When you become the parent to your parent
Together with my siblings celebrating mum’s 90th birthday last year
Earlier this week my magnificent 90 year old mother fell and broke her hip. The intervening days have been filled with her admittance to hospital and all the various procedures and checks that needed to be done ahead of her having a partial hip replacement operation yesterday afternoon, from which, I’m relieved to say, at the time of writing, she is recovering well.
Who knows what the coming days and weeks will hold in terms of the trajectory of that recovery and just how mobile she’ll manage to be a) in time for my sister’s wedding in just three weeks, and b) ongoing. What is almost certain is that she will be more frail than she was, and she had been getting increasingly frail in the past few months, and that the sort of support she will need to have in order to remain living independently at home will have to change.
What is also almost as certain, is that she will be resistant to having anything she regards as care, even though we know that’s what she’s going to need.
It’s such a difficult and delicate balancing act, isn’t it, trying to give your parent the help they need without making them feel they’re losing their independence and agency over their own life, decisions and choices. Especially when that parent has lived such a full, rich and fiercely independent life.
The four of us at Buckingham Palace with mum when she was awarded a CBE for services to the community
I’m grateful every day that I’m one of four siblings and that we are as good as we are at sharing, not just the responsibilities of supporting mum, but also which one of us is likely to be the best to be with her and talk her through things when they need to be discussed. Our different personalities lend themselves to different scenarios and situations. One of us is better at gentle joshing and persuasion, another at the organisational practicalities and one at being more firm when that’s required.
I’m not saying we get it right all the time - far from it. I’m certainly guilty of being short and impatient with her more often than I should. And for beating myself up when I’m not as kind as I know I should be. When that happens, there’s a saying a friend of mine shared with me, which I try to remind myself of. “Of course your mother presses your buttons,” she said. “She installed them!” It helps to prompt me to take a deep breath and try to be more gentle - both to her and myself.
A talk I was at several years ago referred to the challenges of caring for our ageing parents and the myriad of emotions being in that situation stirs up. The speaker said much of that was down to our innate understanding that there was only one eventual outcome as our parents decline, and that the sadness and pain that conjures up is because we cannot see a future for them.
I disagree.
Firstly because I think that despite the prospect of there not being a long term future ahead for elderly parents, it can be a comforting privilege if you’re able to help to give them the best possible quality of life whilst they’re alive.
But more than that, I believe that the swirl of emotions that is prompted by becoming the parent to your parent isn’t because you can’t see their future, it’s because you can, all too clearly, see your own.
I remember well how my mother struggled to manage the care my elderly grandmother needed towards the end of her long life and the…..lets be kind and say, conversations…. they had about what my grandmother needed in order to remain living in her own home (which, by the way, she did to the very end) versus what she wanted.
I have no idea whether mum thought then about how she might be, or react, if she reached the same stage as her mother, but just as she is more like her than she’d probably care to admit, I know I’m very similar to mum in more ways (good and bad!) than I acknowledge. And I think about it an increasing amount.
Mum with the youngest of her four great-granddaughters at her birthday celebration weekend away last year
I have lived on my own for many years now, something I value and enjoy - which I recognise is very much thanks to the regular appearances from my lovely man, and the fact that both my daughters live within walking distance so I see them and my delicious gang of grand-girls often.
If I get to a stage where it’s no longer sensible, or safe for me to live here without some sort of support, will I rail against that? Or will I accept (and be able to afford, but that’s another whole conversation) whatever is required to help me stay in the home I love? Or will I feel that the best option is for me to live somewhere quite different?
As we face trying to do our best for mum and her needs in the coming weeks, I can only say that I really really hope I’ll remember to do my best to recognise and accept the changes that need to happen, and that I co-operate with them with the most grace and amenability I can muster (even if I rant to my friends that my children are insisting on behaving as if they’re my parents).
If you have any advice or stories from the ageing parent front line, please do share them in the comments.
Onwards we go…..
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