“Why do you rarely call?”, “You completely forgot me” — we often hear such reproaches from elders. And if they need not just attention, but also constant care? Who determines how much we must give for the life, care and upbringing that we once received? And where is the limit of this debt?
Our contemporaries live longer today than a hundred years ago. Thanks to this, we remain children longer: we can feel loved, enjoy care, know that there is someone to whom our life is more precious than their own. But there is another side.
In adulthood, many of us find ourselves in a situation where we have to take care of children and parents at the same time. This state of affairs has come to be known as the “sandwich generation.”
Generation here does not mean those who were born in the same period of time, but those who happened to be in the same position.
“We are sandwiched between two neighboring generations – our children (and grandchildren!) and parents – and glue them together like a filling in a sandwich sticks two pieces of bread together,” explains social psychologist Svetlana Komissaruk, Ph.D. “We unite everyone, we are responsible for everything.”
Two sides
Parents live with us or separately, sometimes get sick, easily or seriously, permanently or temporarily, and they need care. And sometimes they just get bored and want us to pay more attention to them, arrange family dinners or come to visit, spend holidays together, go on vacation with a big family. Sometimes we also want them to take care of our children, allowing us to devote more time to ourselves and our careers.
Quickly or slowly, they are aging — and need help to climb stairs, get into a car and fasten their seat belt. And we no longer have hope that we will grow up and become independent. Even if we get tired of this burden, we still cannot hope that this will end one day, because that would mean hoping for their death — and we do not allow ourselves to think about it.
“It can be difficult for us to take care of elderly relatives if in childhood we did not see much attention from them,” says psychodramatherapist Oksana Rybakova.
But in some cases, the fact that they need us makes it possible to change the relationship.
“My mother was never particularly warm,” recalls Irina, 42. — It happened in different ways, but in the end we got used to each other. Now I take care of her and experience different feelings, from compassion to irritation. When I suddenly notice how she is weakening, I feel excruciating tenderness and pity. And when she makes claims to me, I sometimes answer too sharply and then I am tormented by guilt. ”
By being aware of our feelings, we create a gap between emotion and action. Sometimes you manage to joke instead of getting angry, and sometimes you have to learn acceptance.
“I cut pieces of meat in a plate for my father and I see that he is dissatisfied, although he does not mind,” says 45-year-old Dmitry. Fill out paperwork, help get dressed… But also comb your hair, wash your face, brush your teeth — having to take care of hygiene and medical procedures can be painful for elders.
If our delicacy meets their gratitude, these moments can be bright and memorable. But we can also see the irritation and anger of the parents. “Some of these emotions are directed not at us, but at the state of our own helplessness,” explains Oksana Rybakova.
Debt good turn deserves another?
Who and how determines what we owe parents and what we don’t owe? There is no single answer. “The concept of duty belongs to the value level, to the same level where we meet the questions: why? why? for what purpose? What’s the point? At the same time, the concept of duty is a social construct, and we, as people living in society, tend to comply to one degree or another with what is prescribed so as not to be rejected by this society, Oksana Rybakova notes.
— From the point of view of the law of generic systems, which was described by the German psychotherapist and philosopher Bert Hellinger, parents have a duty in relation to children — to educate, love, protect, teach, provide (up to a certain age). Children don’t owe their parents anything.
However, they can, if desired, return what was invested in them by their parents
If they have invested in acceptance, love, faith, opportunity, care, parents can expect the same attitude towards themselves when the time comes.
How difficult it will be for us with our parents depends largely on how we ourselves look at what is happening: whether we consider it a punishment, a burden, or a natural stage in life. “I try to treat caring for my parents and their need for it as a natural end to their long, healthy and quite successful life,” says 49-year-old Ilona.
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Even when we grow up, we want to be good to our parents and feel bad if we don’t succeed. “Mom says: I don’t need anything, and then she is offended if her words were taken literally,” 43-year-old Valentina is perplexed.
