Taking care of your parents – whether it’s money-management, running them to the doctor or finding them a new home – is a demanding, exhausting task. As the Family Caregiver Alliance says, elder care will go much easier if the rest of your family supports your decisions.
Sibling Rivalry
If your siblings think everything is fine with your folks, they may be shocked and uncomfortable that you want to start running your parents lives. If you want power of attorney, which gives you a say in your parents’ finances, the rest of the family may even suspect your motives.
Even if they trust you, becoming the caregiver could shake up the family dynamic: an elder sister may think you’re taking on her responsibilities, or the brother who already provides a lot of care may see you as interfering, or implying he's not good enough.
Family Meetings
Gather your siblings together to explain why you’re worried about your parents and what you plan to do about it. This will show you’re not trying to operate in secret and give them a chance to offer alternatives you might not have considered.
It’s better to have this meeting without your parents: even if you and your siblings love them, it’s quite possible none of you would want to share a house with them, and that’s something that might go unsaid if they were present.
Before you start, set a time limit and an agenda for discussion that everyone agrees on.
Abuse and Other Issues
If your parents were abusive or alcoholic, some of your siblings may be unwilling to help in any way; others may deny that any abuse took place. If this issue is going to come up, consider bringing in a therapist or a religious leader you all trust to referee the discussion. This may also be necessary if one your siblings was an abuser.
Other issues in your relationships with your parents and each other may resurface, or new problems may crop up: your brother’s marriage may be falling apart, or your sister may be coping with cancer. The issues may be serious, but the focus of the meeting is to plan your parents’ care: set the other problems aside until later unless they affect elder care.
Sharing Elder Care Duties
If you’re thinking of sharing the responsibility for your parents or rearranging existing duties, you may be wrong about who’s willing to do what. Perhaps the sister who always drives your father to the grocery store is leaving town; your older brother may be too broke to help out financially. This meeting is the chance to work all that out.
Keep in mind everyone’s different skill sets. If you shrink from confrontation, your brother might do better at fighting your parents’ HMO.
Realistic Family Meeting Goals
Even if you focus the meeting on elder care, you and your siblings may not agree on everything. Don’t expect to resolve all disagreements; shoot for a broad consensus.
The key point you want support for is that talking to your parents is necessary. If you all come to agree on what they need – do they require someone assume power of attorney to manage their money or will someone stopping by to balance their checkbook do it? – so much the better.
It may be impossible to reach agreement. Old issues may mean nobody else wants to help, all your siblings may live too far away or they may refuse to believe there’s a problem. If you’ve done your best to bring them in and failed, go ahead and meet with your parents yourself. They're what it’s really about.
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