21 | Start Talking With Your Aging Parents Now
21 | Start Talking With Your Aging Parents Now
Today I’m talking about inherited clutter. Inherited clutter is when you become the recipient of someone else's belongings for any other reason than by choice. Many people avoid having a conversation with their parents about finances, future living situations, and healthcare.
Talking about aging doesn't make it less likely to happen. Instead, it's a way to connect with and better understand the older generation's wishes and desires. Your parents may push it off or say they don't want to be a burden, but it's your job to help them understand that unfinished plans or decisions are a burden.
Listen in as I briefly touch upon the impact of inherited clutter and emphasize how you can proactively engage in conversations so that there's a plan for your loved one's items and care. Here are a few open-ended questions to start with:
Where would they like to live?
How might their home need to be modified to ensure they can age-in-place successfully?
How comfortable are they with continuing to handle the home’s upkeep?
The impact of not knowing what someone wants is immense. However, it's preventable. By embracing an organized life, you can use the three cornerstones: emotional resilience, powerful decisions, and deep self-trust to navigate everyone through sensitive conversations. Remember, you're more organized than you think, so decide to use it to your advantage to get the conversation started.
RESOURCE:
Becoming a Caregiver or Thinking Ahead?
Download my Open Ended Questions for Loved Ones and Care Communities + join my email community.
FEATURED ON THE SHOW:
Come say hello on Instagram
Follow me on Facebook
See what I’m up to on LinkedIn
Join my workshops.
LIKE THIS EPISODE?
I invite you to share, rate, review and follow my show. Also, join the conversation by connecting with me on Instagram @apleasantsolution.
-
Intro: Welcome to A Pleasant Solution, Embracing an Organized Life. I'm your host, certified life coach, professional organizer, and home life expert, Amelia Pleasant Kennedy, and I help folks permanently eliminate clutter in their homes and lives. On this podcast, we'll go beyond the basics of home organization to talk about why a clutter-free mindset is essential to an aligned and sustainable lifestyle. If you're someone with a to-do list, if you're managing a household, and if you're caring for others, this podcast is for you. Let's dive in.
Amelia: Welcome to Episode 21, “Start Talking with Your Aging Parents Now.” When I started this podcast, I knew I’d include a thread about caregiving and inherited clutter. That’s because my business, A Pleasant Solution, came into being alongside my own caregiving journey. The two are very much intertwined. When deciding upon a business name, I wanted to choose something that encompassed working with all generations. Although many of you may be working through decision making and organization within your own homes, there’s always another set of clutter looming in the background – the objects owned by our loved ones.
On today’s episode, I’m going to share what I mean by inherited clutter and briefly touch upon its impact, and then I’ll emphasize how you can proactively engage in conversations so that there’s a plan in place for their items, as well as their care. Some communities and cultures are more open to discussing aging and younger generations grow up knowing exactly what is expected from them when it comes to caring for their parents. In other communities, youth is valued at a premium, so older adults hesitate to confront their mortality. They wait much later in life to set firm plans for their belongings and their care.
Now as a member of the sandwich generation – and by this, I mean having children at home and caring for my mother – I understand the impact and importance of planning much more intimately. I’d rather you not have to feel rushed, overwhelmed, or unsure from the weight of objects and care planning which is why I’m encouraging you to start talking with your parents now.
Inherited clutter is when you become the recipient of someone else’s belongings for any reason other than by choice. Most commonly, it’s when someone you’re related to passes away, and you are given or required to take ownership of their house or any quantity of their possessions. On one hand deep down you expect it, however, because no one knows exactly how long they’ll be on this earth for, the moment that you transition into being a caregiver or responsible for someone else’s items is often accompanied by loss, grief, or any mix of emotions.
Resentment, although not often acknowledged, is a common one. You may have heard your parents say some version of, “Oh, we don’t want to be a burden…” yet then you find yourself renting and paying for a storage unit month after month because making another set of decluttering decisions is terribly difficult during this unexpected moment. The pandemic created a wave of these challenging intergenerational decision-making moments. Folks discovered that their family members had no clear directives for health care or no will to distribute assets. Talking about plans when life is smooth can be uncomfortable, however, it’s layers upon layers more difficult when emotions are high. The impact of NOT knowing what someone wants is greater and it’s preventable. Because you’re embracing an organized life, you can use the three cornerstones - emotional resilience, powerful decisions, and deep self-trust to navigate - to lead everyone through these sensitive conversations.
