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Never Say Never – Why Adult Children Can’t Always Keep The Promises They Make

It’s a common story. Adult children often promise to support their parents

By Rony MahidaPublished 3 years ago 4 min read
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to help ensure the parent will be able to age safely in their own home. This promise is made with the best intentions. Putting an aging parent in assisted living or a nursing home feels like abandonment.

Even thinking about doing so might make us feel like a failure, like we’re given in too soon.

Perhaps we could try harder, dig in deeper, and push through. After all, our parents are depending on it.

Plus, many aging parents don’t want to go anywhere. They want to remain in their own homes, in the environment that they control. Some might be happy in an apartment or moving in with you, but the idea of assisted living can seem terrifying.

They may place pressure on you, perhaps saying that they wouldn’t be happy anywhere else or even suggesting that you’re abandoning them.

The situation can be difficult and overwhelming. Yet, pushing through isn’t always the answer. There is an upper limit to the amount of care and support that you can provide.

Sometimes you do need to step back and let someone else take over. This may mean hiring an in-home caregiver for a while or it could mean looking for a facility that provides the senior with the support they need.

Why Do We Break These Promises?

The biggest problem isn’t that adult children are breaking promises, but that they’re making them in the first place.

We make promises with the best intentions. We want our parents to be happy and have everything they need. The request that they age at home might not seem too difficult either.

Many of us don’t think all that much about old age, until we’re forced to. It’s a scary topic and life is busy. This means that we might make promises about our parents’ futures, without having any idea of what to expect.

After all, we’re used to our parents being competent and in-control. We may not fully realize or be able to imagine just how much this can change or how suddenly.

It’s much better to say that you’ll do your best. That you’ll support your family member how you can. Because honestly, no matter how much reading, research, and planning you do, you have no way to know what the future will look like.

What The Father Tells Us About The Situation

I recently watched The Father, with Anthony Hopkins and Olivia Colman. The movie is confusing, dark, and harrowing in places, which isn’t surprising, as it depicts the experience of a dementia patient.

There are many interesting things about The Father that we won’t talk about here.

But, I do want to talk a little about the experience of Olivia Colman’s character. She loves her father and attempts to support him throughout the film. Yet, her attempts are often met with frustration, suspicion, or outright rejection by her father.

He is cruel at times, saying mean things about her, while saying that he much prefers her sister.

As the film progresses, it becomes clear that Anthony Hopkins’ character (also called Anthony) has very little sense of what is going on around him. Times, places, and people become confused in his mind, and he sometimes cannot distinguish between reality, memory, and imagination.

While I wouldn’t quite call the movie enjoyable, it is thought-provoking and complex. The film is worth watching even if you’re not caring for a dementia patient, as offers some insight into what caregiving can sometimes look and feel like. You can rent or buy it digitally on Amazon.

I’m bringing The Father up because Olivia Coleman’s character gets to the point where she decides to place her father in a nursing home and move to Paris. Doing so is a heart-wrenching decision for her, but in many ways a wise decision too, as the strain of caring for her father had led to her previous divorce some years earlier.

Her father clearly suffers and struggles while he is in the nursing home. He has little memory of his time there, thinking that he has just arrived, when he has been there for months. There is a heart-breaking moment right at the end of the film where he is overwhelmed, crying, and asking for his mother.

Should Olivia Coleman’s character feel guilty for leaving him there?

If she were a real person, she probably would feel guilt. That’s part of being a loving daughter.

But, the things that her father is struggling with are hallmarks of dementia. The confusion, loss of time, and sense of being overwhelmed would all still happen if the father still lived with his daughter.

Those experiences might even be worse, as the staff at the assisted living facility are trained in dementia care. They know how to respond and can provide a stable environment. Few caregivers can do this in their own homes, especially if they have their own lives and jobs to manage as well.

Supporting Your Parents Isn’t Necessarily Better

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