On Sundays my mother doesn’t always go to church, and she doesn’t whip up hearty breakfasts for my father. This day is reserved for someone else. On Sundays, she smiles, puts on her lipstick, and glides dutifully into the assisted living home nearby. As she enters, the older adults in the living room slowly look up. Something new is breaking up the quiet of their day. A door has opened, someone has entered and sunlight has filled the room. Mom spots her 87-year old mother, who sits silently dazing ahead, failing to recognize her daughter. And then what my mother has known for so long hits her all over again: she is now the caregiver, my grandmother the child.
These visits represent for her some of the most personal, and even lonely, of life’s passages. But her story is certainly not an uncommon one. Among the 34 million informal caregivers in the U.S., most are baby boomers, falling between the ages of 45 and 64. And two-thirds of them are women.
We’re often so busy focusing on boomers as driven, passionate 42+ dream catchers, who lead businesses, pursue new hobbies and travel the globe—that it can be easy to overlook the vital role they play each day as routine “caregivers.” It’s a word we hear regularly in the media, but what does it really mean? And what implications are there for our country as both the 85+ population and the nursing shortage surges?
Caregivng for America’s boomers involves far more than taking one’s father to the doctor or giving mom a pill. It involves hospital bills, insurance claims, seizing up finances and lawyers. It involves cleaning, packing and moving all the memories of a parent’s lifelong home. It involves navigating the confusing maze of Medicare, Medicaid and long-term care housing options. And, it ultimately involves the sad task of saying goodbye.
As Mary Pipher says in the foreword of Caring for Your Parents—The Complete AARP Guide (Delehanty and Ginzler), in caregiving boomers are entering “a bittersweet season” when the “lessons will be about endurance, loss, love and letting go.”
Next week, I'll blog about the new cottage industries springing up to meet the caregiving needs of our aging population. Stay tuned!
Amanda Sobanet
Comments (1)
Hi,
I too, at age 66, became caretaker of
my 89 year old father who insisted on
living aone.
I found a great help in
www.SeniorCallup.com
Posted by Gjoviking | October 19, 2007 2:07 PM
Posted on October 19, 2007 14:07