When it’s time to care for an ailing parent, it’s important for siblings to communicate and agree on expectations for Home Care in Potomac. In this article from the Washington Post, there are 6 ways siblings can pull together for Mom and Dad.
My friend Mary’s mother died in July, and last week over dinner I asked her how she was doing. “I’m at peace with it,” she said. “But I’m afraid I’ve permanently damaged relationships with a couple of my siblings.”
In their mother’s final months, the five brothers and sisters fought over everything from how frequently out-of-town sibs should visit to how much morphine their mother should receive to which words they should use to tell their mom it was OK to let go.
“My one sister was horrified when she heard me tell my mom: ‘It’s OK to die now,’” Mary said. “She told me not to use the ‘D-word,’ ever.”
Bickering, negotiating and trying to reach consensus on decisions big and small was frustrating and exhausting for Mary and her whole family.
In an ideal world, siblings pull together to care for ill parents. But in real life, friction is common and can be made worse by a fine-tuned ability to push one another’s buttons and replay old rivalries. Ironically, the parent everyone’s fighting about would probably hate to see his or her children arguing this way.
