A friend commented recently, “My mother would rather things go haywire than lose any independence.” A seemingly insignificant comment illustrated everything I had been doing wrong with my own aging parents. I’d focused too much on avoiding haywire and not enough on facilitating independence. I live two hours away and did not realize the “help” I provided (OK – maybe pushed) was actually making my parents feel disassociated from their own lives and their routines. I’ve since tried – none of this easy – to provide them with the tools to retain some as much autonomy as possible, haywire be damned.
Food: I’d tried to simplify – and increase the safety of – my parents’ breakfast routine with cold cereal, coffee pods, and snack bars. A vacation timer switch attached to an electric kettle was a much better solution. Now my mother can boil water in the morning and the kettle will automatically shut off at 10 am and turn on again at 8 am the next morning.
Sleep: We put two “cots” downstairs in my parents house in case their stair chair ever did not work when they were alone in the evening. I saw a practical solution for a potential problem. They saw “hospital beds” and were very unhappy. The cots are now gone. If the stair chair ever breaks or fails and they cannot reach one of us, they’d much rather sleep on the couch than have a daily, ugly reminder of their own decreased mobility. If aches and pains from possibly sleeping on a couch are less uncomfortable to them than looking at two hospital beds, live and let live.
Clutter: One word about helping aging parents with clutter: don’t. Unless you absolutely have to de-clutter their residence, let it be. Older people find comfort being surrounded by their own possessions. They likely will never use the 1970 fondue pot but why argue about it? I realized that my own anxiety around their clutter was my issue, not theirs. Bare corners look lonely, especially when they were once bursting with reminders of a life well-lived.
Outside Help: My parents viewed any hired assistance as a waste of money and an invasion of privacy. My parents were frankly suspicious and uncooperative with visiting nurses. We had to compromise here. I grew up in a blue collar home. We never had help cleaning our home. They’ve now accepted that their neighbors’ “cleaning lady” (in reality, she is much more than this) will also come to their home twice a week. In both homes, the helper cleans, checks the medicine boxes, grocery shops, and does other tasks. For example, she comes the afternoon before garbage day and puts the garbage containers on the street. I pay her directly, commensurate with her professional services.
None of this is easy. I’d rather that my parents live with my family (nope) or in an assisted living facility (hell no). Their home and their independence are their priorities. And, of course, all of the above assumes that an adult child lives relatively close to their parents and that the parents are reasonably high functioning seniors. As my parents continue to age and one inevitably passes away someday, we’ll have further negotiations. When that time comes, I will try to be sensitive to how “help” can feel to an elderly person.
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