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Ask HN: Advice about aging parents

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151–160 of 243 posts

Re: Ask HN: Advice about aging parents

#151

In Indian and Asian culture in general you will take care of your parents just as they have taken care of you when you were a child. Old age is just like childhood age where you have to look after them just as much as you would look after a young child. Having your parents move in with your family is an option so that they don't feel lonely. They can also see their grand children and not feeling lonely at home. Lonel…

Isn't it traditional Indian culture for old people to become ascetics and indulge in spiritual pursuits? The Hindu texts talk about renunciation being most important in final ashram/stage of life as a Sannyasini. Wonder how is that goal achievable if old people are treated like a young child. Letting go of attachment amd material comforts is difficult, but it is the right thing to do according to Hindu Dharma.

Re: Ask HN: Advice about aging parents

#152

This hits home for me… my parents are about the same age as yours and I’m 43. We’re both part of sandwich generation [0] - the link provide general overview of how common it is and tips. I’ll add that what you can do truly depends on your culture (and even tribe for me) - Americans or Westerners to generalize can simply put their aging parents in elderly care and call it the day - life moves on. If you’re foreign-ish…

I wondered if there was a name for it. It seemed strange to me for OP to be raising a young family while his parents are so old. That means both him and his father had children in their 40s (or perhaps one was even older). It honestly does seem far better for everyone if people have children in their 20s. I wish I could have done that.

My oldest is 24 and my youngest is 2 - I thought I would be done having kids by 30 but life happens (story for another day).

In general people are waiting until they’re stable financially before they have kids.

As for older parents, they simply had plenty of kids spanning 2-3 decades. For example - I’m 6th born of 8… so when I came along they were in 40s.

Re: Ask HN: Advice about aging parents

#153

We got one of those stair lifts installed. My grandfather (Also 86) got new hips some 4 years ago, but had been pretty much bedridden for 4 years prior to that. He'd basically live on the couch, and struggle his way throughout the 4 story house. Unfortunately, he had a pretty serious stroke during rehabilitation, which left him with dementia-like symptoms - luckily not deteriorating, just very poor short-term memory.…

Upvote for chair lift. This is the piece of technology needed to make sure he can stay in the house safely.

It sounds like OP’s father is motivated to stay in the house, which means things like exercise bands will be useful things he uses. Emphasizing meaningful exercise instead of continuing to engage in dangerous exercise is going to help.

Re: Ask HN: Advice about aging parents

#154
post #148

This hits home for me… my parents are about the same age as yours and I’m 43. We’re both part of sandwich generation [0] - the link provide general overview of how common it is and tips. I’ll add that what you can do truly depends on your culture (and even tribe for me) - Americans or Westerners to generalize can simply put their aging parents in elderly care and call it the day - life moves on. If you’re foreign-ish…

"Americans or Westerners to generalize can simply put their aging parents in elderly care and call it the day - life moves on." That's quite a dismissal. Reading it sound like 'westerners and Americans just don't care about their elderly ones'. I assure you that's not the case and in general every generalization it's wrong almost by definition. Be well.

It’s sloppy on my part… I meant it’s more acceptable culturally to do so… not that they don’t care.

Re: Ask HN: Advice about aging parents

#155

This hits home for me… my parents are about the same age as yours and I’m 43. We’re both part of sandwich generation [0] - the link provide general overview of how common it is and tips. I’ll add that what you can do truly depends on your culture (and even tribe for me) - Americans or Westerners to generalize can simply put their aging parents in elderly care and call it the day - life moves on. If you’re foreign-ish…

I wondered if there was a name for it. It seemed strange to me for OP to be raising a young family while his parents are so old. That means both him and his father had children in their 40s (or perhaps one was even older). It honestly does seem far better for everyone if people have children in their 20s. I wish I could have done that.

> It honestly does seem far better for everyone if people have children in their 20s.

There are lots of tradeoffs. On the one hand yes, maybe it means the kids will be out of the house before you start having to deal with parents. On the other hand it's quite likely to be bad financially, as in many cases you'll be down to one income and slower growth in that income during those critical 20s and 30s. That can leave you a bit strapped when you have to pay for college costs and parental-care costs and eventually your own retirement. I had my daughter at 39 and retired at 55. Without that last 10 years of income from my wife and rapid income growth for me, plus the magic of compound interest, I'm pretty sure I'd still be working and none of us would be any happier for it.

It's all very personal, obviously, which is precisely why I don't think one can (or should) generalize about an ideal age to have children.

Re: Ask HN: Advice about aging parents

#156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the right group, that sounds ideal.

It's hard to tell sometimes what the right group is, though. My grandmother moved in with us. We all got on so well it seemed like the obvious thing to do. But she became depressed and just felt like she was living in someone else's house (which she was, really). Living together is a tricky thing and in my experience it's hard to know what will work. Worth a shot, though. They might love it.

I think separate living spaces is really critical (I can't imagine doing it in the same space). My mom usually comes over in the morning to help get the kids out the door for school, but other than that it's not uncommon for us to go at least a day or two without seeing them.

If you're going into it with a "give it a shot" attitude, be sure to do it early enough that changing plans is still an option.

Re: Ask HN: Advice about aging parents

#157
Let me extend my sympathies to you. I think a lot of folks hang onto a fantasy that as your folks get toward the end of their lives that you'll somehow be more ready to lose them. We're not too far off age-wise. I'll never be ready to attend my mom or dad's funeral.

That wasn't your question, and I don't have any direct experience, yet (both of my folks are in relatively good health at the moment), but I have some thoughts if it's worth anything.

