Her.meneutics: When Mom and Dad Move In

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« Don't Think Pink | Main | Happy Wastegiving? »

November 23, 2010

When Mom and Dad Move In

Dispatches from a member of the half-a-sandwich generation.

Karen Swallow Prior, guest blogger

I knew my parents were coming, and not to visit — which was often, though living on the opposite coast, not often enough — but coming to live. Forever.

To understand what a great adjustment this would mean, it helps to know that I haven’t lived within 1,000 miles of my parents since I left for college at age 18. And since being married 25 years ago, I haven’t lived with anyone besides my husband — not counting the occasional house guest, various dogs, horses, and a cat named Chaucer. Such a life has made me self-directed, increasingly set in my ways, and easily irritated by the slightest upset of my routine.

So although I love my parents immensely, and like them a great deal besides, I approached the impending convergence of our lives as I do most things: with a sense of duty and a smidgen of anxiety. I just didn’t think about it more than necessary. Of course, my lifestyle and occupation (an English professor and department chair) don’t permit much time for a lot of extra thinking. But when the long-expected call came, on day four of their five-day trek from Washington State to our home in Virginia — their new home — and my Dad said, “We’re 400 miles away, we’ll be there sometime tomorrow,” I began to think.

“Tomorrow” had been a couple of years in the making. Many families find the conversation required to plan for aging and death difficult to broach, but my father has never been one to let anything be left to chance. So a few years ago, when he retired for the final time (having worked three consecutive careers), Dad sat Mom down to plan their future — more precisely, Mom’s future in the statistically likely event that he would “go” first, as my mother puts it.

When Mom told me about their discussion, I suggested that, when that time came, she come live with us. As the only daughter, I felt more suited — my deficiencies in the nurturing department notwithstanding — than either of my brothers to have her. This is normal, I suppose. 61 percent of family caregivers are women. I never dreamed my father would consider moving them both, kit and caboodle, from the home they had built some years ago to be near their grandchildren, my brother’s kids.

But then my father had his own dream. And the next morning, during their daily walk, Dad told Mom that he wanted them to move in with my husband and me.

So they made a couple of visits, chose a scenic knoll on our land between our house and the horse barn, drew up plans for a small home that my husband would build, and construction began.

That’s how we got to the phone call. And with their coming nigh upon us, I began, finally, to think concretely. Realizing my husband and I would be at school when they arrived, it dawned on me that I should have gotten some flowers, some balloons, something to greet them. It was too late to make the 20-mile trip to Wal-Mart, especially on a school night. Perhaps a “Welcome Home” sign? But did I have any large sheets of paper? Markers? Of course not. I wandered into the garage, where my husband was making last-minute preparations for their arrival.

“Do you have any big sheets of paper?” I asked unhopefully, explaining what I wanted to do.
“Do you want me to have the kids make something up tomorrow?” By “the kids,” he meant the students in his Building Trades class at the high school where he teaches.

“Could they?” I asked. He assured me they could, and I accepted gratefully a sense of relief.
He called the next morning, asking me to stop by his school on the way to my school. I pulled into the parking lot to see a gargantuan six-foot tall sign painted red with white wooden letters affixed, proclaiming, HOME SWEET HOME, and a little wooden house glued under the words. My husband planned to take it home to “install” at lunchtime. It wasn’t exactly the tactful, decorous, little banner I’d had in mind, but at least it was something.

After my late afternoon class, I returned to my office to a phone message. “We’re here!” My mother’s voice said cheerily. “During the whole trip, I just wasn’t sure how I’d feel when we actually got there,” she confessed into the phone. I never imagined that my mother—the woman who never second-guesses, never looks back, but has for her entire life charged full speed ahead in every endeavor (a quality which, for better or worse, I inherited from her)—would have had any doubts. Her message continued, “But when we pulled up to the driveway,” my mother’s voice broke, “… I saw the sign ….,” she paused, “and I knew we were home. ‘Home sweet home’.”

Even as someone whose life work centers on words, I am continually awed by the power of even the simplest words to transform a moment and, in so doing, all succeeding moments.

Karen Swallow Prior is English department chair and associate professor of English at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia. She has written for sister publication Books & Culture.

Comments

Good article... and you're a brave woman!

Oh Karen, I love this! Tomorrow has been a long time in the making, and what a wonderful story this is, unfolding in front of you.

"Home Sweet Home" transcends geography, age and gender.

May you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving this year. Together.

Beautiful...all of it~

I'm misty now!

oh...oh....oh.

How beautiful. What an exquisite moment.

My mother died two years ago at 72, before we ever discussed who might move in with whom. I know she's gone on to the ultimate "Home Sweet Home" but...oh....oh....oh.

Beautiful! I love the last paragraph.

stories like this, really makes me cry...meaning that we have to take care of our parents..God Bless You.

I moved to within 10 minutes of one of my children, and now I regret it. Their years of "come live by us" ended up being the equivalent of "let's do lunch." Be careful. Be very careful before you leave your friends and end up with strangers. I should have continued to love my children from afar.

