How to deal with elderly parents?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wish more people thought of this. I'm a doctor with lots of elderly parents and I am shocked at how uninvolved most adult children are with their parents. It is difficult to age: appointments, insurance, finances, health care decisions, are more complicated now. Elderly are so often targeted for financial scams, it is awful. Please have the difficult conversation with your elderly parents about: health care and financial power of attorney, where they keep essential information (especially since they will invariably forget every password ever created), who their doctor is, what their expectations are for the future. They will resist this conversation, as most are in denial about the loss of independence, and they need a gentle push to just get over it (I would suggest a trust attorney to help navigate this if it's possible). They are definitely annoying, but so are most people in different ways. They don't want to stop driving, don't want to downsize to an apartment, don't want to move closer to you even though you need to stay where you are for your job, but maybe they should. They should know how to use an Uber app, order groceries online, put a freeze on their credit accounts, etc.

And how do you exactly imagine having someone give up their information on health, money etc. when they're unwilling to do so? My parents have never shared any information. For them, conversation like this is a non-starter. So I do nothing. I'm not going to twist myself into a knot if they don't want to approach aging like normal human beings. I honestly think a lot of this generation of elders have mental health issues, are super selfish (have been their whole lives) and cannot take their adult kids for adults. I say this as someone who had a grandma living with us and pretty much raising us kids (read: selfish parents) and there were none of those issues.

[Anonymous]

I would never move my parents or ILs in with us.

[Anonymous]

You all reap what you sow.

All of you disrespecting your elderly parents, not helping or caring for them, your children are watching and learning. Good luck

[Anonymous]

Struggling with inlaws who are in very poor health and in upper 80s, but are determined to continue to do every intervention possible to eek out a couple more days (the latest example is chemo for breast cancer that has returned) despite the fact that they interventions make them totally dependent on others (us) to do very basic things. I guess I struggle to understand why if you are not in good health and you are 85+ years old you are still doing major medical interventions vs focusing on quality of life day to day.

[Anonymous]

The other thing I would add is that most people with dementia don't think they have a problem. They may not ask for help and may resist any attempt at controlling any factors in their life. This is why it's important doing the paperwork/legal part of decision making when someone is well. Advanced directives, health care and financial proxies, etc should be normalized.

People are living a lot longer and require a lot more care; I think we'll find that the Gen X cohort won't inherit as much as previous generations because their parents will require so much assistance as they age.

[Anonymous]

Totally annoying was managing my narcissistic mom’s increasing demands in the midst of cognitive decline (which she vehemently argued against) and managing her expectations and delusions. She was in denial about aging and her own declining health and constantly chasing a second opinion, more medicines, another diagnosis, a surgical intervention.

She’d routinely call for an ambulance convinced she was critically ill. Or demand that someone get her to an ER for an immediate work up and she’d hope, admission. Then the histrionics would begin anew; demands for everyone she could think of to come visit, anger if you were unable or unwilling to sit vigil. She loved being fawned over and tended to yet would call repeatedly saying she couldn’t wait to get discharged. This went on for far too long. Continued even after she was moved to assisted living.

I promise I’m not a cold hearted nasty person but I’d suffered from a lifetime of her narc abuse and when she died I was profoundly relieved.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Totally annoying was managing my narcissistic mom’s increasing demands in the midst of cognitive decline (which she vehemently argued against) and managing her expectations and delusions. She was in denial about aging and her own declining health and constantly chasing a second opinion, more medicines, another diagnosis, a surgical intervention.

She’d routinely call for an ambulance convinced she was critically ill. Or demand that someone get her to an ER for an immediate work up and she’d hope, admission. Then the histrionics would begin anew; demands for everyone she could think of to come visit, anger if you were unable or unwilling to sit vigil. She loved being fawned over and tended to yet would call repeatedly saying she couldn’t wait to get discharged. This went on for far too long. Continued even after she was moved to assisted living.

I promise I’m not a cold hearted nasty person but I’d suffered from a lifetime of her narc abuse and when she died I was profoundly relieved.

OP here. Sounds like my MIL. Thankful my own parents aren’t like this. Glad yours finally went.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You all reap what you sow.

All of you disrespecting your elderly parents, not helping or caring for them, your children are watching and learning. Good luck

I agree. I have never been around so many people who have dysfunctional relationships with their family.

