Vital Questions for Aging Parents and Their Adult Children

We stand at an unprecedented demographics crossroad: Never before have there been so many Americans over 85 or so many middle-aged children. According to the Social Security Administration, on average a 65-year-old American woman will live past 88 and a 65-year-old man, past 86. There is a predictability in the lifespan of a family. Often family relationships look like an inverse hour glass: time passes and relationships within the family wax and wane, typically waxing toward the latter part of a parent’s life.

You’re always a mother or a father, a son or a daughter. We don’t lose our role because of age, but what is required of each role changes.

We are not taught how to parent our adult children nor does anyone coach adult children on how to be in relationship with their aging parents. There are often changes in the power dynamics that can be uncomfortable. These need to be acknowledged. Typically, parents will be both grateful and resistant to giving up the reins. Adult children may feel uncomfortable bringing up issues of concern. In addition, adult children need to understand that an aging parent’s maintenance of a sense of control and autonomy helps keep their functioning high and ought to be supported when appropriate.

Often parents will say, “I don’t want to be a burden.” While that is understandable, keeping issues from your children is not helpful to anyone.

In her memoir of her caretaking role for her 85-year old mother, Jane Gross wisely noted that: Elderly parents who don’t ‘bother’ their children today are setting the stage for a crisis tomorrow… Adult children who pretend they don’t see trouble brewing are doing the same… At this point in a parent’s decline, it ought to be against the rules for anyone to indulge in wishful thinking or to keep secrets, because everyone else will pay the price, whatever it is. Like it or not, this is now a family affair.

It has been suggested that both generations want to talk about health, but are waiting for the other to bring it up first. It is here, that the parent can actualize his or her role as, “parent” and take the lead. There are a number of questions a parent can ask him/herself that will help guide them as well as their adult children at this time of life. These are also questions that adult children can use as a model in which to engage in dialogue with an aging parent, as they help their parent steer through narrow waters.

1. Have I noticed changes in the power dynamics with my adult children? How have I coped with that?
2. Have I allowed for shifts in role dependency, i.e., relying more on my kids?
3. Do I trust my adult child to sign a financial or medical power of attorney?
4. Have I created a comprehensive folder of documents that family members can access in case of an emergency so they aren’t left scrambling to find and organize a hodgepodge of disparate bank accounts, insurance policies, etc. Does this include a list of all my passwords and access codes?
5. Have I shared my end-of-life wishes?
6. Have I shared the concerns I’ll be leaving behind me? For example, who will help my spouse? Who will take care of my pets? My plants?
7. Have I invited questions from my children?

Erik Erikson, the developmental psychologist, talked about stages of life. In each stage, he postulated that we have a choice. As middle-aged persons, we get to choose generativity or stagnation. In other words, do I stop growing or, do I continue creating, generating? As seniors, we get to choose wisdom or despair. Wisdom is the positive in old age—it’s a “long distance affair,” which takes a lifetime to develop and includes pragmatism, balance, openness, kindness, acceptance of uncertainty, self-reflection, and the acceptance of mixed emotions for a singular event.

Research has suggested that the strongest predictor of life satisfaction in old age is wisdom. In fact, wisdom is more robustly linked to the well-being of older people than objective life circumstances such as physical health, financial well-being, and physical environment.

Psychoanalyst Leon Wurmser said that wisdom is not like a cake that gets smaller when it’s shared; but rather wisdom is like a candle—the more that it is shared, the more light it provides. This is a light an older adult can give to his or her adult children as they navigate the road ahead.

Share a wisdom or two about life and/or growing older that will help guide your adult children toward generativity over stagnation. The relationship at this phase of life can be reciprocal, as older parents share wisdoms with their adult children who are aiding them in more of the everyday tasks of life. In the senior years parenting is a family affair, one in which each member of the family has a role to play and benefits to be gleaned.