“In such cases, it remains only to admit that this is manipulation, the desire to control you through guilt,” says Oksana Rybakova. We are not telepathic and cannot read the needs of others. If we asked directly and received a direct answer, we did our best.
But sometimes the stoic refusals of parents to help, as well as claims to children, are a consequence of their beliefs.
“Parents often do not realize that their view of things is not the only possible one,” notes Svetlana Komissaruk. “They grew up in a different world, their childhood was spent in hardships. Personal inconvenience for them in the background, they should have been endured and not grumbled.
Criticism was the main tool of education for many. Many of them have not even heard of the recognition of the personal uniqueness of the child. They raised us as best they could, as they themselves grew up. As a result, many of us feel unloved, unpraised.” And it is still difficult for us with them, because children’s pain responds inside.
But parents are getting old, they need help. And at this point it is easy to take on the role of a controlling rescuer who knows best how to help. There are two reasons, continues Svetlana Komissaruk: “Either, because of your own increased anxiety, you do not trust your loved one with his own problems and strive to prevent his inevitable, as it seems to you, failure by all means. Or you see the meaning of life in help and care, and without this you cannot imagine your existence. Both reasons are connected with you, and not at all with the object of help.
In this case, you should be aware of your boundaries and motives so as not to impose care. We will not be rejected if we wait until we are asked for help and if we respect the freedom of choice of parents. “Only by separating my and not my business, we show real care,” emphasizes Svetlana Komissaruk.
Who if not us?
Can it happen that we will not have the opportunity to care for our elders? “My husband was offered a job in another country, and we decided that the family should not part,” says 32-year-old Marina, a mother of two children, “but we have in our care my husband’s bedridden grandmother, she is 92 years old. We cannot transport her, and she does not want to. We found a good boarding house, but all our acquaintances condemn us.”
In our homeland there is no tradition to send loved ones to nursing homes
Only 7% admit the possibility of their placement in such institutions1. The reason is not only in the peasant custom of living in a community, an extended family, which is imprinted in our ancestral memory, but also in the fact that “the state has always been interested in making children feel a duty towards their parents,” says Oksana Rybakova, “because in In this case, he is relieved of the need to take care of those who can no longer work and need constant care. And there are still not very many places where they can provide quality care.
We may also worry about what kind of example we set for our children and what fate awaits us in old age. “If an elderly parent is provided with the necessary attention, medical care, care and support, if communication is maintained, this can show grandchildren how to keep warmth and love,” Oksana Rybakova is convinced. And how to organize it technically, everyone decides for himself, taking into account his circumstances.
Continue to live
If the family has an adult who is free from work, in good health, able to provide at least basic medical care, then it is most convenient for an elderly person to live in home, familiar conditions, in an apartment with which many memories are associated.
However, it also happens that an elderly person daily sees how relatives take care of him, straining his strength. And then, while maintaining a critical attitude to reality, this observation can be difficult, as well as awareness of one’s helplessness and the burden that it creates for others. And often it becomes easier for everyone if at least some of the worries can be entrusted to professionals.
And sometimes such a transfer of responsibility is an urgent need.
“I clean the litter box, tidy up and make tea in the evening, but the rest of the time, a nurse takes care of my mother, she helps her with the toilet and medication. I just wouldn’t have had enough for all this!” — says 38-year-old Dina, a working mother of a 5-year-old son.
“Society has expectations that a daughter will take care of her parents rather than a son; either a daughter-in-law or a granddaughter,” says Oksana Rybakova, “but what will happen in your case is up to you.”
Whoever cares for a relative, life does not stop for the duration of this activity and is not exhausted by it. If we can approach ourselves and others not as someone who must obey the rules and fulfill duties, but as a living versatile person, then it is easier to build any relationship.
1. Izvestia with reference to the research of the NAFI Analytical Center, iz.ru 8.01.21.