Caring for an aging parent can bring out the best and worst in adult siblings. On the one hand, sons and daughters can pull together in a common display of love and commitment. On the other, they can attack or abandon each other. This has lasting implications for their relationships. Years after Mom or Dad passes on, brothers and sisters will judge one another for who was there in the hour of need. Did he step up to the caregiving task or step out? Did she reinforce or undermine his efforts? Their perceptions of how well they worked together will strengthen or weaken their sibling bonds forever.
Working well together isn’t easy, however. The challenges are many — developing a common vision of a parent’s condition and needs; negotiating a plan for providing care that’s fair, if not always equal; fine-tuning that plan periodically in ways that are responsive to the parent’s decline but also sensitive to a sibling’s struggles to juggle other family demands. Sometimes communication breaks down among adult children and no coordinated plan can be devised. Sometimes siblings resent an older sister or brother for hogging the glory by making all the decisions for Mom or Dad. In the worst cases, arguments about money erupt even before a parent dies and siblings refuse to ever talk with one another again. Because the stakes are high and risks are great, adult children should consider the following guidelines to help their caregiving team run as smoothly as possible:
Check out your expectations: Everyone brings preconceived ideas to caregiving, from assumptions about gender roles to notions about geographic proximity. For instance, many siblings believe they know what a parent truly wants (e.g., never go to a nursing home, never have a feeding tube or never become a “burden” to the kids); the only problem is they disagree about what that is and haven’t checked out their ideas with the parent. Or, in another example, some siblings will defer to the oldest among them as the chief organizer of the caregiving team; others will bridle at any hint of hierarchy. Expectations need to be voiced in sibling meetings where differences in assumptions are hashed out and reconciled. Otherwise, those differences will be continuing sources of conflict throughout the caregiving ordeal.
