I have worked with families and seniors who needed help round the clock. Often, the caregivers get ill/injured bf the patient bc caregiving is so exhausting. The patient is often unaware of how demanding and difficult they are, and often they don’t even realize that they aren’t very nice to the one (and it’s usually just one) child doing the lion’s share of the caregiving.

They also tend to not want to face the reality of their situation, and when the child does bring up “future planning” they act angry, saying that they refuse to go into care, the kids are just hoping that they die, all that horseshit about assisted living/end of life care, never understanding how selfish they’re being by not facing facts, understanding options, state law, medical advice, and the strain they put upon their families (children). For years. Do you really want your grandkids wiping shit off you and changing your diapers? Getting a spoon and digging impacted feces out of you when you’re constipated? Discussing your very personal medical situations (everything goes wrong with your GI tract and reproductive/urinary health when you’re old). Not to mention the terrible things you say when you start having memory/mental impairments. You will say racist, sexist/sexual things that they won’t unhear.

For a generation or two who struggled to find a reason they’re dealing with so much parental estrangement, it baffles me how much they don’t understand how much they have to work on the relationships they still have with their children that still remain intact.

If they fear their mortality and the reality of the system of elder care that essentially Medicare built bc this is what the American people decided was cheap (for the past 30 years), they can think about it in their dotage. Could have, would have, should have.