Caring For Aging Parents

I have finally come to accept the fact that my parents aren’t going to do anything to improve their health.  They aren’t going to try to learn anything about their bodies.  They aren’t going to maintain an exercise routine.  They aren’t going to try to improve their eating habits. 

With me being such a fitness enthusiast and knowing the healing power of regular training, my parents’ apathy towards their health has been incredibly frustrating at times.  I’m their son. Obviously I care about how they experience the final years of their lives.  Also, they watched me make a massive transformation in my health.  I was living under their roof when I lost 80 lbs, 20 plus years ago.  So many people want to make a change in their health but don’t have anyone with real world experience who they can directly access.  They have a son (which may be why they don’t listen to me).    

To some extent I will always carry a measure of frustration about this issue because I love them and there are easy things they could be doing to remedy the situation.  I’ve felt this way about many of my friends and family.  However, a lot of my frustration comes from focusing on things that I can’t control.  Personal Ownership is the most important skill in life.  It’s defined by taking responsibility for your actions, beliefs, and overall direction in life.  Not someone else’s.  

I’ve spent far too much time frustrated about their actions, beliefs, and fearful of the direction they’re heading in.  This leeches energy and focus on mastering Personal Ownership in my own life so that I can be as helpful as possible to them in this phase of their life. 

Their Actions

I have bought my parents pieces of exercise equipment.  I have bought them books to read.  I have offered to coach them and help them come up with strategies to navigate challenges as they arise.  I have done all that I could to help reduce the friction they experience when it comes to changing they’re eating and exercise habits.  Nothing has changed. 

Instead of focusing on continuing to encourage positive change, I often allow myself to get bogged down on the fact that so much time has passed and nothing has shifted in their behavior.  I was trying to get them to exercise when I was in the midst of my own struggles with obesity.  It’s been 25 years of encouragement with zero movement.  It’s frustrating.  I don’t preach at them but I do harbor resentment.  

F**k the Doctor!  I’m Their Son!  They should listen to Me!  

The phrases that run through my head point to some authority that I believe I should have in their lives.  They are grown adults who make their own choices.  I get resentful because I have expectations that aren’t being met.  They haven’t been met for 25 years.  It’s been long overdue to let go of those expectations. 

Ironically, the resentment exhausts me emotionally and I have found myself emotionally eating in response to it.  That means sugar and fast food.  Things that I try to keep out of my body.  I’m letting myself focus on their behaviors and, logically, that pulls me away from the behaviors I want to embody.  We move towards the things we focus on.  

Assuming I outlive my parents, dealing with the final years of their lives is going to be inherently challenging.  What I have to stay focused on is becoming the person I want to be and being as positive of a force in their lives as I can be.  I have to let go of what their lives could have been and accept who they are.  I’ve always known they’re habits would catch up to them at some point.  What I can control is preparing myself for the inevitable realities of their poor health and helping them be as comfortable as possible in their final years.  Also, there’s the potential that they could still turn things around.  I actually didn’t expect that they would be alive this long.  Everyday I get with them is a gift and I have to remember that.

Their Beliefs

Like many of us who struggle to change our habits, my parents sometimes make up false stories in their minds:

• I’m too old to change anything.  (They tend to think that the change has to be massive which then makes it feel impossible.)
• Why is my body falling apart?!  I just don’t understand!  (Sometimes it’s really hard to accept that we created the mess we’re in.)

My mother loses her appetite when she gets sad or depressed.  During these times she loves to brag that she’s lost weight.  This used to drive me crazy because it’s obviously not indicative of the mindset I believe is necessary to make long term change.  Of course, this is the problem.  I’m going nuts because I’m irritated by what I see through a small window into her thinking.  Her thinking that I can’t control.

I can’t control their beliefs or their willingness to look at their own behaviors.  All I can do is tell them the truth as I see it, when I have the opportunity.  Maybe one day they’ll have an epiphany but, probably not.  The choice to pursue an epiphany is their own.  