Our Dads sound like they'd get along. Were this my dad, I'd save my breath before trying to convince him that he's too old to continue with the stairs. My Dad required back surgery about 15 years ago -- almost a year's recovery and was the worst medical experience of his life. He spent much of it barely able to move (complaining so little that you'd have no idea most of the time). You don't ever really "go back to normal" after surgery like that. You also can't stop my Dad from pushing someone out of the way to get on one end of a couch being moved, or keep him from bringing over his tools when he finds out one of his kids is working on their home. It's a losing battle. And I've learned that while I may believe he's doing more damage (and he probably is), at his age, he knows his limits and will exercise them. One way to guarantee he sets those limits too high is to hint that maybe his body can't handle it.

The bedroom thing is interesting, though. I'm assuming your parents mental health isn't declining enough that you suspect the stubbornness is caused by dimentia. If that's not the case, are there other reasons that you haven't shared (or maybe you haven't thought about?) Is there something of sentamental or emotional value about that room that keeps him wanting to remain upstairs or is it just conveinece? Either way, the incredible inconvenience of having to crawl up and down stairs has apparently been judged "worth it" to him.

And I get the unwillingness to move. Even at my age, I've my elderly grandparents/great uncles/aunts and some other extended family have moved from "the family home" to "the home they're going to die in" (usually something smaller, sometimes assisted living). Most passed away within two or three years of that move. Even though I can rationalize that "of course they did -- many of them were moving because they were too frail to remain where they were", when you've watched the progression from "home->condo->grave" happen so quickly for so many, it's hard not to ignore the other variables. If your Dad has lived in this home for a lot of his life, it's the home he's "lived in" -- the next one is the home he'll "die in". I believe it would be impossible for me to make that move without feeling like the only thing you're saving up for anymore is a funeral you won't be conscious to attend.

Unlike you and I (hopefully, anyway), however, your Mom and Dad have probably not gone very many months without a person they know/knew/grew up with ending up on the obituary page. You're literally confronted by your own mortality all around you -- moving to "that last house" makes it part of the rest of your life in a way that accepting "I'll die where I lived" does not.

... when I was younger, I always wondered why people go through the expense of installing stair-climbers in their homes -- the inconvenience/grief of strapping yourself into a chair and having a machine take you up/down because you're too frail to manage the stairway and the expense of having one of those installed seemed crazy compared to the benefits of just selling the place and moving somewhere without stairs. As a younger guy, I would always weigh the cost of upgrading my home against the cost of moving somewhere that already met my needs -- especially if moving would result in me making money (as such a move from owning a larger to a smaller house in about the same location would cause).

So twenty or so paragraphs to summarize with this: Recognize that your father's motivation is almost certainly a combination of: fears about his own mortality, unwillingness to move to "the death house", unwillingness to accept that at some point people will need to take care of him/he will not be able to take care of himself, unwillingness to leave the memories of his life behind from within those walls. If you can help him to understand that moving/correcting some of these issues means having more of that life to enjoy with his family and loved ones, you might be able to convince him to choose circumstances that are easier for him to live with.

Either way, enjoy the time you have with your folks for as long as you can.

[0] Well, those who came from stable family upbringings and have strong relationships with their folks; obviously there's many exceptions, there.

Re: Ask HN: Advice about aging parents

#158
There is no easy way around this.

> my dad refuses to leave his house until he dies

Fair enough.

> my dad currently crawls his way up the stairs each day to use his computer.

These could be solved by elevator chairs. Might need to look for a creative person/company to install them.

> I have my own young family and my partner and I have jobs

It does help if you have siblings. Otherwise, you just need to assign a part of your time to them.

Re: Ask HN: Advice about aging parents

#159
Watch Tokyo Story

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0046438/

#5 on this list

https://www.theyshootpictures.com/gf1000_all1000films.htm

Not sure it will actually be helpful but I found it interesting both in its topic and its conclusion, message.

Note: My dad has alzheimer's His wife is taking care of him at the moment but we, my brother and I, can see he's mostly done and she's having a hard time. By "mostly done" I mean while he still seems like our Dad it feels more like he was replaced by a robot. He recognizes us and has lots of memories and can still have a conversation but he's got no "spirit", motivation, will. He does nothing. Apparently he'd have stayed in bed 24/7 if she hadn't moved the TV to the living room.

We don't really know what to do or how to help. I suspect if she left we'd put him in a home. Neither of us have the time or inclination to be there for him. It doesn't help that he moved 2000 miles away for ~30yrs so as much as we love him he hasn't been a part of our lives. He's now ~100 miles away but even if he was 1 mile away I'm not sure what more we'd be willing to do.

Re: Ask HN: Advice about aging parents

#160
post #137

This likely isn't relevant to you OP, but perhaps for someone else who is a little earlier in the process here. I'm in my late 30's and my parents are in their early 60's (Dad will be retiring next year). Two years ago we decided move into a multi-generational home. We found a place big enough for our family of 5, in addition to an "in-law" apartment big enough for my parents. This was born directly out of my parents…

I'm in an expensive city facing a similar scenario with my mother and my father-in-law. My wife and I are planning on adding space in the form of an ADU, which we will be able to rent out before and after our parents use it. The catch is that so far we only have a plan for how to house one of them at a time. My father-in-law is ten years younger, in good health, and already living in the same city, so we're hoping we…

> Now I kind of figure that when they need more care than we can provide, the best institutional care we can afford, even at our income level, may well be a neglectful hellhole, so we're concentrating on keeping them with us right to the end if possible.

Working as a paramedic definitely influenced my desire to do this. Even the best nursing homes are... not great.

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