“Caregiving is not easy. I can’t imagine care-receiving is either.”
Dana, a new blogger on Caregiving.com, (Welcome Dana!) made the above comment and it reminded me of one of the “joys” of sandwich caregiving especially when your kids are teenagers. My kids see my parents and have heard our family history (on both sides of the family we live a long time (90′s-100′s) and die with dementia). My kids are waiting for me to become my parents; in fact they have already begun plotting.
My son and daughter talk about what they intend to do with me in my senior years when I’m “forgetful and helpless”. They’ve already made passionate promises about how they’re going to take care of me, wheel me around in my chair and how I’ll never have to go into a nursing home.
I would almost think of it as thoughtful, except that they:
(a) like to do it in front of me… as if I’m not in the room and
(b) believe that the forgetful and helpless part has already started to happen.
My response usually runs along the likes of the famous Bill Cosby line, “…I brought you into this world and I can still take you out!”
It does make me wonder however, if this is how my parents felt as my brother, sister and I began our “plot” as we observed changes in Mom and Dad and wondered what to do about it. Our parents later encouraged us to do exactly that, to begin planning, not realizing we had begun several years prior behind their backs. Their parenting style did not lend toward making this a corroborative effort. It was always going to “us vs them” but at least at one point, on some level, they recognized that the need existed.
Care receiving isn’t easy. No one grows up planning on becoming a care receiver. Yet for most of us, that is what we have to look forward to. Fortunately with us aging Baby Boomers, the financial and estate aspects of getting older are getting overdue attention but perhaps more needs to be said about our attitudes as well. How good are we at allowing others to help us?
My kids and I talk about this. I assured them that I’m going to be as stubborn and difficult as possible. :-)
Still, it’s disconcerting to have your kids hover around you, looking for any sign of degradation. But while they’re watching me for any signs that I’ve become my parents, I’m watching them daily become me.
And they don’t understand why I look at them and smile.
You are a disruptor. The delivery of health care starts with you, continues because of you, and ends with you. Let's disrupt together to make the world better for family caregivers. 
Kathy
Jo, My children grew up with “older” adults as the main influences in their lives. I married a man 26 yrs older than me and my family lived more than 1000 miles away.
As children, they have seen forgetful and helpless take full form and the care we provided for their paternal grandmother.
They have seen promises made by family members that were not able to be kept and hearts broken due to it.
They have also seen the selfishness that comes with passing on the responsibilities to other family members because it inconveniences them.
As adults they see a different caregiving for the forgetful and helpless.
They are now a part of a team that doesn’t make promises that may not be able to be kept. A team that has a guarded heart trusting that the Lord will make the paths for optimum caregiving clear.
We openly discuss future needs and they have all assured me, that if my time comes, they will put me in the best place my money can afford.
Of course I tell them that I am ready to have someone take care of me. They just need to make sure I have a comp and internet connection and I will happily submit to the care of another.
We do this in jest of course but truth is, I believe we are setting groundwork for future needs and easier transitions.
Lets hope it is a long time before your kids, or mine for that matter, find any sign of degradation and if and/or when they should, they will become the same thoughtful and committed caregivers, you are.
Good Luck Jo
Bonnie
I agree with both of you. My children came much later for me, so they are only 9 and 10. They grew up with me as their Grandmother’s cargiver until her death this August.
They have often spoken of what they will “do with me” when my time comes. Their favourite is the scooter they will buy me, with warning signs all over it so I don’t run anyone down! lol
But through it they have learnt a very valuable lesson of life and living, and what it means to be there for each other. In the last year of my Mom’s life while she was starting to fail very fast both mentally and physically – she asked me, “Why am I still here?” with great remorse and pain in her voice. I told her, you are here Mom to teach my children what it is to care for and love someone even when they are failing – you are still here to teach them a life lesson that no one else can teach but you.
There are things in this life we can’t learn unless we live them, I believe this is one of them. And I thank my Mother for teaching my kids this lesson, right up until the day of her death.
But she taught me to, she taught me that you have to let go, that you have to prepare before you start to fail, that life will bring what it may and we are all here to learn and to teach. That is what she taught me in the end, and it is a lesson I will not forget.
Kathy
Bonnie,
That was beautiful and so true.
We CAN learn so much from our care recipient if we are willing to learn it.
Sounds like your mother was an excellent teacher and you and your children A+ students
Thank you for sharing this.
Dana
Your mother sounds like she was a remarkable person. And your kids sound so sweet, too. Beautiful how that was passed down through the generations. Thanks for reading my first blog post.
Karen
This really hit home with me. I am no longer a caregiver, as both my brother and mother passed away in the past year.
However, I now have health problems, due in part to my caregiving years. I now have a bum knee and find my family and younger friends leaping to help me to manage stairs, although I just need to go slower now. And I understand all to well why my mother got irritated with me early on and said, “I CAN DO IT MYSELF!” It was a lesson in allowing her the dignity of being as self-sufficient as possible as long as possible. It’s not fun to have to depend on someone else.
At the least, we have modeled a caring attitude and a sense of responsibility.
Trish
I often wonder what it is like for Robert to be so dependent on others. He really doesn’t seem to mind and only when he says things like “I was trying to make you laugh” do I realize the face I must have on when doing things for him. Very focused, trying to get as much done as possible (can I get Robert bathed & wash the sheets & get the sofa bed turned back into a sofa — all at once?).
Robert has accepted that he needs others to help him and tries to lighten the load with a little humor.
I, on the other hand, would be a terrible care receiver since I only ask for help when it is painfully obvious that I’m drowning.
I could learn a little from my care receiver.
Thank you, Jo and thank you, Dana for making me think about this a bit.
roaringmouse
Care receiving…I always pause at this. I know it’s something I need and yet the few times I’ve been exposed to it…it’s been very caustic at times. Oh! sure there have been times when it was wonderful…but none the less due to some of my experiences…I get very hesitant it…because I first wonder if I’ll get hurt. Sad…I need to try to give benefit of the doubt first.
As to our daughter..I’ll take care from her any day of the week! I’ve seen her sleep on my husband’s bedroom floor and even in his bed (a twin size air bed and he’s 5/11 him at one end…her the other) when he’s had problem with pain, she’ll tell me his water bottle is empty, she’s chased nurses in hospitals down the hallway and so on. She’s only 5. What a big load for her that she chose to take on. I remember one night last year she woke me up…”Mom, Daddy’s talking…he’s in trouble.” MIddle of the night of course! So I go in to his room and find him out of his wheelchair on the floor. I’ll take her assistance to that of a nurse hand’s down! I went and supported him upwards. She went and turned on the light, got me the phone, his vitals book, got herself dressed, turned on the porch lights, locked the dogs in the bedroom and then cried because she couldn’t get the door open for the paramedics. I still wish there was an award I could give her for helping me save her father’s life that night. I did take her out to get a toy. (The last time something similar to that happened…the nurse working at our home that day…froze and couldn’t even tell the paramedics what was going on…I had to. When they came to our home…I gave them the “list” and then they asked to see the wife! I told them I was! About 15 minutes after entering our home the same paramedic came back up to me and said, “that nurse is useless! Your husband should give you the RN certification!”)
I have received two caregiving awards. But quite frankly I wish they had one for kids! She deserves to be a care receivee too!!!