Person of the Week: Caregivers Allow for Dignified Living Situations for Aging Parents
Check out this relevant article and video clip, from ABC News’ series Families on the Brink “What to do about Mom and Dad?” about the challenges of honoring your parents’ wish to age in their home. (We’re happy to note that the program mentions one of our Maine Senior Guide resources, Home Instead.)
From ABC news.com -
Sue and Skip Hollcroft are two of the more than 20 million people struggling to take care of their children and their aging parents.
They said the balancing act was tough. “Often we have to split our time. You’ve got the guilt. You know you get one chance, one shot at these high school things with your child,” Sue Hollcroft said. “You’re constantly running from your job to try to take care of Dad, to try to make it to a wrestling match. Things like that. So it is difficult.”
In January when her widowed father, John C, almost 86 years old, wrecked his car, it got even more difficult. Because of her father’s declining health, the family decided that it was unsafe for him to live in the house he loved and had lived in for more than 30 years.
Though Sue Hollcroft said it was terrifying to have her dad living alone in the house, he refused to move. He said he felt comfortable there.
“One time they took me to some place on the other side of Manassas and the place is full of old people,” John C said. “They weren’t as old as me but they were old. I says, ‘What the h— we doing here? I ain’t coming here. I’m going home.’”
read more here http://abcnews.go.com/Health/ElderCare/eldercare-picking-living-arrangement-aging-parents/story?id=11647092&page=2
