As an example, recently her dad had to go into hospital for day surgery. Her brother took time off work to get him there but didn’t understand (or agree) that he should stay with him. He dropped his father off and planned to come back to pick him up. But the surgery was cancelled so Dad went home by subway without remembering to call anyone. First, there was a surreal search through several hospital departments looking for him. Then angry phone calls among the siblings about what had happened. One sister, in particular, feels very strongly that one of them should accompany their father to all medical appointments and procedures.
“It creates a lot of tension,” Lee says.
Caring for a frail elderly parent can bring siblings closer together or it can fracture their relationships, says Ingrid Connidis, a professor of sociology at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ont., and author of the book Family Ties and Aging. Most families do a good job of sharing the labour, with adult children who live nearest to elderly parents taking on most of the work and daughters taking on more responsibility than sons. Adult children who live farther away, who have younger children or who don’t have the financial means to help are seen to have “legitimate excuses” not to be as involved, she says. In families where siblings and parents care for each other, those excuses are much more likely to be accepted than in families where tension already exists.
When one sibling feels overburdened, it creates animosity that can result in the family drifting apart, especially after the parents die. “When there is conflict among survivors, families can break apart. The older generation is the centrepiece of everyone’s affection,” says Robert Glossop.
Lee, like most adult children providing care, finds her responsibilities eat into her workday and often leave her distracted. Linda Duxbury, a professor in the Sprott School of Business at Carleton University who has studied work-family balance, says the lack of support for caregivers is taking its toll. Her research shows only four per cent of employees have access to any kind of eldercare support through employers. She suggests employers will need to improve or face losing staff. The current worker shortage is giving employees a choice, and many are choosing to take early retirement or work part-time or move to a more flexible company to have the time to care for their parents. “Companies are going to lose a productive cadre of workers,” she says.
Many of the workers now caring for frail parents were caring for their children in the ’80s and ’90s when there was only minimal corporate support to help employees balance their work and family responsibilities. “At that time, employees just had to suck it up. Now, they’re saying I’m not prepared to do it any more,” Duxbury says. Duxbury sees the need for more government and corporate help. “We need a national eldercare program,” she says. In particular, families need help with crisis intervention. When a senior breaks a hip, for example, she often needs care for many weeks before she can manage at home again. Currently, home care is inadequate in most parts of the country, and families face long waiting lists for respite care in long-term care facilities.
