Lois Wyse: ThirdAge Insider

Your spouse may be imperfect, your children a problem, but chances are that the family crisis that takes most of your time has nothing to do with love or kids. Instead boomers find that many family crises deal with elder care, better known as supervision of our parents. WFD, a Boston-based consulting firm, estimates that 18 percent of employees in the workforce are responsible for care of elderly adults. Within the next five years another 22 percent of today's workers expect to be forced to deal with relatives too old to care for themselves. Compounding the anguish of dealing with parents who may be cantankerous, ill, financially unstable, and emotionally exhausted is the worry about the ways elder care impacts the lives of those still in the workforce. Absenteeism and inability to concentrate are only two symptoms of workers who juggle growing home and business tasks. Many of the letters addressed here are written because families seek ways to handle the increased responsibility when we become our parents' parents. Still not all of the problems with elder care are about estates, wills, and who gets what...or are they? Read the next letter, and see what you think.

Dear Lois
I am a 44-year-old man with a family at home in Silver Spring, Maryland, and a dear old uncle living on his own in St. Petersburg. He has been in less-than-great health and is having problems getting around the house. To help him, I contacted an agency to provide him with a companion to assist with chores around the house. A very professional Swedish gentleman at the agency set it up. Everything appeared to be in order when the aide arrived at Uncle's door--a six-foot-tall, blonde, blue-eyed knockout from Sweden. Well, she does his chores, prepares his afternoon and evening meals--and turns him on. He talks of inviting her on exotic trips and escorting her to the theater. I think he is out of touch with reality as, to my knowledge, the woman limits her role to the work and companionship. How can I bring Uncle back down to earth?

Nephew

Lois Says
Why try? Your uncle sounds happy to me. Tell me something. Did he want to take trips or go to the theater before Miss Sweden arrived? And secondly, has he taken these glamorous trips, and is he ordering theater tickets? Or is Dear Old Uncle spinning dreams with the kind of gossamer we all wish we had?

You're one of the few who, instead of being forced to deal on a daily basis with the needs of an aging relative, is able to relax and put the problem in another's hands. The reality most of us face is a lot tougher than an older man's fantasies. If you don't have to leave your job to run to Uncle's side, if you're not the one calling doctors and health care professionals whenever he coughs, sneezes or wheezes--consider yourself blessed.

So until Uncle names Miss Sweden in his will or until you see her wearing Auntie's pearls, I'd think about packaging Miss Sweden's brand of hospitality and pray that a more difficult reality stays far from your door.

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