You Say You Want a Revolution?
by Sheryl Karas M.A.
Feeling trapped is a theme I hear from a number of caregivers, a theme I relate to only too well myself. "I'm trapped!" I hear. "I didn't choose this but now I have to live with it 24 hours a day!" I especially hear this from younger caregivers who came of age in the 60's believing they had the power to change the world and did change it dramatically! Our generation isn't used to accepting the status quo. We want change! Yes! And when do we want it? NOW!
But what happens when you're trying to be a good caregiver? What happens when you have a parent who fights every innovation you want to make? What happens when you examine the possibilities, choose what you think is the lesser of all evils and lose your freedom to live the way you choose?
Pretty much all caregivers experience this at one time or another. You think you are doing the right thing by protecting mom or dad from feeling the pain of moving out of the family home and into residential care so you do everything possible to keep that from happening. It sounds noble. It's what any loving daughter or son would do. And at first it feels okay. You call every day to check in and stop by twice a week to make sure they have groceries. It's not so hard. They have a small crisis and you run over to take care of it. No big deal. You notice that the house isn't clean but they refuse to have a stranger come in to clean it so you ask your daughter to help. It's annoying but... it's mom and dad! We're glad to help (sort of). Then your daughter moves away to college and you have a crisis at work and have to work extra hours but your parents are so dependent on the attention they've been getting that they call several times a day to see when you'll be coming over. You take a deep breath — you studied meditation, you know how to release stress! — and go on over after grabbing a bite at MacDonald's. You hate fast food...but it's a "crisis". And that's how it continues until the day you wake up and realize you haven't seen your friends in months, fast food is your main diet and you can't remember the last time you had any fun. In the process of keeping mom and dad from having to change their lives, you gave up yours!
If you can console yourself with the fact that you enabled them to have a few more good months or years at home and feel good about it, great! But you still have to face what you didn't want to face when this whole thing started: mom and dad have reached a time in their lives when everyone experiences change and loss. When disaster strikes we have to learn to make the best of the changes that need to happen. If we hold tightly to the status quo we suffer. And if someone else intervenes at their own expense to keep us from feeling our pain they will suffer. And if we manipulate, cajole or coerce someone into intervening at their own expense not only will they suffer but we will suffer the consequences of damaging our relationships with unrealistic expectations. There's no good solution but learning to gradually accept change.
A loving daughter, son or other relative will be much more successful at being a caregiver if their goal is just that — to help mom and dad adjust to the changes their physical conditions have brought. To give aid and assistance temporarily while in a life or death crisis. To point out new possibilities, help them imagine the positive aspects of change and plan for the future. To help them gather a whole community of caregivers and helpers of whom you are just a reasonable part. To be there with their grief, fear and pain and to provide moments of pleasure and enjoyment. To say no to any expectation that is not of the highest benefit of all concerned. And to realize that if we decide to take on full-time caregiving because WE are more capable of change than our parents are after 70-90 years of doing things the same way, that this decision is a CHOICE! We can remind ourselves of that choice every day and make a new choice at any time.
It's an interesting role we children of the 60's now have — in our youth we fought to change the world by joining protest marches and refusing to conform. We envisioned new futures and built whole movements of change around those visions. We created communes and worker cooperatives and new businesses that challenged the status quo.We carried freedom of speech to new extremes, challenged social and political discrimination based on every sort of difference, and created a sexual revolution that has completely changed the mores of the world for better and worse. We believed in revolution and created one mostly by rejecting our parents' generation and both their habits and their wisdom. We made anyone over 30 the enemy but now we need to take care of this same generation. The only way we can do that is by putting the battle down and making peace.
Luckily, most of us do have appropriate experience we can draw upon. During the last 10-20 years, my generation has spent most of our time as parents and breadwinners ourselves and have, for the most part, learned to mellow our approach to social change. We learned the importance of creating emotional and physical stability for our children while assisting them to change and grow in a gentle organic manner. We strove to respect our children's feelings and right to make decisions for themselves even as we attempted to steer them in positive directions and help them make healthy choices. And there have been times when we have had to set the very same limits our parents set for us and say no to behavior that was counterproductive for all concerned. Chaotic revolution and anarchy is not the best way to raise a family! And it's not the most loving way to treat adults. If we continue to fight the 60s fight about change with our parents we will have a very rough road as caregivers. But if we apply the same principles to caregiving that we learned as parents, we'll be much more successful. We need to help our parents maintain emotional and physical stability while introducing change gradually. We need to respect their feelings and their right to make decisions for themselves. We can suggest what we think are more healthful solutions but we need to accept their right as adults to make choices we don't agree with unless that behavior falls into the legal definition of self-neglect or hurts someone else.
None of this has anything to do with accepting any status quo that keeps us trapped in an unhealthy dynamic for years at a time. Insisting that their behavior not hurt anyone else includes us! But changing these dynamics does require patience and the willingness to face the feelings we — and they — have been avoiding. Acknowledge the grief and fear that change entails outloud. Agree that their feelings are justified and promise to support them through it. Don't rescue them from the choices they have to make but gently persist in helping them accept what has happened to their lives. When the time comes that the pain of doing nothing is worth the risk of trying something new, because your emotional support has been genuine and consistent, you may get an opening that will let it happen.
Caregiving Articles
A new version of this article can be found in Sheryl’s latest book The Spiritual Journey of Family Caregiving.
Caregiving Articles
© Copyright 2007 Sheryl Karas & Paul Hood