Deciding Where Grandma Has To Live
The responsibility of taking care of aging parents is a challenging task. Especially when there is only one surviving parent, the responsibility seems to double. These care giving years are crucial and the question often arises whether it would be better if they moved into your home. Rushed decisions may not be wise at this juncture. One needs to go deeply into this issue before a long term commitment can be made.
Bringing old parents into your home, when you are enjoying living by yourself, raises too many questions and doubts about being able to do justice to this very important duty. Independence from parents was the main reason for moving out of home, years ago. Are you now willing to face the same old situation? Do you have the maturity to take on the responsibility of taking care of much older folks who are going to be demanding on your time and space, not forgetting finances too? One may get tied down with a kind of emotional blackmail, but one needs to look at it from the angle of a long term decision.
It is important to take the present situation into serious account before taking the major decision. If you are single and have the space then combining the homes would be a good saving. After the many years that have passed, you may just begin to enjoy their company. The added advantage would be to use some benefits from the parent’s retirement savings which would ease the financial burden to both the parties.
When the home has a family with a spouse and kids the situation becomes a little more complex. However most children enjoy the comfort of having grandparents around, but this also depends on how they get along. If the rapport is good between the two, then it would be blissful, otherwise it may be asking for trouble.
When the ageing parent or parents move into your home, they regain a confidence by your very presence. They can be given their timely medication, or help can be sought in case of any emergency. An advantage of having them at home is you do not need to commute to visit them to check on their well being. Food cooked for the family can go around to include them. Even though initially the picture of having grand parents in the home seems a rosy picture, it often works out the other way round. So working out the pros and cons of this added responsibility needs to be made with the consent of everyone concerned.
Where poor old Grandma should live becomes a debatable issue. The experts in the field of caring for the aged are of the opinion that one should avoid as much as possible the responsibility of bringing in the ageing folks into the home. The nature of parenting does not decrease with ageing, and interference in the bringing up of children, and probing into marital discords would be an added problem. This could bring more stress into the running of the home.
Handling teenage complexities is not easy for parents and with additional views and interference from the grandparents, only ignites the issue. A certain format has been worked on to run the home peacefully and the nosey attitude of the old folk is not in any way helpful. The teenagers hate being questioned and when grandparents double check, it only makes matters worse for the family. The burden of handling your own family issues is a big responsibility and with the added load of care giving, the stress levels are bound to be high. Your priority is to take care of your physical and emotional health, which will directly help in better care giving to your old parents. A break from this routine would help both concerned.
