Caregivers must never forget that there is a major difference between elders and children. Children are just learning, and they will grow out of these stages, presuming they are blessed with good mental and physical health. Elders are suffering enormous losses, of which they are keenly aware. They are not going to "grow out of it." They will continue to decline.
With children, you make your decisions and do your heavy lifting with the hope that they will eventually become adults, able to make their own decisions, good or bad. You can say, "I'm the parent and I know what is right because I've been there." There is a future for this child. He or she is a new bud of life that, God willing, will reach full blossom.
For our elders, the petals are falling off the rose. One by one, the petals fall away, eventually leaving the dried nub of death. However, that doesn't mean the rose never bloomed. That it never existed. That dried nub is proof that the rose once bloomed. It lived through a life cycle.
My parents deserved my respect as people who had lived much longer than I. They deserved my respect as people who had given to their community, their church, and in my dad's case, to international health care. They were human beings who knew love and respect as well as pain and the consequences of mistakes. They lived their lives fully.
I strongly believe that no matter how many losses our elders suffer from the cruel decline of body and brain, they deserve to be considered adults. They have grown and bloomed and created life. They have produced, and in most cases, done their best to guide young life.
I refuse to take this away from them by a careless use of terms, just because it's convenient and catchy. My parents were my parents. I am their adult child. When dementia and ailing bodies left my parents in my care, I needed to make some decisions, and in some cases, for their own safety and that of others, these were decisions they didn't like. But I tried to do it with respect and I did my best to preserve their dignity. They had a right to that no matter how disabled they became.
Role Reversal? Never. I was their caregiver when they needed me, but always, always, they were the parents and I the daughter. No convenient, catchy little phrase will change that.
For over twenty years author, columnist and speaker Carol Bradley Bursack cared for a neighbor and six elderly family members. Because of this experience, Carol created a portable support group – the book "Minding Our Elders: Caregivers Share Their Personal Stories". Her sites
www.mindingourelders.com
and
www.mindingoureldersblogs.com
include helpful links and agencies. Carol's column, "Minding Our Elders," runs weekly, she speaks at many caregiver workshops and conferences and has been interviewed by national radio, newspapers and magazines.