No one wants to think about parenting your elderly parents, but unfortunately, this comes to all of us who have parents living and growing older, if you have a relationship with them.
My father died in 2025. Suddenly and unexpectedly. My mother died when I was 18. But I have living in law family. Who are needing a lot of support, now. This is HARD at any given time, but add a 6000 mile distance barrier and it’s even harder. No, we cannot move there. No they cannot come here. Neither is an option, financially, emotionally or practically. At this stage in life, our older or needing more care parents face challenges they probably haven’t anticipated and that most people don’t want to think about, and it’s basically a reversal of the relationship. You find yourself parenting your parents, supporting them in ways you had not expected to, and either helping them or having to step into decision making or life planning.
But what I will tell you is that you will find things more manageable if you have:
- an understanding of the health system, the care system and what support is available is essential and their rights and your rights legally to support them, navigate that & even step in to manage things is vital. This will depend where they live and where you live, and if you, like us, live in one part of the world, and your parents, another, it’s trickier to navigate. We are fortunate we have a family member supporting our parents where they are, but if that isn’t possible, then legal input, seeking power of attorney capacity and making sure you are aware of legal laws and rights for your parents and yourself is important and needs to be managed.
- communication is key, between them and you, between professionals, between other family members & people involved closely in their lives who support them. Make sure you have all the information you need to support your parents or family and keep good lines of communication open. Check consent and legal rights for communication with care, health, financial providers and make sure you have all the paperwork or access to that paperwork
- a plan, have a plan before it is needed so that when & if you do, you aren’t scrambling, navigating cognitive dysfunction or an understanding of wishes and wants. This means hard conversations about mental decline, physical decline & death have to be had whilst everyone can understand each other, or try to.
- Wills, living wills, advanced directives, health orders? Not exactly happy topics of conversations but necessary to plan for, communicate wishes and plans and make sure, again that any paperwork, legal plans etc are communicated and everyone who needs to can act on those. Even funeral plans need to be discussed.
- Do your research on what care is available where your parents are and their rights around that. In the UK we have a social and adult care service system with some free or means tested support, but in other countries all care must be paid for and sourced privately.
- get good legal & medical advice, make sure documents, files, legal plans, financial plans, medical wishes and directives are up to date, in order, applicable and legal & that all of this is available to those that need it
Communication is key. That can be hard. Realising too late that your parents need support and help but you don’t know what they wanted, what their plans are, or how things are going to happen, is something many families face. Sometimes you won’t get the communication you will need or you will face obstabcles and barriers. Some family members wont want to talk about facing life at this stage and you may have dificult relationships within your family that make these conversations hard or sometimes impossible.
In all of this it is important to:
- know your own capacity and ability to cope and manage and that you cannot break yourself & your family to fix things or help if it’s putting you or them at risk either emotionally, physically or financially
- remember that whilst your parents are your parents, they may be making choices or doing things you don’t think are the right choices, in most circumstances they are considered to be within their right to do so, but YOU don’t have to take the fall for it things go wrong if you can’t or don’t want to and whilst we want to love our parents and look after them, sometimes we can’t. Or sometimes it just won’t work, generational expectations are just that. They are not laws, they aren’t obligatory or compulsory. Sometimes it can hard to manage the “we gave you life, we parented you, it’s now you turn” expectation and family values and if your relationship with your parents was not healthy, facing this expectation can be pretty brutal. That’s another blog post for another time, but you do have your own rights, family and responsibilities, to manage, so always be aware of what your limitations are.
- Get support for yourself if you need to. This can be harder to find but there are charities and groups that can give advice and help to you as you deal with this journey.
Parenting our elderly parents, and that part of life either creeps up on you, or slams you hard, unless you have planned for this and communicated. I wish more people would talk about it.
There are organisations in the UK that can help you navigate this time of life too. I have listed them below.
Carents – https://carents.co.uk/
Age UK – https://www.ageuk.org.uk/
Carers – https://carers.org/
If you are facing this journey, and have tips or suggestions, we would love to hear them. Feel free to comment.
This ADHD Mum was born when I hung up my parenting blogger hat and decided to share life as I see it through the lens of someone with late diagnosed ADHD. You will find ADHD & mental health content, life as I ride the menopause rollercoaster, food, because food is life, and because we love them, all things cat.
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