28 Reasons Why You Can't Take Care
Of Your Parents
And 28 Reasons Why You Can

The following parent care conversation starter along with great ideas to get you thinking on the right path are taken directly from the top selling book, The Parent Care Conversation written by Dan Taylor. Please review the author's byline and copyright and re-print information at the bottom of this article.

Part One - The first 7 of 28 ...

REASON # 1:

The Parent Care Conversation is not about YOU; it's about THEM and the type of support, if any, that they may want as they approach this time in their life. The Big Picture Conversation, if followed using the C.A.R.E. conversational structure opens up a conversation where your parents talk about their future around care and aging.

If they will open up to you then everyone will have a sense of what they want to have happen, the challenges they see ahead, the alternatives they see for meeting them, all the resources that are available and if their world could be exactly the way they want as they age; how that world would be.

REASON #2:

Unless you're attached to parents who are living on a respirator, you have just describe the situation that roughly 80% of the Baby Boom Generation will find themselves. The Parent Care Conversation doesn't promise that getting organized will be easy just that it will be possible. The financial tools in the process are designed to work with the barest of information. Start with name, address, and phone number and move on to more complicated things.

I am not saying that getting all the information will be easy, painless, or free of stress and difficulty. We are saying that there are two distinct times to do this: Now, while everyone is thinking clearly and can cooperate in piecing all of this together, or later when you are trying to locate bank accounts, brokerage statements, wills and trusts at the same time you are trying to get them admitted to Pleasant Meadows.

Be a big person here. Take charge. Provide some leadership. Provide some direction. If, after you have tried to do this to no avail, resign yourself to the inevitable, dump the guilt and worry and just go on about your life.

REASON #3:

Well, maybe they have and maybe they haven't. I'm pretty clear they haven't done it with the simplicity, connectedness and thoroughness that we've outlined in The Parent Care Conversation book. If they have, then hats off to them.

Most parents have completed pieces of the solution. They may have purchased a long term care policy or life insurance program. They may have executed wills or trust agreements. They may have designated health care powers and decided who the mantle clock goes to.

Find out what they've done and what else needs to be done. See if you can get them to share what is already in place and make them aware of what else is necessary. They either will open up here or they won't.

Explain to them that you will not be able to be fully supportive and helpful to them if you don't know what they've done. Share with them that without knowing what has already been accomplished; you may waste precious hours and valuable resources duplicated efforts.

REASON # 4:

It has been fascinating to me over the past 25 years how clients will discuss their vacations, children, health ailments, job insecurities, and religious beliefs with family members or spouses but will not, except under penalty of death, reveal the fact that they have $2,700 in a savings account somewhere.

Depression born or post-depression born children have grown up with fears concerning money that have fundamentally kept psychotherapists fully employed over the last century and savings accounts at national banks filled to overflowing with cash. I am not educated nor intuitively gifted enough to dive off that high board of conversation nor do I believe there is any water to be found there.

The Money Conversation treats money as a situation where there are certain challenges, alternatives, resources, and experiences attached to it. It doesn't make judgments about whether the situation is good, bad, enough, or not enough. It just uses what is there to maximize what it can. Try to shift the conversation from money as a secret, taboo sort of thing to something more like a tool that works or doesn't work.

The most important thing here is that you HAVE to talk about the money sometime. Do it now. Try driving up to Pleasant Acres and telling the admissions director that your parents have everything filled out but that they're just really uncomfortable with talking about the money. I think the reality is that they will become intimately familiar with the phrase "no room at the Inn".

REASON #5:

Maybe you do nothing....Maybe this The Parent Care Conversation thing can't work for you or them. Maybe you just decide to drop in one day at the old family home and they aren't there anymore. In fact, maybe a new family has moved in and they didn't even meet your parents at the closing.

Maybe none of this stuff is interesting enough, is important enough, to get the phone lines going among you. Maybe it isn't, won't and never will be possible to have this conversation with them. Maybe it just will never ever work with you and them.

But, if could somehow, don't you think you'd like to find out now rather than later. Both parents and children wish at some point they had a better past as far as their relationship goes. The 'better past' stuff is for my friends in the counseling business. I'm pretty clear that the best chance I've got is to design a better future for them with me. If we can do that or at least begin that, then we might have a lot to talk about going forward.

REASON #6:

Here's a better question: If you don't, who will? If you begin the conversations and someone else wants to be a part of them, then let them...or not. If they don't want to you will never hear from them. Remember that at some point in your parent's situation someone may have to help them make decisions or clean up messes from decisions that weren't made.

REASON #7:

Great question!!! Here's a thought...why not let everyone who want to be involved ask their own C.A.R.E. situation question. In other words, if they were to be involved what are the Challenges they see facing them, what are the Alternatives they see to those challenges, what are all the Resources they could draw upon to meet those challenges and finally, what is the Experience they would like to have for themselves with this this?

As far as being in control is concerned...just opt out on the control thing. Be in charge instead of in control.

About the Author

Dan is an attorney by training, the author of four additional books and over 60 articles on aging, personal finances, and family legacy planning. He speaks both nationally and internationally on these topics as well as working closely with such national organizations as HomeInstead and Partners In Care.

His company, The Parent Care Solution, focuses on the solutions for individuals and companies dealing with the challenges of caregiving for aging parents both individually and with their employees. His simple, straightforward, yet caring approach has earned him accolades in the United States and Canada for the effectiveness in dealing with such a delicate issue.

Dan is committed to the self-sufficiency and autonomy of both parents and children in the aging process and has created both a liberating set of conversations and a flexible, adaptable structure through The Parent Care Solution for meeting the changing and evolving needs of aging parents and their children.

The Parent Care Solution is the proud sponsor of North Carolina Senior Approved Services

This is part one of a four part series.
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