Archive for the ‘Siblings’ Category
Last Updated on Saturday, 12 December 2009 04:48 Written by David Solie Sunday, 30 August 2009 10:14
The real work of families is recovery. In the volatile landscape of family systems, everything is exaggerated, both good and bad. One of the predictable “bad” events in the drama of aging parents is sibling infighting. It can be triggered by anything, but it is mostly about money, power, and affection. Once provoked, it extracts an emotional toll on the entire system that resists recovery. Here is a case in point.
A daughter and her husband step in to help organize and manage her widowed mother’s finances. The goal is financial sustainability. The plan appears to be working until her other siblings, the “local ones” who live close to her mother, intervene with their own advice and unspoken needs. Her mother is torn between competing children. In the end, she opts to relinquish control of her finances to the “local” siblings. Affection gives way to betrayal, and the siblings splinter.
As in Shakespeare, winners and losers never stay put. The local siblings’ victory proves short lived. Financial stability quickly unwinds and an urgent plea goes out to the rejected daughter for advice and, of course, money. “What are you going to do?” her husband asks. Indeed, now what?
Justice in families is tricky business. The rejected daughter was understandably angry and wanted justice. She refused her siblings’ request for more money, and for all practical purposes, went incommunicado with the rest of the family. Then she waited.
Nothing. No apology. No request for forgiveness. Her mother and the other siblings continued to smolder in their financial crisis, and then things got worse.
Her mother fell ill. The rejected daughter hesitated by finally flew home. It was worse than she thought. No one was capable of managing the situation. Money, hygiene, and morale were all about to run out. The rejected daughter was angry all over again that the an even bigger mess had been dumped in her lap. You?re the court of last resort her husband advises, the last lap available in the family. Step in or step out. Either way, I support your decision.
Being right is easy, but not a strategy for healing families. The rejected daughter opted to step in, not alone and not without conditions, but she did step in. A geriatric case manager was hired, money was managed through local trust company, and her mother was moved into an assisted living community. It wasn’t easy, and it wasn’t without confrontations, harsh words, and strict boundaries. But a fatal mess was reversed.
It turns out that recovery is not about happiness; it is about unmerited actions that families need, again and again to regain their balance and move on. In this case, it was about forgiveness, courage, self-sacrifice, and honoring an aging parent. And for this family, it came not a moment too soon…
Tags: aging parents, conflict with siblings over aging parents, David Solie, How To Say It To Seniors | Posted under Siblings | 2 Comments
Last Updated on Sunday, 13 December 2009 11:29 Written by David Solie Saturday, 12 January 2008 07:47
“But things in this life change very slowly, if they ever change at all”
The Eagles from Sad Cafe
In David Rico’s book “The Five Things We Cannot Changeone of the immutable laws of living on earth is that “life is unfair.”? Nowhere is this more obvious than in the interaction of siblings over the issue of their aging parents. We are tempted to believe that when adult children are asked to rally around an aging parent, the unresolved sibling issues of childhood would be set aside, and “the kids” would stand ready to partner for the common good. The truth is usually far different and more painful. What we see time and again is that the inconvenient occasion of aging parents simply reconvenes a family drama in which the players continue their previous roles and with an all too familiar outcome.
As much as we wish it were different, family roles for the most part are cut in stone. This is not a lament but simply a fact. Birth order, hair color, personality type, and timing all cast us in a role from our earliest years that follows like a shadow. If we start out as the outsider, the favorite, or the conscientious one, that’s were you will usually find us at sixty. How we feel about this is less important then its tactical significance. Knowing this fact about family systems allows us important choices when we find ourselves in an involuntary alliance with our siblings to address the predictable dilemmas of our aging parents dilemmas. How?
First, it allows us to stop trying to change our siblings who for the most part really resent us for having the audacity to think that we need to “fix” them. Most of us have been trying this from childhood with poor results.
Second, it allows us to accurately access to what our siblings will and will not do. While we may think guilt, shame, anger, and manipulation can help us to get them to carry their weight, this strategy never works in the long run. Even worse, it takes a heavy toll on us and them. Better to be blunt and admit that if their contribution is zero, then zero it is and move on.
Lastly, it allows us to invest our time and money in creating a non-family support system for our aging parents. One of the essential strategies for being successful with our aging parents is a concerted, relentless effort to piece together a support system. It is journey filled with false starts, dead ends, and false hopes. But it is also a journey of numbers. A steady, disciplined effort at building relationships yields good people, people that our aging parents need in their lives. This should be the logo on the T-shirt of every adult child working with an aging parent: steady effort.
If you are blessed with cooperative, helpful, and collaborative siblings count your blessings and let them know how much they mean to you. If your siblings abandon you to fend for yourself, then use the occasion to enhance your networking skills. Either way, you get the friendships, support, and resources you need to deliver a “steady effort.”
Tags: aging, aging parents, caregiver, Communication, coping, David Solie, depression, disability, How To Say It To Seniors, sibling infighting over aging parents | Posted under Siblings | 2 Comments
