Your elderly mother has just moved in with you. It was not what she had planned. She had wanted to stay in her own home as long as possible, but you and your siblings had decided it was no longer possible due to her health and other circumstances. Together, you had examined all the options and found this one to be the most viable. You think you’ve covered all the bases.
You have tried to let your mother know she is welcome. You had invited her many times in the past. You told her, “You will always have a place to live, and we are delighted to have you.” You stocked up on her favorite foods. You converted the guest room into a bedroom for her and added a couple of pieces of furniture she might need. You said she could decorate her room any way she wished. That was all you could think of to do in preparation for her arrival.
With the help of your siblings, she has packed up everything that could fit in a van and made the trip across the country. She surveys her new quarters, unpacks, and settles in. By the end of the first week, you are sure the transition has been successful. Frankly, it’s premature to make such an assumption. The “transition” from her old life to her new one is going to take much longer than a week. In fact, it hasn’t even begun.
For one thing, she knows nothing about your lifestyle—from what foods you like to eat to what time you sit down at the table, whether you dine as a family or just grab something out of the refrigerator when you’re hungry, what you consider a comfortable temperature in the house, what time you go to bed at night, what you watch on tv, how you discipline your children or don’t, and scores of other matters you haven’t clarified.
On the other hand, you may not have asked many questions about her needs, preferences, or dislikes either. Have you made arrangements to have her medical records transferred or line up new doctors? Do you have a clear idea of her health conditions or what medications she takes? With an aging parent, you may not know what you don’t know or even what questions to ask, and the answers may catch you off guard or unprepared to deal with what is expected of you.
Expectations—yours and your parents’—are the keys to meeting this life challenge successfully. You both have expectations, although you may never have expressed them or even been aware of what they are. Unfortunately, learning them on the fly because they haven’t been discussed usually means someone’s needs are falling through the cracks.
This is not an unusual problem, especially as the population ages and more and more Baby Boomers find themselves caught between the needs of their own children and those of their parents. But there is a solution; it is for both you and your parent to express your needs and expectations openly and honestly. That means you have to explain how you are accustomed to running your household and how you envision your parent’s role as part of that household. It also means you must ask your parents direct questions about what they need from you and how they see their role as part of your family. This isn’t going to be easy, but it is both important and possible. This is not the time for avoiding the subject and hoping it will go away because it won’t. If it’s not openly talked about, it will linger below the surface and torpedo your hopes of making this new arrangement work.
You don’t have to have this conversation in one sitting. You can spread it out; but eventually, you want to clarify everything from food preferences to bedtimes, from preferred TV programs to music, and especially, from how much alone time each person needs to how much you expect your parents to babysit. And that doesn’t begin to cover the topics that will pop up just when you think you have everything worked out. You may never get to that point, but if you keep at it, you’ll continue to make progress in creating a harmonious household.
