How to Answer The Hard Questions

The Hard Questions For Adult Children And Their Aging Parents: 100 Essential Questions For Facing The Future Together, with Courage and Compassion
by Susan Piver

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Intention

Before you begin to ask the questions in this book, please take some time to examine your own intentions in wanting to do so. You may be motivated by a wish to "take care of business" for yourself and/or your parents. You may have an intuition that it's simply time to have this conversation. You may have just learned that a parent is seriously ill and need advice about what issues require your consideration. You may be anticipating conflict or confusion with parents or siblings and want to take precautions to avoid such. You may be worried about the impact your parents' medical and/or financial situations may eventually have on you and your family. You may be feeling that you and your parents are somehow in need of one another's support although neither of you knows quite how to ask for or offer it. There are many other possibilities, and it's likely that, for each reader, there will be a mix of intentions. Examining those intentions is critical to ensuring that the process is as helpful as possible. They will lead you to the questions that are most appropriate for you.

And no matter what the course or present state of your relationship with your parents, finding a way to speak and act from love or respect (however you define it) can ensure that this dialogue has lasting benefit for all involved. So please examine your heart. Try to find the place from which you can lead with your parents' benefit in mind, no matter what other feelings may also be present as you enter this dialogue.

Self-Inquiry

The next step is for each participant to review The Hard Questions on his or her own. Decide which questions seem really useful and which seem less so (realizing that siblings or parents may feel otherwise). Make note of which ones you're especially eager to have answered, which seem important, irrelevant, easy, or difficult. Without second-guessing their responses, try to imagine which questions are likely to be inspiring or frightening to your siblings or parents.

If you have a spouse or partner, it may also be useful to let him or her know you're planning on having a Hard Questions conversation with your parents, and to review some of the questions together. Some answers may have serious impact on your own family. For example, when you ask your parents, "If one or both of you need and/or desire managed care, could you afford to pay for it?" should the answer be "No, we need you to help us out financially," it would be good to know your partner's feelings about such a possibility. Similarly, questions about finances, health care, and legalities can have consequences for your personal life and, therefore, your partner's.

Dialogue with Siblings

Once you've taken stock of your intentions, thoughts, and feelings, the next step is to check in with your siblings. Although this process can certainly be undertaken by one sibling alone, it may be important to discuss with your brothers and sisters the risks and rewards in answering The Hard Questions as a family. Some siblings might be upset if you undertook this dialogue without consulting them first. In other families, one child might live near their parents while the others are far away - leaving the bulk of emotional, fiscal, and logistical responsibilities to that one sibling. Or, one sibling might be close to his or her parents while the others are estranged. But whatever the interpersonal dynamics or geographic realities, I can almost guarantee that every family member will have an emotional and spiritual stake in the outcome. It would, therefore, be best to at least acknowledge this reality at the outset, however the actual dialogue with your parents proceeds.

While there are, no doubt, exceptions to this rule, I have found, in discussing this book with friends, family, and experts, that, in most families, there is an unstated understanding that one sibling has or will have the primary responsibility for relating to his or her parents as they age. We usually know who that sibling is, whether we discuss it or not. In my husband's family, for example, he was the sibling most intimately involved in caring for his mother. He made practical, day-to-day decisions, kept the rest of the family current, and collected their input in order to make financial and legal decisions. He was "the one." In my family, I know I'm not "the one"; my sister is. In our particular families these roles evolved naturally and truly feel right. For others, however, it can be useful to explore expectations about who feels responsible for what as parents age - and especially to focus on each sibling's comfort level with the way responsibilities are allocated or assumed.

Special (and perhaps especially difficult) issues will come to light if either or both of your parents have been divorced (and possibly remarried). If you have stepparents or stepsiblings, each family will need to decide if it's possible or desirable to speak to divorced parents together, individually, or with his or her current spouse, should there be one. Similarly, if you have stepsiblings, give some thought to what it will mean to include or exclude them. Which is most appropriate? If your stepsiblings and you have been a family since you were small, it may be unthinkable to have conversations without them. If, on the other hand, your stepsiblings came into your life after you all reached adulthood, there may be no natural or sensible reason to pursue this dialogue as a group. Think carefully about your particular family dynamic; the potential emotional, financial, and/or legal ramifications; and make the best decision you can.

Timing and Choosing Relevant Questions

Before embarking on this process, make note of your parents' current state of health and well-being. There are three broad possibilities, each of which will have particular implications for how you proceed and which questions will be most important. They may be healthy and basically living the same life they've always lived. They may be in the early stages of illness or beginning to notice that physical and/or mental frailties require a shift in their accustomed lifestyle. Or, they may already be acutely ill or dying. There will be questions that are appropriate or inappropriate for each of these situations. Feel free to pick and choose among them. But please remember that whether your parents are healthy and vital, diminished and withdrawn, healthy and in managed care, or ill and in a nursing home or hospice, the process can still be beneficial.

That said, I believe it would be most helpful to ask them sooner rather than later, when your parents are most capable of participating effectively in the conversation, although their answers may well change as or if illness occurs, if or when one of them dies, or should family dynamics shift. These questions aren't meant to evoke sworn testimony, but to give a sense of how everyone is thinking and feeling at the time they are asked.

Copyright © 2004 Susan Piver

About the Author

Susan Piver is the author of The Hard Questions: 100 Essential Questions to Ask Before You Say "I Do." She was also a writer, producer, and marketing specialist for the entertainment industry for more than a decade before launching Padma Media, which creates special book packages for bestselling authors.