How to Balance Parenting and Caring for the Elderly
My cell phone is in the kitchen next to my wife’s phone while I play on the floor with my two-year-old daughter Ella. My wife upstairs looks after the bathing of Leila, our 9 year old girl. I don’t notice the phone vibrating on the quartz countertop, but in 25 minutes it rang 13 times.
Every call was from my 80 year old aunt. Unable to contact me or my wife, she took turns calling each of us until I finally went to the kitchen for milk for the baby and noticed the phone.
Hello Marietta.
“Hi bunny. Thanks for picking up the phone. Where have you been?”
“Playing with Ella.”
“Oh. So where is Leila?”
“Taking a bath.”
“Okay. I just wanted to touch the base and see what happens. Sorry to bother you.”
There is no emergency; never happens. In fact, these calls, which occur multiple times a day, rarely exceed 20 seconds. The first usually happens around 3:30 pm when my wife drives up to the house after a day with the teacher in high school. The second happens some time after I finish washing the dishes, but before Ella goes to bed. The third comes shortly thereafter.
Those of us who combine the needs of caring for children and the elderly are part of the so-called sandwich generation, a new demographic trapped in the tug-of-war. More than 11 million Americans have been caught in the sandwich, according to a 2019 report from the National Alliance for Intergenerational Care and Care . Another report, this time from the Alzheimer’s Association, shows that a quarter of the 16.2 million people caring for dementia in America are looking after sandwiches. Both numbers are predicted to rise as more baby boomers cross the threshold of retirement and begin to need extra care.
And many caregivers fall into this role by default. One suggestion came up on page 21 of the NAC report:
Just over half of caregivers believe they have a choice when they take on the role of caregiver (54 percent). For the 45 percent of sandwich caregivers who felt they had no choice, their perception of emotional and physical stress can often be worse.
I live here; this is normal for me.
Fighting the new normal
My aunt’s decline lasted for about six weeks. We went from visiting her on Sundays after church to pleading with me to stay at her house because she was afraid to be alone. I can’t pinpoint the catalyst for the downward spiral, but the day I accepted her for an emergency psychiatric evaluation for lack of response and almost catatonic state was one of the most sobering days of my life. After being discharged, she ran to my car in a hospital gown, fastened her seat belt and told me that she could no longer live alone.
I was made responsible for her departure, since my sister and cousins left our hometown many years ago and my aunt’s sisters (one of whom was my mother) passed away. I contacted my contacts in the long-term care sector and we moved her to a separate apartment building within a week.
Talking about it with others is not easy, but living it while raising children presents its own challenges.
“Why is Aunt Mar calling all the time,” Leila asks. This is a legitimate question from my nine-year-old daughter about an aunt who used to take care of her regularly. Marietta had been a kindergarten teacher for four decades, so she had curricula planned for them to attend – targeting words, grouping and counting, and nursery rhymes. This was the aunt I dreamed of having for both of my daughters – firm but loving, and used every minute to nurture young minds and learn.
Now Leila and I are talking about how Aunt Mar is worried and does not know how to control it. Experts at the National Alliance for Mental Illness at the American Academy of Pediatrics agree that being direct and honest about what happens to children has benefits beyond breaking down myths and reducing stigma. Keeping open lines of communication between parent and child can reduce anxiety about what may (or may not) be happening.
It is also important to speak to your child at their level of understanding. A preschooler or elementary school child will have questions about why their aunt is nervous all the time, just like a teenager. Or why grandfather sleeps so much now, or why he needs to be driven in a wheelchair to get around. In our case, it suffices to explain that their aunt’s brain works differently than ours, making her more anxious and demanding more calmness in order to satisfy the younger child’s curiosity.
Older children may have more questions, but they also have a better understanding of how the disease works and progresses, what medications work, and how they can help.
Involving your child in caring for them can also help them understand what’s going on. Again, make it age appropriate. Ella, my baby, might just want to sit on her aunt’s lap after a festive dinner and read her a story. With Leila, my aunt may want to ask questions about what she does in school. It gives both the child and the older relative a sense of purpose and involvement; the child feels a sense of accomplishment for playing an active role, while the older relative does not feel there because of the commitment.
Family circumstances, the age of the child, and the condition of the adult all affect the role your child can play. But remember that modeling healthy childcare today may have an impact in the future as you get older and rely more on your children.
Taking care of yourself
Patience has become a commodity, as the stress of caring and nurturing pulls me in different directions. I’m getting short; sometimes with her, sometimes with children. When this happens, an immediate guilt reaction hangs over me. I turned to my colleague Ruth Drew of the Alzheimer’s Association for advice. Drew is the director of information and support for the association, but she also shares some common ground on this topic. She has a teenage son and is part of the remote care team for her father who suffers from Alzheimer’s.
She says that losing patience is a sign of overexpenditure of emotional energy.
“It’s like a check engine light on your car,” says Drew. “Just like you cannot keep driving without filling up the tank, checking the oil level, turning the tires, etc., we also cannot immerse ourselves in our work, our parenting responsibilities, our relationships and our caring. not taking the time to get an update. “
It is also important, she says, to be aware of how your reactions might affect your children.
“Maybe I’ll pause before I walk through the door at night and say to myself,“ These days are precious to my parents. I will not return them. What do I want my child to remember about his childhood? “It’s not magic, just using the moment to be present and intentional can help,” Drew said.
Drew offered other tips for dealing with stress:
- Take five minutes to do deep breathing or progressive muscle relaxation exercises first and last of the day.
- Schedule a weekly lunch appointment with an encouraging friend.
- Get up 30 minutes early for a calm meditation before starting the day.
- Talking to a counselor and / or joining an online guardian group.
Support is available if you know where to look. Local aging agencies can provide referrals for age-related disease support programs in their communities. And national nonprofits such as the American Cancer Society , the National Mental Health Alliance, and the National Multiple Sclerosis Society offer support groups and hotlines for caregivers.
Building boundaries
Recently, for work, I went out of town for two days. I spoke to my wife and children only once during my absence and left specific instructions for my aunt not to call me. The request was crushing for her. After all. I could pick up the phone, get my 20-second call and move on – except that one call permits a second call, which leads to a third, which nullifies the boundaries as they are.
Borders are important, especially invisible ones. In my case, I don’t talk to my aunt about how the work is progressing or someone is sick so that she doesn’t earn another point to focus on. When I’m working, reporting a freelance assignment, or simply leaving for social reasons, we set a time when she can no longer call me. If I go out of town, we talk about my wife being a single parent and can’t stop to answer the call. The compromise is that she cannot call us, but we will call her.
Compromise and flexibility are as important as the border itself. Last summer, we made a schedule that I called her every other day during our week off at the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Again, it’s not the content of the call that matters, but the contact.
This does not mean that there are no cases when this becomes too much. There have been times, usually times of high stress at work, when I couldn’t handle excessive phone calls and border trespasses. In these cases, the “Block this caller” feature was deployed on our iPhone.
And then when I reach a place where I can be calm and rational, I call her back.
Editor’s Note: The author works for the chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association.