The aging process is tough. Our bodies change, our abilities change, and our chance of illness and injury grows. When this happens, relationships with adult children also change. But it’s especially difficult when those adult children have to intervene in the lives of their increasingly infirm parents.
Because we are flawed, fallen humans, we often have difficult relationships. Parents and children alike do things that can seem hurtful or uncaring. But in the end, we are still family, and we still have to try and do the best we can for those we love.
It is often the case that a child has to take control of a parent’s health or living situation — either by legal or voluntary means — for the good of the parent. This can seem like a painful inversion of the normal relationship. After all, for years parents care for children. When it goes the other way, it can be very difficult.
Many times I have seen this play out in the emergency department, as an aging, ill parent seeks to maintain autonomy but simply can’t do things without help. The mind of the parent may be clear, but the body infirm. “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak,” as it were.
It’s never easy for a child to say to a parent, “You have to move out of your home.” Whether it’s to live with family, in assisted living or in a nursing home, it can feel punitive. It can make the child, however capable and caring, believe that they are being cruel. Sometimes tears flow on both sides as the parent mourns over such a dramatic change in living condition.
Yet, acting with love is not always associated with happiness.
We know this when we raise children. Discipline is unpleasant. No parent likes to say “no” when a child genuinely wants something. Still, no is sometimes the only possible answer; often, it is the only safe answer. We give children vaccinations, despite the pain, because the consequences of illness are great. We deny them sweets because they need nutrition.
In like manner, when we have parents who need closer attention, who cannot safely care for themselves, adult children have to press through the guilt and do what’s right. Furthermore, parents who are in need of help need to remember (as long as their mental faculties remain) that guilt is a cruel weapon. It is unfair to level unkind accusations against children who are doing their best.
I think we’d all love for our parents to be strong, smart and capable forever. But they aren’t. Such is the nature of this sin-stained life. Therefore, adult kids should remember that there is no need for guilt when doing the right thing.
Aging adults should show grace to the children who are struggling to act in the best interest of the ones who raised them, and who want to give them as much autonomy as possible.