Helping parents cope with the aging process

I’d share how we talk about this stuff with Pops, but it’s probably best I that I leave that to various imaginations.

Dear Carolyn: My mother-in-law is in her 90s and slowing down. She is pretty sharp intellectually, and still drives, although she has trouble with a stiff neck so she can’t check blind spots, etc., and her reactions are slowing down. She is annoyed that we feel she should stop driving: “I have many years of experience – much more than the doctor.” The only thing she has even agreed to think about is having a driver when she wants to leave town or go out after dark.

Any suggestions as to how we can stop her without ruining our relationship? We are her primary caregivers, and the doctor said he’d rather tell her she has cancer. Nothing has happened yet, but we want to keep it that way. If she injured someone, she’d never forgive herself.

She: “I have many years of experience – much more than the doctor.”

You: “Yes, you have more experience. But experience won’t help you when what you need are reflexes. Those slow down with age, even yours, and pretending otherwise could get someone seriously hurt.”

Full disclosure, I am way less concerned about your ruining your relationship than her ruining someone’s family by hitting what she doesn’t see. My niece’s bike-riding friend was struck and killed in broad daylight by an elderly driver who was younger than your mother-in-law at the time.

Is that what it’s going to take? Take the keys. Set up Uber/Lyft. It’s the independence people need, not control of the wheel itself.