So, let me start by making a parallel with something you may be more familiar with. Even if you don’t have children of your own, you’ll be able to relate to puberty as an analogy based on how the conversation did or didn’t happen in your own life. Okay, so when our children are tweens, we feel uncomfortable and awkward discussing puberty with them. In America, we’ve coined it as “the talk.” As a parent, you may be unsure of how your kid will receive the information, whether you’ll stumble over your words, or how they’ll react. Honestly, most folks are afraid that these conversations will end up being a disaster. As a result, you delay connecting with them and try to ignore the fact that their bodies and lives are changing. Educators and experts tell us we should have these conversations sooner, yet instead of opening up a year or two prior to hormonal changes starting, lots of folks wait until emotions are in full swing to acknowledge what’s happening. Often, as parents we make it more about us and our own emotional discomfort than about having a matter-of-fact conversation.
Puberty is a life stage all humans go through. It’s a form of aging, albeit at a different time of life. Humans get older as each day passes. You’re always aging. At some point our bodies and minds start to slow down. We need and use less space within our homes. It becomes more physically challenging to move items out of the home. Talking about aging doesn’t make it less likely to happen. Nor does it bring about changes. It’s a more of a way for you to connect with and better understand the older generation’s desires and needs. We all need to begin to talk with our parents about aging sooner rather than later.
The current approach is to ignore the topic of aging all together. Yet, not talking about it doesn’t keep it from happening, just like puberty. Delaying this conversation does not make it easier, however. I get it. Each of us is more focused on our own lives. You may believe it’s your parents’ responsibility to make decisions about what they own. You may think it’s part of adulthood – making end-of-life decisions. But most adults don’t ever get around to it. Life gets busy and we make excuses: we’re raising children, managing our work and home lives, and dealing with all of the day-to-day logistics that occur in midlife. You may already think you know what they’ll say when you bring up the topic of aging. You may even believe family holidays and get-togethers are meant to be lighthearted gatherings and conflict free, so of course there’s not a good time to talk about it.
I mean, do you really want to sit down with your parents and tell them they’re getting old? Do you really want to discuss retirement finances, future living arrangements, and downsizing? My mom and I used to joke about her living with me later in life. She’d say things like, “Well, when I live with you…” The difficult topic seemed best to highlight through a joke. It’s an upsetting topic, so most of us avoid it. You may think you’ll get around to it eventually. You may think that they’ll bring it up with you. Your parents must notice that they’re getting older, right?
Again, this avoidance approach may seem easier, but denying the need for and delaying a straightforward talk with our elders only makes the elephant in the room loom larger. You know what’s coming in the next few decades. You’re more organized than you think, so decide it’s to your advantage to get the conversation started.
I get it. Complicated discussions around finances, living arrangements, end of life wishes, and household contents/memorabilia can be difficult and emotional. That’s one reason I believe Margareta Magnusson’s book “The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning,” was so popular. Magnusson discussed how making conscious decisions around objects for the 10+ years prior spread out the emotional journey into a manageable process. But leaving the decluttering process or estate planning process up to chance is not the risk you want to take.
When an emergency like a fall, a stroke or heart attack, or a car accident sends a parent (or anyone) to the hospital, these topics immediately come to the forefront. The problem is that it becomes immensely more difficult to think in level-headed, practical terms when someone is unwell. Talking with siblings and extended family while processing the emotion of the moment is tough. You may end up making decisions from feelings of fear, guilt, anxiety, or overwhelm rather than from a place of balance and calm. This approach – the wait and see approach - is a disservice to us and our loved ones.
Based on my experience with clients and conversations with other professionals in the organizing industry, it’s best to broach the topic of aging and wishes early and often. There’s no denying that getting old can be hard. Most older adults don’t want to think about how time is limited and that the last few decades of life have the potential to be a bit lonely. It’s also liberating for folks to reach an era of life where they can be honest and open with others.
