Francine Russo, journalist and author of They’re Your Parents Too: How Siblings Can Survive Their Parents’ Aging Witout Driving Each Other Crazy recently did the informative piece, “When the Other Sibling Cares for the Aging Parent.” As her aging father and younger sister took care of her diabetic mother, she says, “I had no idea that I was entering a new developmental crisis in the life of my original family…All the old stuff came back and ambushed me: sibling rivalry, old resentments, yearning for my parents’ love, the guilt-laden ways we talked to each other – only worse.”
During the last year of her mother’s life, her sister never asked her to do anything, and she didn’t volunteer. She got the dig from her sister — “You’re not around.” She writes that she’d deflected those digs all of her life, and she kept doing it then.
But this especially caught my eye–she had the defense for not helping out that “while my sister was childless by choice, I was widowed, a working mom with two kids and a life in New York.”
That got me thinking — do childless siblings have more expectations from family to care for aging parents?
In Francine’s case, her sister lived near their parents so maybe it is a more geographical thing. Or more about family dynamics? I have talked to some childfree couples in a situation where their aging parents need care, and they do feel the burden goes to them first over their siblings who are parents when both live near the parents. What if neither sibling lives near the parents? Do the childfree siblings still have the expectation over the siblings who are parents? What have you seen or experienced?
Childfree or not, Francine gives us some good strategies that help sidestep trouble in this situation:
Be ready: Rivalries can erupt after decades of dormancy
Examine your own role in the sibling dynamic
Be alert: Is your mom or dad fanning the flames?
Don’t fall into the trap of old family roles
Be aware of gender differences
Call a truce — or call in the ref e.g., a geriatric care manager, family therapist or clergy counselor — who can help you communicate objectively and distribute responsibilities in a realistic way.
Francine is so right: “Watching our parents age and die is one of the hardest things in life.” Like every important thing in life, we need to do what we can to handle it in the best way possible–for our sake and the sake of everyone involved, in this case, our family.
