Guarding The Golden Years

Taking Responsibility For Your Ageing Parents Is Often A Challenging Time; Open And Honest Discussion Is Important For Everyone Involved.

- Taryn Das Neves

Whether you’re 16 or 46, your parents are always going to be your parents. It’s hard to imagine anything else. It’s equally difficult to think about a future where you might find yourself in their position, taking on the responsibility of caregiver to those who spent most of their adult life preparing you for the same. Often referred to as ‘parenting your parents’ or ‘role reversal’, it can be a trying time for both child and parent, a journey that needs consideration, honest conversations, and an enormous amount of empathy and understanding.

Lynda Bleazard, a life and executive coach at the Kim Coach Neuro Academy, says, ‘While we grow up in the parent/child mode, as our parents age it’s healthy to shift that relationship into the adult to adult mode. This way, common interests are explored, activities organised, and your parents retain their autonomy to have opinions, make plans and live independently. As they become older, and when their independence is challenged by their health, loss of a spouse or financial stress, the roles may change again, this time into us becoming the parent and our parent becoming the child.’