Who will take care of us when we are old and?frail?
The answer has remained constant for centuries: Your grown?children.
Maybe not in their home, but in their hearts, minds and actions until the day you die. You took care of them as babies, toddlers and teens. It?s payback?time.
The baby boomer generation, those born between 1946 and 1964, might be the first generation unable to count on their grown children as caregivers, if they even had?children.
It?s a new world, future oldsters. Get?ready.
The Past: Big families, great?expectations
Becky Tiller grew??
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Becky Tiller?s paternal and maternal grandparents are pictured here in 1988 when they were in their late 70s and 80s. ?They were my royalty,? said Tiller, a geriatric care manager in?Spokane.
(Full-size photo)(All photos)
Who will take care of us when we are old and?frail?
The answer has remained constant for centuries: Your grown?children.
Maybe not in their home, but in their hearts, minds and actions until the day you die. You took care of them as babies, toddlers and teens. It?s payback?time.
The baby boomer generation, those born between 1946 and 1964, might be the first generation unable to count on their grown children as caregivers, if they even had?children.
It?s a new world, future oldsters. Get?ready.
The Past: Big families, great?expectations
Becky Tiller grew up around all four grandparents near Nampa, Idaho. The grandparents often baby-sat Tiller and her siblings. When these family elders grew dependent, Tiller?s parents returned the?favor.
?Three of my four grandparents ended up with dementia, and the family was there to help,? said Tiller, owner of Tiller Care Strategies in Spokane, an adult and geriatric care management?firm.
From 1991 to 2001, Gail Goeller of Spokane oversaw the care of five family elders ? her parents, her in-laws and an aunt. Goeller?s parents had role-modeled devotion to aging elders. When Goeller was a child, her widowed grandfather lived?nearby.
?Every morning, my mom would see his hand come through the gate for breakfast. She knew it was part of the package,? remembered Goeller, author of ?Coming of Age with Aging?Parents.?
Family elder-care expectations were reinforced by religious teachings. Honor thy mother and father, and if you don?t, suffer some Catholic, Jewish, Protestant, Muslim, Hindu, fill-in-the-blank-religion?guilt.
If one grown child was immune to this guilt, another could step in, because boomers? families of origin were bigger than families?now.
In 1960, the average fertility rate for women in the United States was about four children. By the 1970s, when many of the older boomers started having families, the fertility rate dropped well below two children, where it remains, according to National Health Statistics?Reports.
Peggy Mangiaracina, 61, was a middle child in a family of nine?kids.
Between 1996 and 2009, her parents faced serious health challenges. Mangiaracina?s mother underwent three hip surgeries. Her father had a stroke and eventually, Alzheimer?s set?in.
Mangiaracina, a nurse who was vice president/executive director of Sacred Heart Children?s Hospital until her retirement in 2011, took family leave several times to fly back to central Minnesota to provide nursing care for her parents. There?s an old saying that one mother can raise nine children, but it takes nine children to care for one aging mother. In Mangiaracina?s family of origin, everyone pitched?in.
?I had only about three letters from my father in my whole lifetime, but my dad wrote me a letter after Mom?s first hip surgery,? Mangiaracina said. ?He wrote, ?I can?t tell you what it meant to know you would drop everything in your life and come home and take care of?Mom.???
The present: Changing?times
Mangiaracina and her husband, Mark, have two grown children. Neither lives in?Spokane.
Goeller has two children. Both live in?Spokane.
Tiller, who never married, has no?children.
Baby boomers did not replicate the larger families they grew up in, and about one third of grown children no longer live in close proximity to their aging?parents.
Those grown boomer daughters who many expected would step in to care for parents in older age? They are busier than?ever.
Since the mid-1980s the number of women in the workforce has grown by 44 percent, according to a 2010 congressional report, and 70 percent of those working women are?mothers.
?With the impact of the women?s movement, we could have it all: career, children, volunteering, staying fit, inviting dads to do more child care,? Goeller said. ?Our daily tempo sped up, compared to the generation?before.?
Despite the changing times, families still provide a good deal of care for aging parents. AARP reports that 42.1 million family members ? men and women ? now provide care to frail, elderly family?members.
Aging baby boomers, however, might be the last generation prone to feeling guilty if they don?t come through for their parents. Young people are not as involved with the religious institutions that reinforced honor-thy-mother-and-father?guilt.
A 2012 Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life report found that, among adults younger than 30, one-third were not affiliated with any?religion.
Guilt, so far, is alive and?well.
?I hear a lot of ?shoulds? and ?this is my responsibility,??? Tiller said. ?I do a lot of counseling with the adult children about not assuming responsibilities they can?t fulfill. A lot of them are not geared to be caregivers. I tell them they would have a better role overseeing the care, not giving the?care.?
The future: Communes, immigrants,?robots
Some aging baby boomers won?t have grown children to depend?on.
In the decades of peak childbearing years for baby boomers, the percentage of childless couples increased significantly, from 2.4 percent in 1982 to 6.6 percent by 1995, according to the National Center of Health?Statistics.
If older boomers can?t depend on grown children, where will they?turn?
?They?ll establish nontraditional relationships,? Tiller predicted. ?You?ll see the ?Golden Girls? motif. People will live?communally.?
New immigrants to the United States might be key?caregivers.
?Right now we have a huge population of Russian immigrants opening adult family homes,? she said. ?There are more people coming from the old world, and they honor their elders. They are not afraid of changing incontinence?briefs.?
Technology might provide care, too. So-called ?granny cams? already allow children to keep a virtual eye on elderly parents, and a 2012 Journal of Aging Research report concludes that elder-care robots ? still in the testing stages ? will enable people to remain living at?home.
Neither Goeller nor Mangiaracina expect ? or even desire ? their children to do hands-on care for them, but they are confident their children will walk with them in their old-age?journeys.
Both women believe the younger generation will provide elder care in more creative and holistic?ways.
?Part of what we gave our children was the idea that even if you didn?t come from a family of nine, you are part of a larger community,? Mangiaracina said. ?When my kids went to Gonzaga Prep, they did food drives and other sorts of things. Maybe some of their generation will say, ?I could go over to that lady?s house. I could do Meals on Wheels.? They feel an obligation to a wider?community.?
Source: http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2013/mar/25/caregiver-evolution/
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