What I personally suggest to adult children who are afraid to bring up end-of-life work with their parents is that they start the subject by talking about themselves. If you say to your dad "I just read in the paper about a guy younger than I am whose family is fighting over whether he should be kept on life support. I don't ever want to put my family through that, so I've made an appointment with an estate attorney and am going to have all the paperwork drawn up," chances are your once reluctant parents will perk up.
If you are lucky, the parent may even say, "Can we make an appointment to go together?" If not, go ahead and get your work done. Then give your parents all of the information they will need should you become incapacitated. As this all sinks in, the chances are excellent that they will get in gear themselves. You will have made the subject okay to talk about. You will have broken the ice.
One problem, particularly with the older generation, is that the husband will think he should do his paperwork, but not the wife. She may never have held a job and they just don't think that she may be put in a position where she needs a will. If you stress the health directive aspect, the rest should fall into place.
And if it's your adult children who don't want to listen while you, the elders, talk of doing end-of-life legal work? Just do it. Get it done, present your "kids" with the facts, via e-mail if it's more comfortable, and then get on with living your life. You'll all be more comfortable with life, once you know the reality of death has been addressed.
Elder care author, columnist and speaker Carol Bradley Bursack is an AgingCare.com contributing editor and moderator of the
AgingCare.com community
forum.
Read her full biography