When you have to parent your parent

She is frail and requires a lot of physical support to move around. She needs help to bathe, eat or do any other thing. She has mood swings, too occasionally,  and she can be irritable. 
But her daughters know her well enough and they are adjusting to her character. She is like a baby who needs constant attention to make it through the day. She is my paternal grandmother. My aunts have a daunting task of caring for their faint centenarian mother; a role they neither requested nor prepared for. 
 
In Psalm 90:9-10, Moses prayed: “All our days pass away under your wrath; we finish our years with a moan. The length of our days is seventy—or eighty, if we have the strength; yet their span is but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away.” 

According to the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, World population ageing 2019 Highlights, “there were over 703 million people aged 65 years or over in the world by 2019. 
The number is projected to double to 1.5 billion by 2050. Globally, the share of the population aged 65 years increased from six per cent in 1990 to nine per cent in 2019. The average life expectancy globally is 72 years of age, according to the Global Health Observatory data, 2016, which means people are living longer.  

African familial relationships gave assistance to the elderly in times of sickness and loneliness. But because of education, immigration from poor countries to rich countries, and rural-urban migration, this dynamic has changed. 
Old people are now left to cater for themselves in the villages as their caregivers are separated from them in towns. In Western societies, there are nursing homes, where the elderly are cared for, thereby offsetting the daily burden from their children, in a way. 

Time comes when the ones who once took care of you when you were young will require your care when they are weak, disabled or demented. That time when you will become the parent to your parent; a reversal of roles, a quirky parallel of existence, to which each of us is destined, like the Baganda would say; “Olumyu olukula luyonka abaana balwo”; (loosely translated as “an old rabbit will suckle its bunnies”). 

Dr Edgar Edwin Twine, who nursed his sickly elderly father and mother during quarantine, says nursing a parent is a high calling. “Dealing with a person that has always been in charge but now is in a helpless situation characterised by physical pain, is humbling. Knowing that old people can be rigid requires one to be patient and understanding. But in the end, no matter the outcome, it is rewarding to know that you were there for your parent when they needed you. It is the most noble of responsibilities,” he says.

This reversal of roles can be tasking for the children. It is time-consuming, costly and nights can be long when caring for an old parent. Sometimes their needs are not met because the caregivers do not have the caregiving knowledge and skills to understand them or family support systems have collapsed. So how do you go about making parenting your parents an easier experience? 

Share  responsibility
 If the responsibility is left to one or a few of the children, they might burn out or develop health problems themselves. Remember, the people taking care also have their own work to do, children to raise, and other responsibilities. If the roles are shared, the burden lessens. For instance, the old person can stay with each child at a time, say for three months.     

Care for them in their own home
 Sometimes you don’t have to take them from their home to your home or a nursing home. You can support them from their own home where they have a sense of community. Here, they can still be involved in doing some activities such as gardening, art and crafts, walking around the neighbourhood, which keep them healthy and active.  

Insurance
You can prepare for your parents dignified unemployment period by way of insurance. Many insurance companies have good products on the market. “One can save with us and access their money or interest or pension when they need money to pay for their parents medical bills or living expenses,” says Edmund Tumwesiga, an insurance manager at UAP. 

Your parents may not have been good parents; they probably were absent or mistreated you. What do you do when they need your care? There are no perfect parents. The Bible counsels that you forgive them. This can be the beginning of your emotional healing. Exodus 20:12 says it aptly: “Honour your father and mother so that you enjoy long life on earth.”  
Rev Michael Agaba is a theologian, marriage counsellor, and parenting coach at AGLOW. 
 

By Michael Agaba 

Rev Michael Agaba is a theologian, marriage counsellor, and parenting coach at AGLOW.