Aging Parents: Ornery, Difficult, Unappreciative?--2 Will the Family Function Like a Mobile?

Wilco

....A continuation of last Saturday's post, with concepts and strategies to help aging parents and adult children untangle a frustrating relationship.

Concept #3  Tolerating disrespect, reinforces it. Allowing disrespectful behavior helps no one.  We learn this from day one if we're teachers. When there's a bully in the classroom (to use a dramatic example), we must use our skills to stop the bullying immediately.  Why? If the bully is allowed to continue, the bad behavior is reinforced to the point that it becomes part of the bully's "normal" behavior--and eventually becomes expected behavior.  The bully becomes unpopular to most and his/her "victims" suffer. Teachers may be understanding and caring; but they can't allow disrespect.

O.K.  You get it.  Now back to Jean (featured in Saturday's post). Jean shared her situation with one of our Senior Advisors over a period of time. Our Senior Advisor's response to her: “You’re not in good spirits any more, you’re not happy. You have a husband and a family. I know you’ve said you’d feel guilty not doing for your parents like you've been doing.  But when you’re not respected, you don’t have to feel guilt.”

Hearing this from a respected older person whose wisdom Jean highly valued was affirming. It was also the equivalent of supportive ammunition and Jean "got it."

So Jean is slowly disengaging.  She doesn't jump to fulfill her parents' wishes.  She no longer says she’s available at every request to drive them; she doesn’t cut off a phone conversation with friends when her parents call on the other line. While she still does for them, she's not at their beck and call.

The result: Her mother didn't fire the last cleaning person, in fact she's enjoying having the cleaning person around, according to Jean. And some of the errands Jean used to do are now taken over by her brothers or sister-in-laws, all of whom get along well.

Vector

Concept #4.  The family is like a mobile.

I learned a bit about "family systems" through experts' presentations as part of inservice training during my years at the high school. The "family as a mobile" concept helped explain many things.  Note how the beautifully-made mobiles hang in perfect balance. Similarly each family member must do his or her part to keep the family functioning in balance.

If one member is aggressive, for example, another must pull back to maintain the balance.  While one is ill, another takes over some of the responsibilities temporarily.  In a divorce, absent one parent, the remaining family members must do extra to make things work. (One of the most respected researchers in the field reported "even 8-year-olds can vacuum.")

True to the concept, Jean gave up some of her formerly must-do responsibilities and her aging parents readjusted, bringing in others to maintain the balance.

*                        *                           *                              *                          *

People's personalities don't change much (short of trauma or therapy) and things will probably never be perfect, yet Jean is relieved of guilt, some responsibilities, and has more time for herself and for her family. Meanwhile her parents have learned that they can no longer depend on her so heavily but can take the initiative to make their lives work. Doesn't this help parents age well?

Quiet Ending

With many thanks to Rick for permitting me to use these photos of his mobiles.  

Visit his website,

http://www.the-mobile-factory.com/mobiles.html

to view more of his exciting work

Also visit my other site: http://helpparentsagewell.com.  More resources and information

Aging Parents: Ornery, Difficult, Unappreciative?

Aging parents' dispositions can be put on a bell curve: pleasure-producing dispositions at one end, pain-producing at the other.

Unfortunately pain-producing is the norm for some aging parents. They are demanding, critical, never satisfied.  Adult children living near-by usually bear the brunt of this no-win situation which seems to offer no easy way out.

While changing behavior is difficult, understanding the concepts below can help aging parents and adult children untangle themselves:1.  Back to childhood.
2.  Families cater to the most neurotic members.
3.  Tolerating disrespect, reinforces it.
4.  The family is like a mobile.We begin with Concepts #1 and #2 and conclude on Tuesday with Concepts #3 and #4. But first meet Jean.

Jean is a stay-at-home mom in her 50's. She's married, with two school-age children, two siblings--and an aging mother and father-in-law who "run her ragged" and show no appreciation. Her brothers work in downtown offices thus, are unavailable on weekdays; so parents "know" the boys are “off limits” (although they do help out on weekends when asked).

Being a good daughter, on a weekly basis, Jean has transported these parents (who drive but sometimes "don't feel like it"), cleaned (they manage to fire every cleaning person Jean finds for them), and she spends countless hours on the phone with them (they phone daily--at the least--when they have nothing else to do).  Jean cooks and delivers meals--or invites them to dinner--when they don't feel like cooking, takes them to doctors' appointments and lays out and explains their medications (which they don’t always take).

She's at their beck and call, wearing herself to a frazzle as she dashes between Little League, swim meets, music lessons, grocery shopping, house cleaning, dinner fixing etc. etc.  Her husband, most patient and caring, is showing a bit of resentment.  Jean's parents are relatively young and he envisions this situation going on forever.

#1. Back to childhood.  Parents and children establish patterns of behavior way back; it's difficult to break old patterns.  If children were always expected to cater to their parents, the pattern--the game so to speak--has been well established. The parents are accustomed to being catered to by their children.  Those are--and have been--the game rules over many years, evidently never renegotiated.

In addition, children, regardless of age, are always their parents' children. (Many disagree with adult children saying they become parents to their parents--I'm one, but that's another post.) It's common for children to want to please parents.  And they usually feel responsibility if catering to a parent was an expectation or a duty from early on.

#2.  Years ago, while doing research for my divorce book, a priest told me that families cater to the most neurotic member, something he had learned this during training in social work.  Undoubtedly some impossible parents are/were neurotic and have experienced a lifetime of being catered to.

We try to help parents age well.  It involves helping them to maintain legitimate independence and, in this case, involves extricating their adult children from a difficult, thankless, possibly manipulative situation. Tuesday's post, with concepts #3 and #4, provides understandings and strategies to make this happen.


Visit my other site: http://helpparentsagewell.com     More resources and information