Building a house next door isn't "moving in." Bringing my recently widowed father into our 900 square-foot, one-bedroom cabin is "moving in." Life is a lot neater and less-crowded for those who have money and therefore options.

Your parents have a separate dwelling place not physically attached to your home. They've moved close by, not in.

My darling dad lived in our home with us from the age of 78 to 88. For the past year he has lived in a seniors' lodge in a nearby town. It was both easier and more challenging than I'd anticipated to have him with us. I am so glad that we were able to live together for that time.

I am also glad that he is in a loving supportive community now as one of the things that I learned about myself during his time with us is that I really struggle to be a good caregiver. His choice to move to the lodge was bittersweet for me, but has proven to be an excellent decision for everyone.

Your moving description of your parents’ homecoming to Virginia stirred me to tears. Words do truly have the power to transform.

I was also impressed by your honest expression of the adjustments you will need to make to merge your parents’ lives with your own. I believe your approach describes a beautiful picture of family. I applaud your sense of duty. While duty without love would be sad, duty rooted in love is beautiful. A deep love for our families should be evidenced by a sense of duty to care for one another even in the seasons and situations that cause us anxiety. God’s most effective tool for making me more like Christ has been His call for me to serve my family. “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30). As I have repeatedly surrendered my selfish desires in order to serve my husband, children, and other family members, my love for my family has grown deeper than I ever imagined possible.

Yes, duty without love would be sad, but love without duty would not even make sense.

May God richly bless you and your family as you adjust to life together in Virginia.

Great article; thank you for honestly sharing your own process in making this transition in your life. It was beautiful how God used something you couldn't see as beauty to make your mom feel welcome. thank you for sharing this.

My husband and I are wrestling with this situation, and it is having a very negative impact on our marriage. He won't be honest and tell me how angry he is that I won't move in with his mother, and every time we visit her, the anger and bitterness are apparent in her words and actions. Caregiving for someone who has mentally and emotionally abused you for years is a task that I am not willing to assume, and I hope the Lord understands. We visit her as often as we can, but it always turns out to be a very negative experience. We recently tried to have her in our home for several weeks, and, again, it was a disaster. Please pray for us!

I grew up in the Middle East where you are expected to take care of your parents when they are old and needy. I like that. Our parents took care of us when we are growing up and we need to take care of them when they are old. God Bless you lady. You are a wonderful encouragement and a good example to all of us.

After I retired, I invited my parents, who were not doing well on their own, to move in with me. It worked well. One week the kitchen was Mother's--buy groceries, cook, clean--while I did the rest of the house. The next week we switched responsibilities. (Of course, Mother hired a housekeeper for her house-cleaning week!) They eventually had to go into a nursing home, for medical reasons, but I am very glad that we had those years together.

I appreciate the sentiments expressed, but like some of the other commenters, I felt a little cheated when I read that your parents were not actually actually living under the same roof.

I was interested in the article because my husband and I are facing a dilemma which we're praying carefully about - and that is opening our home to my widowed 85 year old grandmother.

Unfortunately my mother died two years ago and my aunt (my grandmother's only other child) is emotionally and mentally unstable so my grandmother living with her is not a good option.

Since my husband and I are the only grandchildren without children of our own we're feeling the pressure from other members of the family to 'parent' my grandmother who is just reaching the age where she cannot live on her own.

I love her dearly and if there was no other option then we would open our doors and she would be welcome, but I don't want my grandmother to move in with my husband and me.

I don't know what to do. I want to do the right thing but I also want my life, I get angry at myself because I feel selfish for wanting to concentrate on our business (which like other businesses has suffered in the GFC), I feel angry at my aunt for failing to care for her mother, as my own mother did before she died. I feel angry at my sister and cousins because they could be doing more (a once a week phone call and once a month visit would be nice).

I feel ashamed that I'm angry and that I'm not setting best Christian example - where is my forebearance, my joy, my peace? I'm angry that life over the past 4 years has been struggle after struggle, set back after set back.

I'm angry because I shouldn't feel that way because how does that show faith and trust in God? I'm sometimes afraid that it's not going to get better and only worse. I don't know what to do.

Living as a multigenerational famiiy is never easy. Especially in our "world" of nuclear families. This is something that has only really existed beginning with the post-WWII generations.

We are now a multigenerational family. Our son, his wife and two daughters have moved in with us. We moved into the guest room (smaller) and bath (only 1 sink, oh, my!) and while it's not always smooth sailing, we are making it work.

I'm glad we reached this decision and they moved in mid-July. The first week of September, my son lost his job - the company was closing the section he worked in for 8+ years.

We are having to feel our way through different parenting styles (our DIL's vs. ours), finding a way to help when we can (but letting them know when we can't), and giving our granddaughters unconditional hugs (the best part!).

Our DIL is expecting a boy in March, so we'll be adding a baby to the mix. That'll keep things interesting!

Our parents (both sets) would have viewed this as a failure on our son and DILs part - we view it as wisdom in making a hard choice to provide a stable home for their children.

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