A shift in mindset on your part can be helpful. It’s where our generation’s window of opportunity lies. I wanted to keep my parents at the center of the conversation and encourage their agency and participation. I wanted to talk with my mom. I wanted to hear her input about what mattered to her in her living environment. I respected the money she’d earned and saved and wanted to know exactly what she wanted done with it. I didn’t see it as my place to outline her health wishes for her. And having this conversation with her in my late 30s taught me a good deal about love and retaining independence and agency at a moment when life was truly changing for her.
Which is why I believe the goal is to have your parents actively determine and outline their wishes so that the remaining time spent together is free from worry. Your role is to respect and support their ideas in the most compassionate way possible, even if the current state of your relationship is strained. I don’t deny it; there will be push back. Humans are excellent at avoiding sad and disagreeable topics. Your parents won’t feel the same sense of urgency and will try to smooth over what they feel is “something we can talk about later.” It probably will take multiple tries to get them to sit down with you. They’ll mention “not wanting to be a burden,” yet it’s your job to help them see that unfinished plans or decisions are the burden NOT having the discussion around it.
It's okay to start the conversation by plainly stating that the topic is uncomfortable for everyone. Create common ground by sharing how starting or engaging the conversation benefits them. When they decide sooner rather than later what to do with their items, they remain completely in charge and will have full agency over what happens. Each year the subject is avoided and the effects of aging are ignored increases the pressure for all involved. You’re more likely to be responsible for their cluttered estate if they don’t outline their wishes.
Don’t try to tackle every subject at once. Negotiate with them in advance a specific, set amount of time to chat. Everyone likes knowing that tough topics won’t be belabored for hours upon end. Select one subject at a time — such as living arrangements in their 70s and beyond – and start with a topic they’re ready to discuss. The goal is awareness first, then decision making later down the road.
Here are a few open-ended questions to start with, and I’ll link these in the show notes:
Where would they like to live?
How might their home need to be modified to ensure they can age-in-place successfully?
How comfortable are they with continuing to handle the home’s upkeep?
Again, they may not want to open up to the idea right away, and that’s okay. Remind yourself that it’s not about you. They may not have begun to consider the answers (or possible alternatives) yet. You will fumble your way through bringing the topic up the first few times. It will be awkward, and your parents may try to shut the door on these talks. Yet, keep after it.
Aging is inevitable. Needing assistance in some form is inevitable. Tell them “not being a burden” means having these difficult discussions. By knowing how they want the contents of their home distributed, and what they deem essential to their legacy, you will be in a better position to honor them and share in their joy as they get older. My mom, for example, ended up deciding not to live with us. The idea of living with other people after living independently for the last twenty years seemed too much. Plus, with the prospect of dementia on the horizon we knew that our regular schedule may cause her anxiety – worrying where we were each day, worrying about how she could help, and this wasn’t the burden I wanted her to carry.
Start talking with your parents about aging now. There’s absolutely no upside to waiting. Creating awareness about their life stage is about holding space for your family’s emotional and physical journey ahead. It’s one way of cutting down on your mental clutter in advance.
It will take time for them to declutter and downsize, so a few decisions around items each week will compound and make the process easier for them and you. It will take time to talk with a lawyer and establish an estate plan. Giving space to the emotional journey benefits everyone. It takes time to think through whether or not they want to maintain their own home into their 80s and 90s. By initiating the conversation sooner, each of you will have the space to make clear how you can help and support one another. It’s a lesson in vulnerability. I now know the shape I want my later years to take having gone through this process with my mother. I’ve talked with my dad and in-laws too.
Remind them, there’s no need to make final decisions now. There’s always wiggle room when you begin planning early enough. Normalize the discussion today so there’s more room for joy for you all in the days ahead. You’ve got this. Talk to y’all soon.
Outro: Thanks so much for tuning into this week's episode. If you liked this episode and know of just one other person that can get value from it too, I invite you to share it with them. I'd be more than grateful. I'd love to stay connected with you too. Make sure to follow this podcast to connect with me on Instagram @apleasantsolution and join my community at www.apleasantsolution.com. Talk to y'all soon and remember, you’re more organized than you think.
