Aging father can’t ‘sit still’
Ask Carolyn
Dear Carolyn: I moved back in with my 70ish-year-old parents, partly because I have a chronic illness and partly because they are 70ish and can’t do everything by themselves. Ha, did you believe that? ‘Cause I did!
The truth is that my father does everything he is not supposed to do, all the time. This is after doctors’ advice to stop, slow down, and ask for help.
Guess who recently ripped his fingernail off and broke his finger putting his hand under the mower while it was running? Just for a second! Could have happened to anyone!
A tropical storm is coming and suddenly he needs to clean every one of the gutters before it gets here. WHY.
This is after my mother and I spent a solid 30 minutes convincing him not to mow the grass for various reasons. He agreed, but then guess who hears the lawn mower running later in the day. Me. I hear the lawn mower running.
Somehow I have adopted the world’s tallest toddler. There is a general idea in our house that, ha ha, this is how all men are in retirement! Ha ha! They are all negligent and liars? I think we can expect better of our retired men than this.
I would be less frustrated if he weren’t in pain. None of his body parts work correctly, which is a surprise to no one but him. If I remind him that cleaning all the gutters will make his shoulders hurt, like three weeks ago when all the items in the attic had to be brought down and inspected – he says, yup. As if, this is the price we pay to be human.
He is going to HURT himself. He has never been able to sit still or relax. Is there someone we can get him to listen to and stop this madness? – Help Me
Help Me: Why are you still trying? Not a rhetorical question – I am genuinely curious.
I’m always happy to see a stereotype dragged out to the curb for trash collection, so I won’t agree with you that this is what a retired man has to do somehow. But you say yourself he was never able to sit still. Why force him out of his happy zone now?
I can see trying to stop him if he was at risk of more than achy shoulders, or if his hurting himself would then present a serious problem for you and your mother – say, demanding more caregiving than you’re able to give, or creating severe financial hardship. But if he just wants to be busy and doesn’t care about his body, and you want him to stay in one piece because you want him around for a lot more years, then he wins that one. He gets to choose how to live his life, even if it means skydiving onto the roof to get to a hard-to-reach gutter.
If you can’t stop his madness, then work on the madness of trying to stop him.
Re: Father: These could be early signs of dementia. He needs to be tested by a neurologist if possible.
– Anonymous
Anonymous: Hard to see a downside to an evaluation. However, this seems to be a continuation of the norm vs. an unraveling – lawn mower included, alas.
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