Do you and Mom have Mismatched Goals?
This week the New York Times did a very telling article about what our families go through everyday. Many families come to us saying their loved one is “oppositional” “stubborn” or “difficult”. The NYT explores these ideas in their article 'Think Your Aging Parents Are Stubborn? Blame ‘Mismatched Goals’. I think that they hit the nail on the head. As the daughter of an 89 year old independent woman, I would say that me and my siblings many times have mismatched goals with what my mother wants. All people want to be independent, but when safety becomes an issue in a family, then sometimes different opinions arise. I was particularly satisfied to see that they talked about when the adult child backs out of the safety discussion because their parent is being “difficult’, it can lead to depression or a crumbling of the parent/child relationship. The relationship becomes not honest and the adult child can hold a resentment. We meet families with all of this angst all of the time. I think the Times is right. What are your parent’s goals? Talk together on how you can achieve them rather than get into conflict. As our parents are aging, it is a new world for us, the 50+ year old kids.