YOUR LIFE SCRIPT MAY BE EDTED BY YOUR ADULT CHILDREN

There is no script for old. Old people merely complain that it is not fun, they are sick, spend too much time seeing doctors, can't do what they want to do any more, etc. There may be some attempt to emulate your parents but, in my humble experience, I was too wrapped up in the pressures of my own middle age to pay much attention to my parents aging. I was often told not to get old and that was about it. They also lived a long time. My mother started telling us we should be good to my father when he turned sixty-five because we didn't know how long we might have him around. I spent another 42 years 'being good to him' because he lived to 107 1/2

One of the reasons that people can't talk much about how to live out life is aging is so different a process for everyone. People find it hard adapt and resent the restrictions put on by physical deterioration. Arthritis seems to be one of the major activity disruptors. 'Arthur Itis' intrudes and doesn't want to leave. Intense pain accompanies severe arthritis which takes a great deal of psychic energy to manage. Physical mobility is limited. Limited mobility for the active is not only a shock and enormous inconvenience, it forces different life planning....sometimes forcing the most frustrating dependency on the availability of others.

Losing one's ability to drive is a mammoth narcissistic insult. To go from complete independence to dependency is one of the most difficult transitions elders or handicapped people have to make. Too often, adult children think that this is a reversal of roles and start making decisions for their parents. This is presumptuous and cruel. A parent is never not a parent. Often decisions are made totally for the convenience of the adult children with little consideration given to the sacrifices forced on the parent. Ethnicity and culture have a great deal to do with how these decisions get made, by whom, and when.

The previous role in the family is now changed. It cannot be defined because there is no gauge by which to judge the competence and ability of the elders or family members. An elder should write their own life script, unless it is clear or confirmed by professionals that the elder is incapable of making adequate judgments on their own. Nursing homes can be medically and socially protective though someone who was brought up to believe they should be taken care of by family until death ( especially by their adult children) may feel disrespected by being placed. Many elders interpret it as failure as a parent on their part. In a world where daughters did not work out of the home after marriage, that was an expectation. Today, with marital pairs working, it is often impossible to add caring for the elders to the tasks of the day.

The admonition: Don't grow old! suggests there may be and alternative to death. There is not, nor an alternative to getting old and needing to adapt to that reality. May we all have our choices to our end. Don't wait to establish those until the last minute because you will probably lack the strength and spirit to fight for them...because fight you must.