We need to talk about our parents…
Posted on
Right now, there is a group of us women who are surviving, not thriving.
We are not the 20-somethings trying to climb the corporate ladder and establish our careers, nor are we the new mums suffering sleeplessness, stress and learning the true art of selflessness.
Instead, we are the 50-somethings who find ourselves still caring for our teenaged kids, still powering on in our careers, and, sometimes all too suddenly, looking after our ageing parents.
We are the aptly named Sandwich Generation.
According to the stats, Australia is facing a demographic time bomb: in just six years, we’ll have five times more 85-year-olds needing care, and one generation will be crushed trying to provide it.
Currently, Australian carers (the vast majority women, of course) provide 2.2 billion hours of unpaid care annually, losing $15.2 billion in earnings.
Violet is an organisation aimed at promoting planning and conversation around the quality of our end-of-life years. Its research predicts over two million Australians will become unpaid carers in the next five years.
Violet CEO Melissa Reader says, “We’re only beginning to feel what experts call a demographic tidal wave. Without urgent action, this will overwhelm our workforce, deepen the mental health crisis, and erode productivity as an army of carers larger than Adelaide and Perth combined struggles with impossible demands.”
Violet’s CARE Index has found:
- 73 per cent of sandwich generation families work full-time while caring for children and ageing parents
- 53 per cent are forced to choose between caregiving and career opportunities
- 82 per cent report work-life balance impacts.
“Families care deeply but plan poorly. We need help to talk about and meaningfully plan for the later chapters of life. To bring these conversations out of hospital corridors and back to kitchen tables before it’s too late,” says Melissa.
She has a very good point. In the cycles of a woman’s life, this must truly be the cycle that receives the least formal recognition but which, when you are in the thick of it, presents perhaps the greatest existential threat of them all. Just when you reckon you’ve got it all together and everything is going swimmingly…
My own current circumstance is so common that I now share knowing glances with my friends of the same age. No words need to be said. We are all in the absolute thick of it and understand the load.
I lost my beloved mum to cancer close to two decades ago. For the most part her illness happened before I had children, and for years I was able to devote myself to her care. It was an honour to be the one to make her more comfortable and to stick by her side for those precious last weeks, days, and hours. One of the things she said to me before she died was that she never wanted to get “really old” and to be a burden on me. I couldn’t process that at the time, but now I understand what she meant.
My father, who left my mum while she was still pregnant with me, is now 91. He and my stepmother refused to discuss aged care or make any arrangements for themselves, and the family of stepchildren is so fractured and dysfunctional that it wasn’t until they had both had so many falls and broken bones that the system kicked in and they basically had no choice.
My dad was placed into a room in a facility that had capacity, and my stepmother has moved to another state to live with her daughter, who has left her job to become her full-time carer. Frankly, I don’t know how my stepsister does it.
My relationship with my father is difficult, given our history. And yet here I am, with a husband and two teenagers, a full-time job, and the sole responsibility for him. Thank God for the nursing home with its legion of dedicated staff. He is where he needs to be, and I am grateful.
But I am also his only visitor and source of support. He rings constantly, needing everything from clothes to dental treatments to help with his phone. Mostly, he is confused and distressed. There is a scene in Love Actually where Laura Linney’s character is rung constantly by her high-needs brother. That is me. On call every day, driving the 30-minute drive to the nursing home in between meetings or before school pick-ups or on the weekend when I have a to-do list a mile long.
It is relentless, and it is painful. It is also exhausting.
Even though we are not close, my heart often aches for this man I barely know who is now so vulnerable. I have had to watch him regress to childhood. He had a brilliant mind. He was a writer. Now he struggles for words. Often, he asks me who I am and is so easily confused. I owe him kindness and connection in whatever time he has left. The guilt I feel when I have to leave him is heavy.
Earlier this month, my husband’s parents also hit crisis point. Again, failure to reach any decisions by them or their immediate family led to a situation where they were no longer safe in their own home. Once again, we entered the slippery slope of nursing home ring-arounds, aged care assessments, respite care code recovery, financial assessments, and the massive upheaval of trying to move them out of the home they so love.
It didn’t happen without many a raised voice or many a tear. And we are also incredibly lucky to have found placements when so many families cannot.
It is early days, but my in-laws are settling into their new routine. Aged care workers are heroes.
Leaving them behind in the home (as my husband’s father stared out the window at us) was every bit as excruciating as leaving a toddler crying in day care for the first time.
My husband and I looked at each other on the long drive back to Canberra and pledged that we will be more forward-thinking about our changing needs as we age. I do not want to burden my children in the same way. I want to maintain my dignity and autonomy, and I want to ensure I choose my level and place of care in the least disruptive way for the people I love.
We have promised to get serious about our options for care well before we need it. This includes making wills and having Enduring Power of Attorney and Guardianship. I cannot stress this enough: this paperwork is relatively straightforward to accomplish when everyone is healthy and of sound mind and an absolute minefield to sort out once illness or diminished capacity sets in. Do NOT leave it too late for your parents – or yourself.
The last few years have been a sometimes-bruising process of crisis management, particularly when stepfamilies are involved and dementia muddies the waters of decision-making. We, the children, have had to take time off work, travel, manage all the appointments, undertake literal mountains of paperwork, seek legal advice, financial advice, and put our own lives on hold while we hold it all together for them.
The tables have turned so that our parents are now our responsibility, a new set of children to care for, just as our actual children are showing signs of independence. It’s a monumental responsibility – added to an already overflowing plate. The cost in wellbeing has been enormous – for all of us.
I dearly wish it had not been this way.
So this may be the least exciting but most forward-thinking piece of life advice I have ever promoted through the channels of HerCanberra. If you have parents who are ageing, have you had a discussion about the road ahead? Do you know what their wishes are? Do you even know what options are out there? Getting your head around the complex funding and delivery of aged services in this country may not be as sexy as applying to buy your first home or planning your next holiday, but future you, crushed the middle of that sandwich, will thank you for it.
Main image by Matthias Zomer
