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The moment when we must take charge of Mom's and Dad's lives is a wrenching rite of passage for baby boomers, who in many ways are still struggling to grow up. "As a generation, we haven't seen much death, and we haven't experienced a great deal of hardship ourselves," says psychologist Mary Pipher, author of the best-selling book Reviving Ophelia and the recently published Another Country: Navigating the Emotional Terrain of Our Elders (Riverhead Books, $24.95). "We weren't in a Depression. We weren't in World War II. For many baby boomers, this is the first really rough patch in their lives."
It can be rougher for those who are facing the dual pressures of the "sandwich generation": trying to raise young children and take care of aging parents at the same time. That's a problem I don't have to face. Yet with no brothers or sisters to help make the decisions and share the load, I'm facing the whole ordeal alone. Friends console me with tales of sibling squabbles over finances and accusations of who's not spending enough time with Mom and Dad. Others I know are trying to make up for years of seeing their parents only a couple of times a year, over Christmas turkey or at summer picnics. No matter; we all end up feeling guilty.
Things are better, in some ways, than they used to be. For the most part, our parents have put away more money than their parents did. Many can afford to live in retirement communities or pay for full-time nursing care. But throwing money at the problem (better hospitals, better doctors, anything to avoid facing the alternative) isn't the solution. Nor is micromanaging our parents' lives--buying the groceries, doing the laundry, anything rather than actually sitting down and talking. Eventually we have to face the fact that the parents who nurtured us are now the ones who need nurturing. And unlike child rearing, there are no Dr. Spocks out there with time-tested advice. It's a personal journey for which there are few reliable road maps and precious little reassurance.
My own descent into elder-care hell began in 1995, when my mother, then 69, was found to have Lou Gehrig's disease. It robbed her first of her speech (and boy, how she had loved to talk!), then of movement of her limbs. My mom and I had lots of issues never resolved since my teenage years. But rather than get therapy, I decided to spend more time with her, taking months off from work to listen to old records, watch Masterpiece Theatre videotapes and look at family pictures with her. I found old notes from her years as a decorator, and I found love letters. I got to know her friends at Ursuline Academy in Dallas, where she had had a second career teaching history. I learned things I'd never known: that she had paid for my Catholic-school education by herself; that she was adored by her students; and that the attitudes I had so rebelled against came from a Southern upbringing that required her to be a "lady"--always.