“Sibling anger reaching crisis point: Help! “

Dear Francine,

My Dad’s in a nursing home after several strokes and also has some dementia. I am the youngest, with a brother and 3 sisters. When my father got ill first, I went a little bit crazy & out of shock & fear, I tried to do everything (visit as often as I could, took time off work, spoke to all the doctors, nurses etc).  I think I felt that if I threw everything I had at it, I could somehow 'fix' this awful thing that had happened to my Dad. It was only when I became ill myself & my own doctor advised me that I needed to stop & try to accept the big changes that had happened did I really listen.

This happened about a year ago, and my siblings and I set up a system where those of us who are living a distance away take it in turns to visit my father at weekends. My brother, who lives nearby, I believe, visits my father once or twice a week during the week.  Then   whichever of us is scheduled visits on weekends. But sometimes we just can’t get there or swap with someone. I feel we are all nearly 'afraid' to him because we think he will feel like we are not doing out duty.

With Dad's dementia, while he does still know us, there are times when someone could go in to visit him ten minutes after I have left & he would tell them that I hadn't been there at all.  I think my brother sometimes believes him, and has started 'checking up' on us. And everyone is complaining about each other on the sly. I have suggested a few times that we have a family meeting to discuss matters but no one else seems to be interested. I feel like we're just waiting for some event that will blow everything up & have us all fighting.   Help!
DeeDee

Dear DeeDee,
There is way too much guilt being flung around in your family. Do give yourself a break. You sound like a caring daughter, and inflicting guilt on yourself just makes you feel bad. Inflicting guilt on others usually makes them want to defend themselves, often by getting angry at you. And everyone getting angry with each other serves still another purpose. You all get to focus on who’s doing or not doing their “duty” instead of on the awful reality that you are losing your father in a long, sad process that you are helpless to change. Also, dementia is a huge challenge and tests families more than any other kind of illness.

But the situation is probably not hopeless. You do need a family meeting, but it needs to be called and led by a trained professional. Is there someone in the nursing home who could bring you together? A social worker or a clergyperson? Is there anyone in your family circle whom everyone respects? Maybe that person could suggest a meeting. At the very least, you could consult a family therapist and try to get one or more siblings to go with you—or go alone.

It’s very rare for siblings to share eldercare equally. In the families that get along best, sisters and brothers realize that each does what he or she can, given their lives and responsibilities. It sounds as if  your family shares responsibilities more than most. What’s lagging behind is your appreciation and compassion for each other. Start by showing some to yourself.

Francine

Need a good laugh? Rush to see this play—about one family (just like yours) going (hilariously) at each other over a dying parent

Why it's called Hanky Panky, I don't know, but this dark Comedy by Vicki Vodrey out of Kansas City, is on for a few more nights in New York as part of the Midtown Inernational Theatre Festival (MITF): Sun July 24 at 8:00 pm and Tuesday July 26 at 8:00 pm at the Main Stage Theatre at TBG Arts Center (312 W 36th Street, 4th floor W) Call 866 811 4111 or at www.midtownfestival.org

You've seen it. You've been there. The family gathers in the hospital or hospice room around the dying parent. No one knows how to act. Everyone acts out. Old history bursts forth like spring weeds. The dysfunctional younger brother gets drunk. The uptight over-responsible older sister excoriates the others. The inlaws are clueless or trying to run the show. And the poor hospice workers are caught in the middle.

The playwright gets it just right...including the fear and pathos that is driving all the shenanigans. Richard  Dines directs at a headlong pace, and the cast is right on. Funny, funny, funny...and then it strikes at the heart.

Francine Russo

A WOMAN WALKS INTO A BAR…. How Companies Can Help Aging Seniors, Boomer Caregivers, and Their Siblings Deal with a New Family Passage

 A woman walks into a bar—after work.

True story. …well… except for the part about the bar.

She needs a drink…bad! But, instead of lifting a glass or three, she goes home and calls me, a consultant on family dynamics in the multi-generational Boomer/Senior family.

“I’m desperate,” she says. “Every day after work I go to my Mom’s and help her out, and I have to spend the night because my own house isn’t close enough. My job is so demanding that I’m overwhelmed. I’m stressed and can’t focus. Some days it’s all I can do to drag myself into work. My mom won’t let me hire anyone; she only want me. And my brother is useless. I feel totally on my own!

This woman, whom I’ll call Julie, is just at the start of what will be a long journey in which she will confront not only huge emotional and practical issues around eldercare but dilemmas over finances, legal powers and much, much more.

Julie is your prospective client. She is one of the 44 million people in this country taking care of a parent or older relative. That number, growing larger every day, presents huge opportunities for companies that serve the Boomer/Senior populations.

In researching my book, They're Your Parents, Too! How Siblings Can Survive Their Parents' Aging, I identified a family passage that's new for Boomer children and the seniors who are their parents.  It comprises a period of up to a decade in which adult children, their siblings, and their parents have to interact intimately and intensely and make decisions together about how to meet the needs of the aging parents—in ways that will also work for the adult children and their siblings

FAMILIES HAVE NO MODEL for how to do this: They are desperate for guidance on how to interact with each other and to make decisions in many areas:

            °ELDERCARE... including

                        Home Health Aides

                        Senior Living Options

                        Technology, Home adaptations and many other areas

            ° MEDICAL  DECISIONS, including

                        Choices of drugs and devices

                        End of Life treatment

° FINANCIAL MATTERS, including

Who should have a parent’s legal powers when the need arises—and  how those powers should                          be  used 

                        Estate planning and inheritance issues

For companies in the aging arena, these family dilemmas present opportunities to present themselves as having this desperately needed expertise. I like to help them reframe these family conversations in constructive and productive ways that also position these companies as thought leaders.