My parents were wonderful parents and I’m sure I was plenty annoying to them over the years. So if some of their elder issues are irritating or annoying (and some days they are) so be it. I try to take deep breaths and exercise patience and remember to be grateful for everything they sacrificed for us growing up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You all reap what you sow.

All of you disrespecting your elderly parents, not helping or caring for them, your children are watching and learning. Good luck

I agree. I have never been around so many people who have dysfunctional relationships with their family.

My parents were wonderful parents and I’m sure I was plenty annoying to them over the years. So if some of their elder issues are irritating or annoying (and some days they are) so be it. I try to take deep breaths and exercise patience and remember to be grateful for everything they sacrificed for us growing up.

PP and again, dysfunctional relationships continue for generations. Try being the innocent child born to a narcissist and an abusive drunk who stayed married for a lifetime.

I am quite literally attempting to undo generation trauma and addiction through
therapy and medication and specific, intentional lifestyle choices.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You all reap what you sow.

All of you disrespecting your elderly parents, not helping or caring for them, your children are watching and learning. Good luck

You reap what you sow is right. It goes both ways. Honestly, I'm not worried about my kids at all as I don't expect them to arrange their lives around me. First, I'll plan for my old age, it's not a surprise when it comes. Second, I'm fine with getting old and understanding that I'll die. Third, I've lived my life in a way that if I die tomorrow, I'm at peace with it. With problem parents usually none of these points are there, in addition to having been nasty parents in the first place. So they'll reap what they sow. Interestingly, the problem parents are the ones that are very much afraid to die.

[Anonymous]

Wild how you can step out to google and determine the vast majority of people have tolerable to excellent parents, yet virtually every DCUM poster has some terrible “narc” or whatever is the diagnosis du jour.

The idea that inflicting harm and taking vengeance is mentally healthy and ends generational trauma is its own kind of sick. Your children will imitate you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wild how you can step out to google and determine the vast majority of people have tolerable to excellent parents, yet virtually every DCUM poster has some terrible “narc” or whatever is the diagnosis du jour.

The idea that inflicting harm and taking vengeance is mentally healthy and ends generational trauma is its own kind of sick. Your children will imitate you.

You don't make sense. If children imitate their parents, then whomever has problems with their parents, they're imitating them as you say, no? Or what exactly are you trying to convey? That the current adult children shouldn't imitate their parents (since these elderly parents have not been tolerable as you say), but they should be afraid that if they do imitate, then their children will do the same? Then all's fine, no? Worry about your own children and who they'll imitate. You seem incredibly anxious about that. People who have come to terms with their parents faults are not worried about trying to do better for their own kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You all reap what you sow.

All of you disrespecting your elderly parents, not helping or caring for them, your children are watching and learning. Good luck

I agree. I have never been around so many people who have dysfunctional relationships with their family.

My parents were wonderful parents and I’m sure I was plenty annoying to them over the years. So if some of their elder issues are irritating or annoying (and some days they are) so be it. I try to take deep breaths and exercise patience and remember to be grateful for everything they sacrificed for us growing up.

PP and again, dysfunctional relationships continue for generations. Try being the innocent child born to a narcissist and an abusive drunk who stayed married for a lifetime.

I am quite literally attempting to undo generation trauma and addiction through
therapy and medication and specific, intentional lifestyle choices.

Your post confirms that there are significantly more people on this site with dysfunctional parents than lots of us experience in our lives. Not saying the dysfunctional relationships aren’t real. But between the ageism and never ending use of the word “boundaries” regarding parents, it’s just always shocking to see so many negative posts regarding elder care.

[Anonymous]

My parents weren’t perfect by any means but my sister and I would never ever have considered throwing them to the wolves in old age. We took turns showing grace.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My parents weren’t perfect by any means but my sister and I would never ever have considered throwing them to the wolves in old age. We took turns showing grace.

It's up to you. They trained you well. Co-dependency is real and so is manipulation. Obviously people with happy and well-adjusted parents don't come here to complain, so it doesn't make sense to cry here how you showed grace and so should everybody else. How your children will treat you will not depend whether you showed grace or not. It'll depend on how you treated them, whether you were there for them, whether you were a kind parent who had a handle on their mental health. Just like any other relationships you may or may not have. Your children are not different from other humans. There are also plenty of elders without children and you don't see them crying here why others don't do what they want, they have figured out that nothing is for granted.