When the Child Becomes the Parent - Part II

Yesterday we began to explore the transition of the adult child as they become the parent to their aging parents.  Today we will continue to explore this transition as it relates to our emotions. I will conclude with some suggestions for self care.

So what about your emotions?  Depending upon the circumstances regarding your parents’ decline, feelings are subjugated to the rational thought required to orchestrate their care. Feelings associated with strength, security, wisdom and parental selflessness that remained unchallenged are forever disrupted precisely when that very support would be most welcomed. In those moments we are required to display those attributes, not in relation to our biological children (we have grown into those roles), but rather for our newly adopted children embodied as our parents!

This situation frequently engenders profound feelings of loss, heightened anxiety regarding our ability to face this impending doom, abandonment, outrage, and helplessness.  No wonder the seemingly easiest path is to deny our feelings and remain focused on the details.  Following the denial path may cause those repressed feelings to manifest as a weakened immune system, as well as a myriad of very real physical complaints. The other possibility is to play out this fear and anger on our parents with lowered frustration tolerance, withdrawal of visits and emotional distancing. 

Our emotional balance must be recalibrated.  That takes time as well as conscious intent, often when we are merely existing rather than living.  If we are aware of our feelings, it may be terrifying to feel the anxiety of anticipatory grief especially when death is not yet imminent.  It is also a struggle between gratefully assuming this new responsibility and needing them to snap out of it and once again take care of you. 

Becoming the parent to our parents is not always as dire as it may seem.  If your parent’s decline is without major crises, there is an opportunity to assume the role with at least their partial approval and perhaps even the full appreciation of your parent.  There is also time to address important emotional issues that may need to be resolved in preparation for their passing.  If your relationship has been solid, there is an opportunity to experience your parent’s fragility and helplessness with the confidence that you will now be their source of security and display your selflessness on their behalf.  They actually have the opportunity to witness the legacy they have spent their lives creating and nurturing come to fruition. 

This is one of those times in life that ongoing professional consultation and/or therapy prove to be an invaluable investment.  Our core beliefs and feelings have been shattered at a time when we must perform consistently and engage effectively.  We are confronted not only with our parents’ mortality but ours as well - in a real and undeniable way.  If you have yet to experience this phenomenon in your life, understand that recognizing your vulnerability will ultimately give you the strength to seek support early in the process so that you can go the distance and become a richer, more improved version of your prior self.  If you have already been through this phenomenon I would challenge you to replay that experience and feel proud and confident that you completed yet another unanticipated stage of life under duress and to the best of your ability!

When the Child Becomes the Parent

At some point in our lives, the majority of us experience a role reversal for which we are neither mentally nor emotionally prepared: caring for elderly parents. Adding insult to this injury, the majority of us also lack the practical knowledge that could assist us in easing into this transition, which further delays and complicates our ability to process its emotional impact. How, as a generation that has prided itself on an ability to multitask, did this life stage so significantly blindside us?

The answer is simple – management of our own lives is often so overwhelming that the reality of adding another significant responsibility can be incomprehensible! There is no perfect time for our parents to become our children, and yet it frequently parallels the added responsibilities we assume during our children’s high school or early college years. Unless our parents decline rapidly, we defer decision making about them until there is more time or when the kids leave, or when we retire. Rarely is their decline convenient, predictable or capable of being deferred.

Having lived through this experience twice myself, as well as assisting many of my clients through this journey, be comforted in knowing that eventually the logistics straighten out…. until our parents’ decline once again gains momentum. With each stage of decline we hone our assertiveness skills, our facility in navigating the red tape of multiple helping agencies and resign to solicit help while attempting to assuage our guilt. From the practical perspective, living through this experience often propels us to plan for our eventual demise, sparing yet another generation of children from that particular burden.

Logistics aside, a child becoming the parent to their parent challenges our primary mental framework and defies our sense of life’s order. Regardless of our emotional connection to our parents we believe that parents are adults: strong, capable and healthy. They are not allowed to be children. Few of us were raised with stories that challenged the security of this concept. That is why it is possible to ignore little indicators (repeating stories, memory slippage, trouble finding the words to convey their thoughts and even getting lost) because we can rationalize those events as isolated occurrences. On some meta-level we believe that parents are invincible. To witness evidence to the contrary often creates a significant dissonance between what we see and what we believe. In this instance denial becomes our partner. It isn’t until our parents’ cognitive decline becomes more blatant or is accompanied by a physical illness, a fall, or recurrent hospitalizations do the pieces come together, forcing us to confront this reality.

Even when we eventually make this cognitive adjustment, our parents may not be like-minded. Often they stubbornly refuse to relinquish their roles gracefully, causing our logic and their reasoning to lack synergy. Interactions at this stage may be laced with hostility as power struggles between the parents’ resistance to relinquish their independence versus the adult child’s assumption of the more supervisory parental role escalates. For the adult child life with mom or dad often mirrors their own daily life with their children. The adult child is truly sandwiched between two generations that may seem to demand equal doses of attention but respond with little gratitude. 


Stay tuned….. Tomorrow I will discuss the emotional impact of this transition!!