The need is desperate. The prospects for addressing it are huge.

That’s me “WOMANING UP” again with my parents. What about my BROTHERS?

Dear Francine,This is my 3rd time 'womaning up' to the issues in my family and for whatever reason, I get all the responsibility, I’m the youngest of 6, and my siblings only enter the room when there are funds to be divided up.   It's been a real eye opener for me on many fronts, these surreal experiences called 'daughters duty'.  L.

Dear L.
When it comes to caring, will “boys” be boys? Sure, many will—if you let them. Others will be devoted caregivers.  But I’ll come back to that later because the most important player in this picture is you.

You say “for whatever reason” you are the one to do this. That ‘whatever’ is huge, and it may pay you to think on it and fill in the blank. Possible reasons? Your role may always have been that of the “responsible” one or the kid closest to your parents or the last kid—who got more attention and money (a common scenario) and is resented by older siblings. The real trick is to understand why your’re “it.”  What do you get out of it? Feeling you’re doing the “right” thing? Being a “good person” or “good” daughter? Something else? There could be many complex and overlapping answers, often not obvious. Once you’ve got a handle on them, you’ll be on the road to changing the situation—if you really want to.

Now back to the boys. All of us, not just boys, slip into automatic when we’re with our families. We slide into the roles we had when we were growing up: the responsible sister, the clueless brother, the bossy one, etc. Changing such deeply imprinted roles is tough. It requires people to become conscious of them and then for somebody in the family—maybe you—to start behaving differently. Because when one person in an interaction doesn’t play their usual part, that provokes a different response from the others.

So if you girls just keep keeping on’, the boys will have little impetus to change. But I have seen lots of “boys” become caring men, brothers and sons. Sometimes they do it in response to circumstances, or to powerful new feelings evoked by aging and mortality, or maybe in response to new expectations or behavior from a sibling.

You are right: this passage is a real “eye-opener,” and the insights you get now can be a real opportunity to grow—for your brothers and sisters—and for you.
Francine

“How do change your phone numbers so your parents can't find you?” Fantasies of Eldercare Escape

Dear Francine, My parents have read or are reading your book, They're Your Parents Too! I am concerned that as they become less independent, they will ask me or my sister to care for them. Here's the rub... Any contact (email, phone, but especially in-person (which is rare)) is both physically and mentally painful for my sister and myself. Both my sister and myself have made it clear to them that neither of us will be caring for my mother. Their life choices have resulted in destitution in their "golden years" and they are not able to pay for private care. My father has repeatedly spoken of his role as a buffer between her and us. His "plan" has always been to outlive her (even at one point making a suicide pact). Unfortunately for all concerned, he continues to have more serious health problems and will probably die before my mother. While I would care for my father alone, I have little connection with my mother and do not feel any obligation to help her now or in the future.

 Can you revise your next book (or blog) to include topics such as:

* How to change your phone numbers so your parents can't find you

* How to ease parents into being wards of the state

* Reflecting on your life choices that have led you to the point of being alone

* What states have assisted suicide laws

* How to contact Dr Jack Kevorkian

Maybe a title for a new book could be "They're Not Your Parents Anymore" (or alternately, "They're Not Your Kids Anymore").

 I am, most seriously (going to hell), Brian

###

Dear Brian, What a refreshingly honest letter. There are more people who feel this way than will say so out loud. They usually feel “guilty” for having such “bad” feelings. I think that being realistic about your family and your relationships is a much better way to deal with the challenges of your parents’ aging.

But that doesn’t mean you’re off the hook! Before the advent of social security, there were very few old people, and most of them were poor. Their children were not only expected by society to take care of them, but many states had laws requiring adult children to support indigent elderly parents. Some still have these laws on the books, and there is talk at least of enforcing them again!

 Right now, you are imagining what you will feel if your mother is left on her own. You may never like your mother or want to spend time with her, but, if she is suffering and alone, you may be surprised by the complexity of your feelings. Compassion may be one ingredient. Or you may find yourself asking yourself, “What’s right for me to do to order to feel okay about myself as a person?”

 That doesn’t mean that you have to do what your mother wants you to do, but you might consult with someone from your local area agency on aging (or a geriatric care manager or eldercare attorney)—while keeping a comfortable distance from your mother—to figure out some strategy so that she doesn’t die alone in a ditch by the side of the road. Whatever you say, I don’t think you’d feel good about yourself if an equivalent scenario ensued.

Although I wrote my book! primarily for adult children, some elderly parents have also read it. Other have come to hear me speak. The wisest have gained insights into how the arrangements they make (for their care, money, etc.) can affect their children positively or negatively. But a few have focused on just the sections that enforce their own positions and are using it to bludgeon their kids into feeling guilty. As they say, even the devil can quote scripture. If you read the book yourself, you will find in Chapter Two (“Acknowledging Our Parents’ Aging”) a story about a man named Larry who felt pretty much as you do about “MOM.” Here’s a brief passage:

 “Something in her age and aloneness moved this polished player with a caustic wit. “I have a responsibility,” he told me. “I don’t know what it is, but I have it. I have a fifty-six year history with this woman. And,” he added significantly, “I no longer need her approval.”

 So I recommend you “steal this book” (mine, not Abbie Hoffman’s) from your mother, and, in addition, you might want to check out a book by Jacqueline Marcell: Elder Rage, or Take My Father... Please!: How to Survive Caring for Aging Parents. On the other hand, this author did choose to care for her parent; you might choose to flee to another jurisdiction—without extradition.