant aging parents and eldercare dilemmas.
In many cases, putting information in writing by creating a care agreement can avoid emotions when the care situation must change or end if it doesn’t work out as expected.
Alternatively, simply having an agreement with a defined start time frame so that everyone involved knows this is only a temporary situation and it’s not a long-term plan is a good idea. When considering aging parents and eldercare dilemmas related to where parents will live, it’s good to have a plan and ongoing family discussions.
Looking For Help Caring for Elderly Parents? Find the Information, Including Step-by-Step Processes, in Pamela’s Online Program.
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