When you are a child and your parents are responsible for you, hopefully you have memories that your parents loved you and did the best they could with what they had.

Many adults struggle with their own childhood memories, and their interpretation of how their childhood was managed by the adults in the home. Many times there is more than one child in a family, and each child can remember the situation differently. A brother or sister may disagree with how one of their siblings describe the way their mother or father disciplined them, what the family rules were, or why each of them turned out the way they did.

Families are complicated and communication with each other can be difficult. Who is going to care for Mom and/or Dad when something happens and they cannot care for themselves?

There are few things that I have experienced in my career that can compare to an experience I had with a family that came to the hospital to visit their very ill mother. I was the administrator on call, and was notified by a nursing station charge nurse, that a family was being disruptive in a patient’s room. When I arrived, it was clear that the children had all been notified that their mother was ill by who knows what relative, and one by one they showed up to the hospital. They were all adults. It appeared that they had not spoken to each other in years, and all of a sudden they were faced with a dying mother.

One child wanted “everything medically possible” completed on his mother’s behalf, while another argued that their mother did not want to be left in a vegetative state. There were so many loud voices coming from the room, I had to literally separate them, and limit them to individual time with the patient (their mother, who was not responding, and had her eyes closed), while the others had to leave the room. They had to rotate visiting their mother every two hours, to avoid being in the same room at the same time.

Walking away from that experience I was stunned to see that much dysfunction in one family, in one room. That poor mother. What in the world happened when they were growing up that made them that unable to talk to each other? I have found that usually one adult child in a family takes on most of the caregiving, but when the end appears to be close at hand, everyone shows up. They bring their opinions and their guilt. Dealing with their guilt should be no one’s job, except for the family member that showed up at the last minute, and wanted to cause the most disruption.

If it is possible to talk to family members/siblings about the health of a parent you are caring for, try to do it.  If it has become impossible, let us know.

Have you ever had an experience as a caregiver that involved another family member that was difficult? Tell us what it was. Maybe it is still going on. How can we help? Let us help you problem solve the situation. There are always options to consider. “Now let’s get going!” xo Sally