We are in our
late 40s, have jobs we enjoy, a daughter in her second term at university and a
14-year-old son at home. My widowed mother came to us for Christmas and shows
no signs of going. I do not know what to do because she is my mother and did a
lot for me. She has always been difficult but now she complains about her age
and ailments all the time. My son is finding it hard to have to see her all the
time and now the Easter holiday is here.
Mrs T.
If we are lucky,
we will experience life from the vantage points of several generational
positions. Each period of life brings its own particular pleasures and
difficulties and, despite occasional yearnings for past moments, many people
are satisfied with their actual current age if they are not in pain or dire
circumstances. However, there is a limit to our chronological development. The
fact that death marks the end of life adds a different dimension to
relationships after the mid-life point.
Mrs T and her
husband have just said goodbye to one adult child. They are no longer young
parents with small children. They have the prospect of a new space opening up
but also a loss to face. Was it Mrs T who invited her mother to fill the empty
space in the nest or indeed the whole family? Not everyone wants a new space.
Indeed, for some it is experienced as being too close for comfort. John J., for
example, began to foster children when his own children left home whilst some
couples have a late baby at this point. Mr and Mrs T need to consider whether
their inability to set a time limit is because, despite the difficulties, they
want grandmother to stay.
Conversely, some
elderly relatives can be actively and rivalrously demanding of the newly won
space of their children. In those circumstances the middle generation can feel
needed by young and old just when they were enjoying their stage of life.
Having a parent
become dependent reactivates past memories. Mrs T remembers her own dependency
as a child and how her mother looked after her. However, to be the good child
she feels she should be could mean neglecting her dependent child. In this
situation the real child in the family can sometimes be expected to be the
adult whilst the grandparent takes on the role of new baby and the parent
becomes a good child. If however Mr and Mrs T manage to decide their real
wishes then they will be able to discuss this with their son and daughter (who
presumably will come back for visits) and balance the needs of all family
members.
What about
grandmother? When was she widowed? How much is she concentrating on her
ailments and her age because of losses she has not been able to reflect on?
Against that, we have the sharp comments from Cicero over 2000 years ago in his
excellent essay on “Old Age”. He says that when old people complain about their
age or their frailty “the trouble is due to character, not age.” He adds that
if somebody is difficult then every period of their life will seem tiresome.
Just as parents deny disturbance in their young in the hope “They will grow out
of it”, so too disturbance in the old can be denied by allowing them to grow
into it! “They’re only old-you have to expect it at his age”. This denies the
fact that some elderly people enhance the lives of those they have contact with
and some don’t. Old age does not suddenly confer either wisdom or disturbance.
Nevertheless,
bereavement takes its toll. In 1976 Lily Pincus, a founder of the Tavistock
Institute of Marital Studies was 75 and a widow of ten years standing when she
wrote her moving book “Death and the Family. The Importance of Mourning”. She
describes how she had to fracture her foot before she could fully experience
her grief over the death of her husband and she highlights the way unresolved
mourning clouds later relationships. Grandmother might appreciate help with
this issue. What about Mrs T’s relationship with her dead father? Are there
issues there that impede her ability to come to a decision? Mrs T’s mother is
one individual. The fact that she wishes to stay is her own preference and she
is entitled to it. However, the fact that is allowed to stay is because the
rest of the family are allowing her to. Whether this is through guilt, fear of
her death, unacknowledged need or love, would need expert help to establish.
“Death and the Family. The Importance of
Mourning” by Lily Pincus, Faber & Faber 1976