Aging: Why Plan for It?

In the first of this three-part essay (see “It’s Gonna Happen” for Part I), we analyzed the inevitability of getting older and how many tend to ignore their increasing frailties, instead waiting for a crisis to precipitate the need to make changes.  When we do this, we create unnecessary stress and arguments among those about whom we care the most—our loved ones.  The first step in a better transition to the compromises required for moving smoothly through the aging process is to accept that we will all have to make some concessions to Father Time.

Once you’ve come to terms with this first given, the next one becomes obvious:  You need to plan from a position of strength about what form those compromises will take.  You can’t know now exactly which of the many age-related problems will plague you more than the others, so you have to have a variety of contingencies upon which to draw.  What if you need daily care from a health professional?  Supposing you need to stop driving?  If taking care of your bills becomes too much for you to handle, how will they get paid?  Pets?  Multi-level homes?  Fixing meals?  Yard work?  Social activities?  There are dozens of things that are integral parts of our lives right now to which we don’t give a second thought; we need to recognize those things that are most important to us, anticipate that we might not be able to carry on as we have in the past, and figure out what are the best alternatives for us when we have to change how we do things.  A few hours in your fifties or sixties analyzing your lifestyle and the vision you have for how changes might take place could save your family immense controversy later.  You need to make a plan.

And that plan needs to be clearly understood by your family and friends.  What you would like best shouldn’t be something about which your loved ones have to debate while you are laid up in a hospital.  You need to discuss your plan with those most impacted by it: That you would like to live with your oldest daughter when you have to leave your multi-level house shouldn’t be revealed one week before you plan to move in with her.  Your son-in-law might have some opinions about that idea that need to be taken into account.  It’s human nature to resist changes initially, but planning ahead for possible adjustments makes it much more likely that everyone will be able to process and accept them when they become necessary.  Although it may be painful to learn that your daughter and son -in-law would prefer that you live someplace else, isn’t knowing that and figuring out another acceptable option now—years before you need to move—better than being hit with that revelation days before you need a place to live and simply grabbing the first alternative you can find (or worse yet, that somebody else finds for you)?  Making your plan is a huge first step in this process, but unless your significant others know about it and have agreed to the parts which impact them, the best laid plans oft go astray, right?  Be sure to include your loved ones in your plan design.  They are affected by it too.  

That leads us to another important given that many seniors-to-be overlook:  What you decide matters to your children, and they cannot ignore the problems aging will bring you, even if you can.  Many of us claim that we don’t care about the risks of a living arrangement that might not be the safest or best for us—we’ve been living this way for the past thirty years, and we’re not concerned about the stairs or the isolation or the forgetfulness or on and on and on.  We’re adults, we’ve earned the right to live just the way we want, and we’ve decided we don’t want any changes.  Change is a tough thing for anyone, but doubly so for somebody over seventy.  Needless to say, then, the recent fall we took or traffic accident we caused can be quickly dismissed as an aberration.  But our loved ones don’t look at it quite that way.

No child wants his mother to be at risk, to have that idea constantly on his mind.  If you doubt that, just think back to your reaction to your parents’ problems:  When you found out that your mother had tripped over one of the countless throw rugs in her three-level house and lay on the ground unconscious for over an hour before somebody found her, what was your reaction?  “Oh, that’s just one of the inevitable risks she takes living in that big house by herself.  I wish she were someplace safer, but hey—she’s 81, so she’s entitled to live any way she wants.  Um, why is that fire engine headed toward her house?”  Not too likely, one would assume.

No, we all want the best, safest environment for our aging parents, so why would our kids be any different?  They can’t ignore the unsafe, isolated, wasteful living arrangements we might be clinging to any more than we could with our parents, so they’ll begin a campaign to get that changed for the better.  And that’s where the fighting and bitterness can emerge—“better” is not a provable, factual concept, and our loved ones will begin battling over whose vision of that better lifestyle should prevail.  Plus, they’re arguing with the aged parent about needing to do anything.  The secure, loving relationships we’ve worked so hard over the years to create can quickly degenerate into heated bickering which can leave permanent emotional scars on everyone.

Contrast that with a family whose seniors have been astute enough to make a plan.  Because these individuals anticipated the inevitable, necessary lifestyle alterations, they mapped out several options for their futures with which they could live.  That doesn’t mean that the senior will automatically accept the need for the change just because others believe it’s time, but at least once that first difficult decision has been made (that the current situation can’t continue), the person most affected by the change—the senior herself—is the one making the choices.  No, scratch that:  The senior already made the choices and has discussed them with her family, so now it’s simply a matter of implementing that which everyone has already accepted as a reasonable way to go. 

Of course, all of the family might not believe that the particular options the senior has chosen are the best ones; however, they’ve already acknowledged that those plans would be workable and they’re what their parent wants.  Even if those family members cling to their ideas which they feel would be preferable to what the senior has set up, it’s what the person most affected by the situation logically figured out.  That’s really difficult to dispute, unlike that stupid living arrangement the oldest daughter rammed through or that insanely expensive change the son-in-law sold everybody.  The quality of anyone’s life plan will always be subject to dispute, so the key to a smooth transition will depend more on who made the decision and when the decision was made.  If the choices are made well before they need to be implemented by the people who will live that way (the seniors themselves), the possibility for inter-family warfare is lessened.  

When a crisis precipitates children and friends to scramble to find something—anything—that will take care of the immediate situation for those whose capacities have already diminished, you’re looking at fertile ground for misunderstandings and disputes.  The choice made with or without planning could be exactly the same, but the emotional fallout and damage to relationships would be significantly less had the seniors figured something out well before it became necessary.

So the second part of a better way to approach age-related lifestyle changes is to make sure that everyone who might be affected by your decisions is on board with your plans.  And remember that doing nothing is unlikely to be an option your children will accept.  Clear communication will ensure that no crisis will catch anyone off guard and that the new arrangements will be okay with everybody impacted, especially the seniors themselves.

Next time, we’ll discuss one more advantage to advance planning for seniors as well as a couple of pitfalls to avoid once a plan has been made.