Aging Parents and Caretakers

The most important people that help you with your aging parents, outside of family and close friends, are those you end up paying to help. Since the pandemic, finding compassionate care takers has become a growing need across our country. We’re all aware Covid-19 made a drastic impact on front line health care workers, but unless you were dealing with a parent in a facility, you might not truly understand the magnitude of how difficult it truly became and still remains to find good people.

Let’s first dissect the caretakers I’m actually talking about. Do you have a aging parent in a wheelchair, one that can’t stand without assistance? What about a parent that needs help going to the bathroom or who can’t remember they might need to even go the bathroom causing accidents? Maybe they need help with taking medications or rides to the doctor? If you said yes to any of these questions, then you’ve potentially had some type of help along the way.

Let’s call these people, the doers. The doers are the ones who sometimes do things you just might not want to do. Say for instance, they assist your parent in the bathroom or maybe they give them a bath/shower. This type of assistance is taxing on anyone, let alone yourself. When you hire someone or pay someone to do these tasks, you have an expectation of what they should or shouldn’t do with your parent.

Of course you want them to have compassion. Your own compassion might be slipping away, especially if you are the sole caretaker of your aging parent(s). You also want them to have patience. I’ve previously blogged about patience and it is quite hard when dealing with elderly people. Lastly, deep down you really want them to care about your parent. But is that a realistic expectation if you are paying them to do these things?

My hope is that whoever you hire to help you with your parents, you yourself are treating them with compassion and patience. They are doing the grunt work you probably don’t want to do or have time to do. They are wiping noses and other areas, changing diapers, giving shots, listening to complaining and maybe even feeding your parents each and every morsel of food at meals. Caretakers need support, they need a thank you and they need to know you as the family member are appreciative of what they are doing for your family. I guarantee you, if the person you hired to help you knows you are kind, they will do anything in the world for your family. Let’s pay it forward and thank those who we need to help us.