Why Not Prepare For Caregiving?

At a social gathering a woman at my table stated she had not thought about herself as a future caregiver. She told me; “My parents are fine right now and thinking about them needing my care is scary.” Her comment made me think about what holds adult children back from preparing for caregiving. I see four reasons:

First: It’s scary. Certain factors make circumstances feel scary. When we don’t know what to expect; it’s scary. When we don’t know how to respond; it makes us feel helpless and scared. When we don’t know where to get help; it makes us feel alone and scared. No one wants to be in that situation. It’s normal to withdraw when we don’t know what else to do. There is a better way; preparation.

Our society has found ways to meet other challenges by preparation. For example, I live in tornado country. We never know when the weather will change. Yet, we don’t sit paralyzed: we prepare and respond. We have weather warnings, sirens, shelters, and drills. We may have tornadoes, but we don’t take these lying down! Because society prepared, life goes on.   Life could go on for caregivers as well if they were prepared.

Caregiving preparation follows the same preparation pattern. Learn about it. Make contingency plans. Engage others effectively. Preparation removes the scary parts of the process. I developed a course, Preparing to Parent Your Parent, to help new caregivers or future caregivers do that.

Why do some people respond to a course for caregivers like this? “I’ll deal with it when the time comes.” Really! Think about the other ways they prepare. Would they wait until their car slid off an icy road to check the tires in winter? Did they wait to study childbirth until they were in labor? If they would do those preparations; why not do the same for caregiving? The worst time to make plans is in the midst of a crisis!

A second reason for hesitation: The same person described her concern about elder-related information. She felt like she had so much to learn she didn’t know where to begin. She wasn’t sure how she could remember it. Information overload is a 21st Century condition.   Some people have described it; “like drinking out of a fire hose”! The internet doesn’t give caregivers ways to order, relate, and manage information. We have always had ways to manage information. Remember the card catalogue in the library? It helped us find the right book. We didn’t need all the books at once because we knew we could return to get more information when we needed it.   A caregiving preparation course does the same task as the library card catalogue; manage information. My course turns the information fire hose down to a drinking fountain!

The third reason future caregivers hesitate is they do not have role models from their early lives. There’s a reason for that missing link; the age change happened so quickly. Let’s compare; in Sangamon County, in 1910, the average life expectancy was 50-53 years (depending on gender and race). Compare that to 2010; when the average life expectancy was 77-78.8 years. That’s a big jump in only two generations! Contrast that change with millennia we have born children. People grew up seeing many adults caring for children. We received role models by social osmosis. We have not had the same numbers of seniors, for as long, very until recently. We don’t have an historic set of elder care wisdom yet. We can fill that gap with preparation. We can learn new skills just as we learned to drive a car. We can adapt to changes, just as we have adapted to the internet. We have already learned and adapted to other things; why not apply them to elder caregiving preparation?

The final reason caregivers might hesitate is worry about health. That is not a selfish attitude. Every organism is oriented to preserving itself. Taking care of ourselves as we care for others is an essential skill (and included in my course).   Many elder caregivers are also responsible for children, spouse, house, pets, and the job! It’s not selfish to be worried about how to will meet the needs of all these other people and the senior’s. It’s admirable to have these concerns answered.

Preparation is the key to helping caregivers remove fear, overwhelming feelings, missing role models and caring for themselves.