Don’t Feel Guilty When Discussing Senior Care with Your Mom

You may feel guilty bring up the topic of senior care with your aging mother, mostly because you assume she expects you to take care of her. Living in the same town, or even same house, many adult children have that same idea.

They assume their elderly family members, parents most likely, and others in their family expect them to take care of that senior. Yet, you probably have a lot of other responsibilities in your life, too.

You may have a career, a couple of part-time jobs, are raising teenagers or young adults yourself, but even if you don’t have any those things going on, that doesn’t mean you have to become a primary caregiver to somebody in your family.

Senior care is a great option.

It doesn’t mean you don’t care. If you start talking about Senior care options with your elderly mother, you don’t have to feel guilty because it’s not the worst thing in the world. In fact, in many cases senior care could be much better than depending on an adult child who has never supported an elderly person before.

In truth, if you are like the average family caregiver in the United States, you have no prior experience doing this. You have no clue what to do.

Yet, tens of millions of people take on this incredibly important job without any idea what to expect or what is most important. The vast majority of them are focused on keeping their elderly mother or father, grandparent, spouse, or other aging loved one safe.

Yes, safety is vital.

Safety is not the only thing that is important. Quality of life is still critical, especially for people as they age. Your mother may need help a couple of days a week right now. That seems like an easy thing to do, right?

Yet, what happens when you stop by to support her? You may see her doing things or hear about activities she is taking part in, such as going for a walk around the block, visiting with friends, and so forth, and you think that is just too dangerous for her, especially with her limited mobility and physical strength.

You might think, ‘I’m coming over here, spending my time supporting her, and she can’t even be safe!’

That can cause resentment. It can cause frustration. And it can cause friction in the relationship. While you are trying to discourage her from certain activities or from doing certain things, she wants to maintain a high quality of life.

Talking about different senior care options can be the buffer you need to focus on your relationship with her instead of becoming her babysitter. She doesn’t need a babysitter. She needs her adult child to love and support her as she wants to live her life on her terms still.