I knew the time would come when I would become parent to my parents. I had read enough to know it would happen, but not enough to know the consequences of it happening. I even know the night it happened to my father and me. He came to me for some advice, I gave it, and we both knew things were going to be different from that day on. I did not think it was a very big deal. I had been accustomed to his being the net underneath my high wire and now, I was the net underneath his.
I did not know that when the roles change, we lose the ability to communicate. That is evident in any nursing home. Families come in and can't stay in the room with their loved one more than two minutes. They can go next door and visit with a total stranger all afternoon. That is why many families dread coming to see their loved one and why some family members come rarely, if at all.
This lack of communication is the source of a great deal of the guilt families’ experience. They think they have stopped loving the person and have no idea why.
My relationship with my father went from our being great friends, to not wanting to be around each other at all. I have since found that the communication dies between the parent and the one who becomes parent. Often the other children are not affected. I confronted my father by saying that I was having a hard time being around him. I found he did not like me either. He was feeling like I did when I was thirty-years-old and he tried to tell me how to run my life.
The confrontation started us toward rebuilding communication. We did not get all the way back before he died, but, we at least go far enough that I know it can be rebuilt.
From that experience, I learned three lessons:
• Don't take over their lives. Don't do anything for them they can do for themselves, even if they ask you to do so. Leave them as much independence as possible.
• When communication dies, it must be confronted. Hints won't cut it. We need to say how hard it is for us to talk, not how they don't talk to us like they should.
• It takes time. But, it is worth every minute of it.
(This excerpt from Parenting Our Parents by Doug Manning appeared in In-Sighter Newsletter, November, 1995)