Dear Alisa and Gina, My elderly mother has had a number of falls. On several occasions these falls have caused fractures which have entailed months in rehab before she can move back into her home. The last time she was in rehab, my brother and I (her only near relatives) made a number of long overdue adjustments to her living situation (she’s lived in the same house for over 40 years). Now that she’s back in the house, she’s undoing all the work we did. We’re concerned for her safety. And it’s also really time consuming because as she makes these changes more and more calls are generated. What would you say and to whom? ~ Concerned Dealing with aging parents is a question for so many of us. It sounds like your mother is struggling to maintain some control over her own life. As hard as it is to see her “at risk” I think you need to have a conversation with her. You can express your emotional concern, mention your fears and see what she says. But you need to be willing to live with the something you can both agree to. If she gets to live her way, you are allowed to set your own boundaries for what you can do to support her. ~Alisa Well what did you expect? You made all these changes without consulting her first – so of course she’s undoing them. Sorry to say but, even though she’s elderly and might not, as you’re implying, have the best judgment, you should have asked her before you rearranged her life – even if it was for her own good. Go and apologize. ~ Gina
Posts
I am in the midst of this situation as well and I like both of the responses.Saying "I am sorry" AND expressing where the actions came from, - truly genuine caring concern, can open the door to some honest talk and helps an aging parent deal better with the transition of roles. A child learns how to take care of a parent from the way she/he was taken care of by his/her mother, but sometimes there are mistakes and goof ups in communication, because we are human and it's new territory. The place it comes from, however, is love and concern, so we stumble through the best we can and learn along the way...
ReplyDelete