Are caregivers planning ahead to reduce the caregiver stress their kids will experience in 20-30-40 years?

To me, the best way to reduce the caregiving-related stress that our kids will otherwise experience in 20-30-40 years is to be smarter than the average person in this country is being about his health and his future.

People so often seem to think that their aging MUST involve disease, suffering, pain, and loss of independence simply because that's what inevitably happens when people get older. Yet many people in this world have been able to age well, to live on their own into their 90s, and to avoid disease--or to conquer it.

Doesn't it make sense to look at their examples and decide this is how WE will age as well?

Each day there's a fork in the road and a choice we can make in terms of our health. We can cope with our stressors using excessive amounts of sugar, alcohol, or cigarettes--like many people do---and perhaps end up in a hospice some day with diabetes, cirrhosis of the liver, or lung cancer. Or, we can choose our future and our health by making good choices in terms of diet, lifestyle, prevention and by finding better ways to cope with our frustrations, such as meditation or prayer or seeking out someone to talk with when we need to.

We can allow ourselves to tense our muscles 24x7, enduring years of back and neck and shoulder pain--like many people do--along the way taking NSAIDS, having steroid injections, and eventually, when it's pretty much bone against bone, having surgery and then perhaps being told nothing more can be done and that we'll just have to live with the pain. Or, we can take the time now to learn how to truly relax and live in the moment more often and work towards treating our body (including our muscles) with kindness.

As someone who battled TMJ/TMD and RSI and eventually won (currently 5+ years symptom-free in spite of not having surgery and still being at the keyboard 8-10 hours a day) I have learned that sometimes you have to ignore the negative voices around you that claim you are doomed to a life of pain and/or a loss of independence due to your circumstances. Sometimes, not all the time, the answer is still waiting to be found if we just keep open, keep listening, and refuse to give up on ourselves.

Aging may be a part of life, but how we do so is largely up to us.

Queen,

Thanks for the tip. I'm sure you believe everything you say. But I don't believe my mission is to give myself to others. Isn't it nice to live in America where we can each have our own beliefs?

Please let us not judge people, this is meant to be a safe place for us to vent. There is nothing wrong with wanting our kids to have more fun and less stress than we may be having right now. With any luck we get old and die peacefully without drama, otherwise, the struggle can be tough and we should plan ahead.

maggiesue - Your mind has been distorted by constructed reality. You are selfish and self centered. There is no greater mission than to give ourselves to others that is why we exist, live, and breath. Your way of thinking is why America is on course with self destruction. Take some time to think about what I have said and get back to me.

I do not have kids of my own, so am hoping that at the end one of my nieces of nephews will have pity on me. But I will make my will, POA, and take care of all bills including burial, and hopefully leave a bit of money for each of them.

And if I get to the point where I am very sick, I will end my own life. I know many people don't believe in this, but I believe that if life is no longer a "life" why continue it for the sheer pain, or to avoid pain of others.

I hope to let the kids know that I love them all and not to grieve for me. After seeing my mother suffer so much, I have bowed to get myself in the best possible health and as I age I will care not to be a burden on any of them. Unless fate hands me something I can't change, I will not be a burden on my nieces and nephews.

I know - and I'm not sure how I know - but I know I will be the one that buries my family. I am dealing now with my mother's death (11/2/10) and I know that within a year I will deal with my baby brother's death. I will bury my father and my siblings one by one, and hopefully carry some of the pain for the family and for their kids of those siblings that had kids.

Life is so hard, and death is so painful.

I have been speaking to my son and will definitely get an attorney to make up my living (sane) will. I would NEVER want my son or grandson to go through this.

We do not have children to take care of us.

Watching my dad go downhill and the guilt and constant worry about him in a nursing home... etc... HAS got us thinking of getting our house ready for us to live here a long time even as we get older.

We do not want to end up in a retirement or nursing home. We know that is not for us now.

We are trying to plan for our future and caring for my dad has made us old before our time..... and old thinking before our time.

It also scares me how quickly & easily they take the control away from the elderly person and give it to the POA and/or children. My dad is a little flaky sometimes (when drugged) but that is no excuse to label him as alzheimers and take away his decision making control.
Making sure no one does that to me is one thing I am trying to make sure does not happen.

Agnes-I would think that care giving stress is something that everyone is trying to do -and NOW- Perhaps in years to follow it will be less-with the advances in medicine. Keep in mind the importance of taking 'ME TIME' for yourself-and hope that it will follow in future generations.
Best,
Hap

After caring for my mother in law in our home, I have promised myself I will not burden my daughter with the responsibility of taking me in. My husband and sister both know my wishes and have my competent permission (should I become incompetent later) to place me in a facility that meets my needs without feeling guilty. It is what I want for me and for them. In fact, once Mom is gone, my husband and I are looking into a retirement home for us. I've had it with cooking, cleaning, etc. Let someone else do it while I enjoy my life.

I will not do this to my family. My mother told me the other day that I was lucky to have a granddaughter to take care of me. I told her I would never do that to someone I loved.

I plan to research facilities and move to one. What my mother has done to me has to stop. And it will stop with me. It's unfair to ask a anyone to take on the elderly.

If they care for their children they are. I certainly hope so.

Thanks Carol. I'd like to make sure my kids avoid the worst of the stuff we are dealing with. Long term care insurance is a start I guess but the thought of long term nursing care is not very nice. Medicine needs to focus on dementia, keeping the body alive is not enough.

Few are, as we are too swamped by our own caregiving demands. Our society needs to do a mental shift so people can do just as you suggest. Most of us get into caregiving slowly and then don't have much time to even think. Good question!
Carol