Another patient story

I had a patient complaining to me today.

Not about our hospital. But about taking care of her mum.

She was a lady in her 50s, whose mum is already 83. Her mum has limited mobility, so she has to carry her to and from wheelchair to bed/sofa/chair. As she herself is not young, she has difficulty supporting her weight.

In fact she fractured her own wrist once because of that.

Even though the daughter spends much effort to care for the mum, her mum gets on her nerves by saying things that get her down. She doubts her filial piety, saying that she knows her daughter thinks she is a burden. She refuses to move in with her daughter despite numerous requests, yet says that her daughter doesn't visit often enough. She even says that she will rather die than live.

I feel so sorry for the both of them.

I believe the mum is just saying things that she don't really mean. Yet, she says them anyway because those are precisely the things that she fear: being a burden, being alone, dying. Perhaps she thinks that by saying them repeatedly to her daughter, it will be less painful when it really happens.

Maybe she will rather be the one pushing others away, than the one being abandoned.

The daughter, on the other hand, is simply tired. Physically. Emotionally. And I don't blame her. It is not easy putting in so much effort to care for one person, and yet be totally unappreciated.

Caring for the elderly is indeed not easy. I am still trying to wrap my finger around how a parent-child relationship changes/shifts as both grows older. When the child is young, the parent is the authoritative figure. So, when the child has to take care of the parent, does the role reverse? Can the child demand that the parent to go for health checkups, because it is for their own good? And when does this role reversal actually happen? It seems that it usually takes a medical crisis (e.g. stroke, heart attack) for a parent to start accepting advice from their children, and for a child to realize that they need to step up and start taking care of their parents' health. And sometimes that may be too late.

And I have observed that filial piety among siblings is sometimes dependent on your marital status, and your earning power. Often, the unmarried sibling will be the one entrusted to take care of the parents. If all are married, then the more well-off sibling, or the one with least kids will be the one expected to pay for the medical bills.