Again, I can be encouraging where it makes sense and I can try to help them be as comfortable as possible.

Their Perception of Me

Have you ever told someone that you don’t eat or drink certain things?  Just to have that person offer that thing to you after you’ve told them a million times that you don’t do that anymore… That’s me right now, living with my parents for a few weeks while my mother recovers from surgery.

For several years after I lost all that weight in 2000, my parents would say I was too skinny.  This used to irritate the hell out of me because I felt it was a misinterpretation of a healthy transformation.  The older I get, the more I recognize that they are simply accustomed to me being what I was when I lived at home.  They offer me food I don’t eat, all the time.  For years I’ve told them that I try to stay away from bread and sweets because I tend to over eat those things.  For years they have looked at me with bewilderment when I turn down the offer of fast food.  But this is how I ate when I was growing up under their roof. I think subconsciously, they still see me this way.  

As much as I try to explain that my current health and athleticism are the result of moving away from many of those old behaviors, they just don’t fully conceptualize it.  They have only seen the outcomes.  Right or wrong, they are going to interpret what they see through their own lens.  I can’t control anyone’s perception of me.  

We’re talking primarily about health here but this extends to personal financial choices, decisions around work, and any major part of life.  I love my parents and I want the best for them.  Sometimes wanting the best for them means wanting them to adopt my way of doing things which is what I get frustrated with when they do it to me.  We’re all adults and we’re all Americans, which means we all want the freedom to make our own decisions about how we live our lives.  This also means we’re all free to interpret the world around us in whatever fashion we choose, however inaccurate that interpretation may be. 

I can control what I do.  I can’t control what people think about what I do.

Focusing on Transitions

Living with my parents for a few weeks has shown me that there are still old wounds from childhood that haven’t healed.  It’s weird and challenging to be in the position of caregiver for people with whom you still have frustrations over when they were caring for you.  At the same time I understand that I want to be a good son and, if I’m going to be around them, I want that time to be pleasant.  

There are chasms between my parents and I that will never be crossed.  In this phase of their life I no longer hold on to hope that they will change their habits.  They’ll complain about things.  They’ll act as if their current reality is purely a function of age.  I’ll slip in the encouragement to exercise here and there when it makes sense, but I’m not holding my breath for the great epiphany.  

Seems like the most fundamental task in relationships is to recognize that you can’t control the other person.  The most you can do is project an example of the behavior you believe in with actions much more heavily than words.  

What is odd for me in dealing with people who are potentially in their final years of life is that I have stopped wanting them to be better.  Asking my parents to work on self improvement has started to feel like a poor use of my energy.  I don’t know that it is the ‘right way’ to feel and there probably isn’t a ‘right way’ in this scenario.  I guess I just want them to be comfortable and a push to exercise more and eat better just doesn’t feel right anymore.  It seems the wise thing at this point is to try to plan for the potential transitions of health that they’ll make in the next few years: loss of physical independence, loss of cognitive function, and, ultimately, loss of life.  

I think any person navigating aging parents has to wrestle with themselves over their parents behavior in old age.  What you accept and what you push against is an individual choice, but frustration over what you can’t control is definitely the wrong answer.

One Last Thing

You may feel like it’s not your responsibility to take care of your parents in old age.  I don’t fault anyone for that feeling.  Particularly, if your parents were really abusive towards you or completely absent from your life, I don’t fault you for feeling no responsibility towards them.  Regardless of the quality of relationship you have with your parents, I do think it’s helpful to think about the type of person you want to be and the grace you want extended towards you in old age.  Part of the reason I work hard on my health is because I don’t want to be a burden to anyone in my old age.  However, if fate should put me in really poor health, I certainly hope that someone will extend the grace to help care for me in the ways I am unable to.

I’m not telling anyone to feel guilty about anything.  However, almost all of my friends are navigating this process with their parents right now.  It’s going to take all of us to be a society that doesn’t ignore its most vulnerable members.  For some of us that will involve extending a lot of grace and selflessness.  I doubt any of us will regret having done that.

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