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Caregiving for an aging parent has become a normal part of the lifecycle.

The experience is not a “role reversal” so much as a role expansion.

Caregiving often involves a primary caregiver, but the work is shared among siblings and across generations.

Balancing a parent’s autonomy with their safety can create binds that are tough or impossible to solve.

If you’re caregiving for an aging parent, you aren’t alone. Nearly one in eight adults in the U.S. is caring for an aging parent. Family caregiving is increasingly recognized as a normal (if stressful) phase of the parent/child lifecycle.

You might sit on hold with the insurance company, wash the accumulation of dishes in the sink, check your mom’s blood pressure, help her to the car, drive her to a doctor’s appointment, and pick up the groceries she needs. And that’s only if she doesn’t need help with dressing, feeding, and getting to the toilet, all before or after a long day at work and helping adolescent or young adult children.

Quick pause. Let’s not fall into stereotypes: Older adults are not a needy bunch in general. Support tends to flow downstream from parent to child throughout much of life.

By the end of life, however, many parents find their abilities waning and their need for help increasing. Dementia presents obvious needs for care, but mobility issues, heart disease, diabetes, and other chronic conditions also impede functioning. Recovery from surgery or an acute health problem may require a quick pivot to provide support even when parents are otherwise independent.

Only a third of caregiving families can afford paid assistance. Even with financial resources, finding appropriate healthcare personnel and scheduling them can be challenging.

Enter the caregivers extraordinaire: adult children.

Who Are These Caregivers?

Caregivers for aging parents are as diverse as the........

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