Household Duties: Issue 15

The Generation Gap

The generation gap affects the elderly population the most. They are the ones who may recognize the changing world around them the most. The world they now live in is very different from the one they knew. Life as they knew it has gone extinct. Read more...

Cultivating Your Voice

Aging parents have a lot of challenges to face, one of them that may hit them hard is that you are no longer a child. Some parents insist on keeping their status as the parent and treat you like a teenager, someone old enough to take care of them, but young enough to still command.

One of the mistakes I made was to allow my parents that role again, instead of setting the boundary of my adulthood. At first, I thought I was being honorable towards my parents, but I realized that I was allowing them to act condensing towards me. I became a 46 year-old teenager. It was frustrating at best.

Cultivating your voice is more than being heard, it is about being listened to as well. A lot of changes are likely happening to your parents’ lives and they may want to hold onto something that appears to be constant: you. However, it’s too easy and too tempting to allow them the authoritative parental role out of respect for them. In the long-term, it is more emotionally taxing for you to comply than for you to set the boundaries for yourself and them.

It takes time and a good relationship to adjust to the many changes your parents face. Allow them the time for that adjustment, but also give friendly reminders that you are an adult now and you are able to function independently. Just like they want their independence to be respected, you would like them to respect yours.

The Two-Minute Rule

Sometimes it’s too easy to put off certain tasks, especially when you feel overwhelmed. I know that when I feel like I don’t have the time, I drop things off to deal with it later. Soon enough, I have all sorts of drop-off stations that continue to collect the forgotten piles of things. It gets messy quickly.

Now I’m fine with the mess, as long as the floor is free and clear of any piles, but my parents have a higher standard of organization and these piles found on counters, chairs, and tables (sometimes their bed!) are intolerable. It’s too much disorganization for their comfort.

To adjust, I worked on a 2-minute rule. Each time I was tempted to drop-off an item to deal with later, I decided that I could take 2-minutes to put it away right then and there. It accomplished not only the clarity of no clutter, but it also instilled in me the importance of taking the opportunity now and instead of waiting for later.

For the most part, most items only took 30-45 seconds to put away. Two minutes is more than enough time to stay ahead of the mess.

Stepping into Their History

Life can be a rat race at times, especially when you’re the only caregiver for your parents. There may be days when you feel too busy to even consider sitting down with them for a couple minutes. Instinctively, you may feel so rushed that you may think that if you only sit for a couple minutes, they may keep you for a couple hours. That can be very inconvenient while you’re trying to prepare a meal.

My dad liked to talk and converse, but there were days that he could not stand for long periods of time. To accommodate him and still accomplish meal preparation, he would sit in the kitchen and talk while I prepared the next meal. During those times, I learned about simple things in his past that helped him stay ahead in his entrepreneur days in the eighties.?

Allowing Dad to talk gave me the opportunity to glean wisdom from his stories, a new awareness of life then (I was only a child) and a better understanding of where he came from. Some stories were repeated often, but each time it was like he was telling it for the first time. I learned to ask him different questions about the details. Each time he was patient and ready to explain. He had no problem talking the time away, but for me, it was like stepping into his history and learning more about his life when he was able to do more.?

About the Author

Here?is a little about me.