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According to gerontologists, being a good listener is a very good way to provide emotional support to aging parents. Their feeling about aging, future plans, their advice in general should be shared very caringly. The adult children may share juicy gossip and of course serious discussion with them, may accompany them to lunch or dinner. The adult children may not always stay with their parents. In that case they may keep in touch with them by phone, e-mail or visitations. They should come over them from time to time. Actually our aging parents should be made to feel that they are still needed in our life and occupy a big part not only in our lives but in our children's lives also.
But all these suggestions may lose their way in the labyrinth of multifarious problems once adult children are forced to deal with the realities accompanying the aging process of their parents. Mom's arthritis is painful and is slowing down her pace of life, physically. Dad's emotions are changing due in part to the aging process and sometimes he becomes petulant and even obstinate. They are now passing through a transitional life-cycle that is often referred to as disengagement. They like to spend more time craving the solace of their fond memories and the company of only each other and less time at family gatherings. They now get easily tired. Amidst conversations one of them may fall asleep in his / her chair.
When people look back, many may regard caring for elderly people as a privilege. But when one is in the throes of the situation, life can sometimes be felt intolerably hard. Care-givers often go through a sort of emotional crisis. However much care is given, old age is not a curable disease. Seeing loved one's decline in health and strength can be painful and it can be very discouraging to know that this is happening regardless of the best care given by the care-givers. It is very much normal for the care-givers to feel lonely, extremely sad and sometimes angry at about what is happening to the people they love so much.
Guilt is another emotion commonly associated with caring of elderly parents. Sometimes the care-giving adult children have to take some decisions about their parents which may make them feel that they are losing their independence. Again the parents also may feel a sense of guilt that they cannot be there for their beloved children as they always had been in the past. They are also wrestling with as many conflicting emotions as their care-giving children are. There is also a probability of the conjugal life of the care-giving children being at a stress.
The spouses of the care-givers may tire of the life style restrictions, such as, disruption to a vacation or a travel-plan or less time spent with each other. So there may always be a tension between wanting to do the best for the loved parents and wanting to live one's own life with other loved ones. It is very much normal to feel like this.
Now, how adult children of aging parents can overpower this extreme emotional crisis? The simple answer is balance. And this balance does come from deep sense of love. The aging parents are now very much in need of LOVE which their children, now bordering middle age, got plentifully from them when they were young and are still getting. So how much adverse the situation may be, with love, affection and mutual respect this can easily be turned into a very positive and rewarding experience. It depends on how adult children can cope with their new role in an entirely new situation.
Sometimes media flash news like how aging parents are being tormented both physically and mentally by their adult children. It is this writer's personal view that the number of such adult children is negligible in comparison with those who keep constant vigil on the well being of their elderly parents. Again there are many adult children who cannot stay with their parents due to thousand and one reasons. Their job or marital status may demand their stay far away from their aging parents, even in foreign countries. But they are constantly in loving contact with their parents through distant call, internet, in short, by nay means. They may be far away geographically. But emotionally they are so near to their aging parents. Love has defeated distance.
King Lear, the protagonist of Shakespeare's one of four Great Tragedies “King Lear”, hurt by the heartlessness of his offspring's, commented remorsefully –
“How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child”
We the conscientious adult children of present age do not want to hear such an agonizing cry from any aging parent any more.
Acknowledgement
Different websites
Presidential Address – Recent trends in geriatrics and gerontological studies (Proceedings of the State level Conference on Geriatric and Gerontological studies in West Bengal , December 16-17, 2004)
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