by Leah Curtis

Created on: March 22, 2009   Last Updated: March 23, 2009

We do not live in a perfect world. A child grows up depending on his or her parents to make decisions on behalf of the family. When one's parents start aging and the tables are turned, someone needs to step in and make decisions on their behalf. If prior arrangements have been put in place, life becomes a bit easier.

However, who sits around and talks about things such as "who is going to look after Dad when he starts to go senile?" Maybe we should talk about these things. The responsibilities we are willing to take on as our parents age, is an uncomfortable subject, but it needs to be addressed beforehand, for both the parents' and the children's sake.

Expectations, on both sides, become an issue as our parents' age. Parents, especially when you move them into your home, have a hard time adjusting to the new lifestyle. Most elderly people are set in their ways and their expectation is that you should change things to suit them. Parents also have a tendency to see their children as, well, children. Once a parent, always a parent. This became a big issue in our household when my mother-in-law came for a visit one weekend and refused to leave. It turned out she was fighting with her neighbours and forgetting where she left her car.

There were other indicators that pointed to dementia or Alzheimers. She had also made my husband her Power of Attorney a year before without telling him. When we had her tested, the doctors confirmed she did, indeed, have Alzheimer's. She is now in the latter stages of Alzheimer's and we can no longer care for her. We had to place her in a nursing home after living with us for six years. The first couple of years were extremely difficult, because I became her caretaker and I looked after my own aging parents. Sometimes I wished someone would look after me.

We all have responsibilities to someone in this world. It is what makes us a more compassionate, altruistic society. When it comes to our parents, our responsibilities become more personal. How much we do, depends primarily on what the parent or parents require. In many societies outside North America, parents, grandparents, nieces, nephews, are all part of the extended family, and the responsibilities to ones' parents are clear. It is not quite as clear-cut in North American society anymore. Many people marry, divorce, have children with more than one partner, so the lines as to who should take responsibility for whom becomes blurred.

I come from a large family; I have seven siblings.

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