As an Elder Care Mediator, I help families resolve conflicts about their aging parents’ current and future housing, care, finances, and estate. Sometimes the Elder is part of the conversation, but often it’s just the adult children who are fighting about what should happen to their aging loved ones. These battles are particularly fierce when the siblings didn’t get along since childhood. And when their lifelong competition turns into a tug-of-war about the care of mom or dad, they may turn to me for help.
Here are a couple of examples from my recent practice:
- When mom turned 90, she agreed it would be safer for her to move from her rural home to live close to one of her daughters. Although both of them had offered to take care of her as needed, she decided to move to California rather than the Mid-West, because she prefers the climate. This is when the daughter in the Mid-West started criticizing everything her sister did or did not do for their mother: Rather than asking mom to live with her and her husband, the sister arranged for mom to rent another apartment in the same building. Since mom doesn’t feel comfortable driving in California, her daughter taught her to take busses and ride shares, rather than driving her on her errands. Mom also rarely gets invited to have meals with her daughter and husband, because their eating habits are very different than hers.
When the California sister got tired of hearing these complaints, she asked me to help facilitate a Zoom meeting with her sister and their mother. During this meeting, the siblings shared their concerns and hopes for their mother’s future and made a long list of plans to make sure that mom’s wishes and desires would be fulfilled. In addition, they hired a geriatric care manager to help them implement the plan and address mom’s future needs as they arise. - For most of their adult lives, two brothers avoided having contact with each other. That worked well enough as long as their mother maintained two homes, one in the US, where her first son lives, and one in Europe, near the residence of her second son. However, things changed when the siblings persuaded their mother to move into an assisted living community near her American home after multiple falls. Now the son in the US started staying in mom’s house for extended visits and managing all her medical and financial affairs. He also arranged for her to give him sole Powers of Attorney (P.O.A.) for her person (medical) and estate (financial). When his brother in Europe asked to be informed about their mother’s ongoing affairs, communication between the siblings broke down and I was asked for help.
During their Zoom session with me, the brothers discussed all their mother’s current and anticipated future needs and divided the tasks between them as evenly as possible, given the geographic distance and time difference between the US and Europe. Then they made a list of all expected communication needs and made a plan how they would meet them. They also agreed that the brother in Europe would be added as secondary POA, so he could act on mom’s behalf if needed during his planned visits.
What both examples have in common is that the adult children did not get along since childhood. In addition, one lives much closer to mom than the other and therefore is increasingly involved in decisions about her daily life. Although neither sibling enjoys their interactions with the other, the long distance one wants to be involved in communication and decisions about mom’s housing, care and finances, because they don’t trust each other. Consequently, one of the major mediation goals of the siblings in both families was to clearly define and limit the content and modes of their future communications.
Do you or a friend, colleague or client have adult children who never got along and now are in conflict about each other’s involvement in their aging parents’ care and finances? Please, ask them to call or text me at 510-356-7830 or e-mail katharina@aginginharmony.com, so I can offer them a complimentary confidential consultation to explore how Mediation may help them develop a plan for collaborative and effective communications and decision making concerning their parents’ current and future care.
Katharina W. Dress, M.A., Mediator / Facilitator / Conflict Coach
AGING IN HARMONY, Cell Phone: 510-356-7830
E-Mail: katharina@aginginharmony.com, Web: www.aginginharmony.com
Helping Feuding Families Become Peaceful Partners –
In-Person, by Phone, or Online via Zoom
