Having Those Tough Conversations About Caregiving #SHGenworth

Disclosure: Information for this post is sourced from Genworth Financial but feature my own thoughts and opinions.

Each year I get older, so do my parents and the circle of life comes into light.  They took care of me when I was younger and I will probably have to take care of them as they get older.  My husband and I are both the oldest kids in our families so we have even more responsibility for helping out it seems like.  Both of our sets of parents are only in their 50’s so hopefully caregiving is a long ways off, but it is something I think about.  My aunt actually took care of my great grandma for about ten years as a caregiver and I saw her struggle, so I have been slowly thinking about ways to go about caregiving and talks we can have with our parents.  Neither are rich either so there is no luxury retirement homes for them waiting, there is our house or whatever we else we can do for them.

Did you know that “6 out of 10 Adults provide or have provided unpaid care to an adult family member or friend” (according to a survey by Johnson and Johnson?)  Genworth Financial has an article with tips and insights on how to make caregiving go more smoothly.  There are Do’s and Don’ts for having talks with your family members and so many things I hadn’t even thought about it.

Some of the tips from Genworth include:

• Do Make it About Them
• Do Have a Sense of Humor
• Don’t Drift Into Old Hurts
• Don’t treat them like a child

Read all the tips and tricks here:

There is even an article from Next Avenue entitled “When and How to Coax Your Parents to Move Closer” which I found helpful.  The house we live in now is the house I plan to retire in as we just moved into it four years ago (and this is already our third house so I am done moving) and we live directly in the middle of both of our parents but 45 minutes away from each.  So I have thought about what if one of them gets sick or loses a spouse, if they didn’t want to move in with us then it would be easier if they were closer.  I can’t imagine though even talking to either parents about moving out of their homes as those are the homes they each raised their families in.  For me and my husband there would be no hurt feelings if they moved our of the family home but I think our parents might have a tough time leaving those memories behind.  Heck, I can’t imagine leaving our current house now or ever!  The article had some really great tips and ones that I will definitely be keeping in mind for future (hopefully way into the future) conversations.