Caring for an Aging Parent While Working Full Time
Giving a Shout out to…
All the daughters who are struggling to meet the needs of their aging parents while simultaneously trying to keep their own lives (families, jobs, finances) in tact. Studies have shown that daughters tend to provide the bulk of care for aging parents, often at great personal financial and emotional cost. Even when we love and honor our parents, the strain is inevitable and undeniable.
What I’m currently Thinking about …
How do we ensure our parents get the care they need without watching our own lives slide into chaos? How much cooperation and support have we the right to expect from our employers, partners, siblings and friends? How can we be deliberate and efficient planners without becoming engulfed by stress and anxiety? What exactly are the benefits available to older Americans and how do we help our parents access them? Do we take a leave from work to provide care, or try to piece together the resources to hire caregivers? If you’re like I was, you may be consciously avoiding thinking about all this until you’re right in the middle of the first crisis. For me, it was the day my mother’s neighbor called – “I think you better check on mom.” Thus began a three-year journey of trying to protect and advocate for my mother because she was no longer safe on her own.
References, resources, and reading material…
Paula Span writes the New Old Age Column in the New York Times. Her writing is compassionate while also being information rich. Among her recent columns you will find information about how to identify early signs of dementia, the real cost of long-term care, and making home modifications for safety.
The Alzheimer's Association offers peer or professionally led groups for caregivers and individuals living with Alzheimer’s. I attended these meetings and found them tremendously helpful, both in terms of practical recommendations (what’s the best automatic pill dispenser?) and emotional support and encouragement.
Your Employee Assistance Program may offer various types of support, including counseling if you find yourself overwhelmed because you’ve had too much responsibility thrust upon you. It can also help you prepare for uncomfortable conversations on the horizon.
There are multiple services advertising caregiver services, care management and help finding assisted living for your parents. Approach these with caution, and only after getting a glowing recommendation from a friend. If you have a geriatrician or geriatric social worker in your social network, that person can be a great resource for brainstorming and coming up with the elements of a plan.
Something new I learned…
The responsibilities of caregiving cannot be neatly contained in our non-work hours. The fact of it is, trying to meet your aging parent’s needs while working a full-time job is going to present challenges. To the extent possible (and it wasn’t always possible), I tried to dedicate a specific block of time each day to dealing with all the necessary coordination and arrangements. How you approach these issues with your employer is a function of your role, your organization’s culture, and your relationship with your boss. I was fortunate to have built trust with my long-term employer over time such that taking an hour or two out of a work day to deal with an urgent matter was acceptable.
Another thing I learned is that if you don’t ask people in your life for exactly what you need, what you’ll get instead is a lot of unhelpful (albeit well-intentioned) unsolicited advice that may not apply to your situation or even be flat-out inaccurate. I asked an old friend to take my mother to see an assisted living home on a day I couldn’t travel. They had a lovely day together, and it was a great relief to me that I had such a wonderful, trusted, giving friend.
Daring greatly …
Caring for my mother during her decline was by far the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. It was also probably the most important thing I’ve ever done for anyone else. Grief, loss, stress and anxiety can break you open. But you just may find on the other end that you have gained more compassion and gratitude in the process, a kind of maturity you weren’t expecting.
Is anybody else Excited about…
Watching our parents age and providing for their care may prompt us to come to terms with our own aging process. It can make real for us the need for things like long-term care insurance and a specific plan/vehicle for retirement savings as well as advance directives, wills and estate plans.
Key questions to ponder for your own life as a STRIDE reader:
Do you know what provisions your parents have made for care in their old age? What role they would like you to play?
What does a good retirement/old age look like to you? Are there goals you can start working on now? Conversations you can have with your loved ones?
About the Author
Shelagh Little started working at Kaiser Permanente as a Business Consultant in Medicare in November 2019. Her career includes more than 25 years of experience in human services, government, and nonprofit work in the fields of affordable housing and behavioral health. Shelagh lives with her husband David in Alameda, California. In her personal life she enjoys sewing, playing guitar, watching old films, reading books, hanging out with dogs, and going for long walks.