It’s Time to Give Love to Elderly Parents

To a little child, his parents are like a huge tree that stands strong even in the heavy rain or strong winds. The child eats fruit from the tree, avoids rain and winds, runs around to his heart’s content, and sleeps peacefully under the tree. And when he grows up, he leaves the tree and lives independently. The tree that seemed to be green and strong forever is only left with thin branches after giving everything to the child.

Humans, unlike animals, need their parents’ help for a long time until they can live independently. It takes humans about a year to barely start walking, and three years to be potty trained fully. It takes them some twenty years to make a living by themselves. This is how parents raise their children, giving up their youth.

Children don’t tend to think that their parents are going to be sick some day, although there are many other sick elderly people out there. However, no one can stop the flow of time. When children give their parents a hard time, the parents often say to them, “Wait until you have your own child who is just like you!” Sure enough, only after having a child who is just like them and experiencing many difficulties while raising them, they fathom the hearts of their parents; but by the time, their parents’ hair has already gone grey and they have deep wrinkles on their faces.

To children, seeing their parents get old is heartbreaking and sad. However, they cannot make time go back and make the tree that raised them become green again. The only thing they can do is guard and protect the tree that has become thin. Now it is time to repay them for their endless love that they have given.

Understanding the characteristics of the elderly

There are four major sufferings the elderly go through: poverty as their income decreases, illness as their health deteriorates, inactivity as they lose their roles among the family and in society, and loneliness caused by the aforementioned issues. These sufferings are closely related with aging.

When one gets old, many changes are made inside the body such as grey hair, wrinkles, and age spots caused by the deterioration of the body organs. Particularly, abnormalities in sensory organs such as vision, hearing, and taste are more noticeable. Aging deteriorates vision, which makes it hard to read small letters and endangers them to fall when climbing up the stairs or a slope. As they become hard of hearing, they cannot hear small noises and their voices become louder in consequence of being hard of hearing. They find it hard to have a conversation in a noisy place, and sometimes miss appointments as they don’t understand accurately while talking with many people. As their sense of taste becomes dull, they eat food too sweet or salty, and they do not like eating bitter or spicy food. They also lose appetite.

This is not all. As the lung capacity decreases, they easily get out of breath, their workout ability decreases, and they are easily exposed to diseases as their immune system weakens. They are more likely to suffer a fracture due to the loss in skeletal muscle mass, and their teeth get weak, and they are more likely to have indigestion.

The brain, the central control unit that commands a person to think and move, deteriorates when one gets old. This causes deterioration of the function of the brain and the decrease of memory, concentration, and cognitive ability. They often forget things, and find it hard to master a new thing. Particularly, this digital age when convenient devices continue to be invented must be unfamiliar to the elderly. Since they don’t really have anyone to ask, they give up when faced with an obstacle.

As they lose overall abilities physically and mentally, they are prone to suffer depression. They tend to have an inferiority complex or become dependent as they lose their social status and their financial ability. As they spend less time in society and lose loved ones one by one, they spend more time alone, feeling lonely.

Children tend to find it harder to accept psychological or mental changes of their parents such as losing their cognitive ability or their personality changing, rather than their physical changes. Even if your parents act differently than before, you need to embrace them with a broad mind because those changes in them are unavoidable due to aging. You need to make an effort to understand the characteristics of the elderly and accept the changes in your parents.

Several ways to express love to your parents

① Accept who they are and respect them

A broad range of experiences stored during one’s life form a viewpoint to look at the world and objects as well as his or her view of life and set of value, and also the pattern of behavior and habit. The elderly tend to become a bit stubborn and cling to the ways they are accustomed to, because they find it hard to accept new knowledge and skills. Therefore, even if you don’t like your parents’ way of life, you need to admit who they are and respect their wisdom and experiences rather than feeling frustrated or annoyed and talking about the generation gap.

② Discuss even a small matter with them and let them be involved

Many elderly people think of them as useless as they cannot achieve as many things as they used to when they were young. And if the children let their parents do nothing, though their intention is for them to relax and rest, the parents begin to think that they are a burden on their family. When discussing small and big family matters, the children try to take care of the matters by themselves so that their parents won’t be worried, but it can make the parents disappointed. Sometimes, you need to ask them for something that you already know, pretending that you don’t know it; and let them know kindly about everything ahead of time before they ask so that they won’t feel left out. Instead of overprotecting them and limiting their activities, let them take care of some tasks so that they can feel rewarded and proud of themselves, and also give them many opportunities to spend time together with their family. It is better for the elderly parents’ health to let them do some activities than to make them feel bored by not letting them do anything.

③ Handle the parents’ belongings with care

Items that have old memories give psychological security and comfort to the elderly. Therefore, you should not use or touch your parents’ belongings without their permission, but you need to ask their opinion when disposing of them. When cleaning or organizing the house, try to do it the way your parents like rather than changing the places for the items without asking them. The elderly tend to have things scattered around the house because they feel too weak to keep the house organized, and find it hard to locate things if they are not out in visible spots. Although the living space may look cluttered, they want things to be placed where it is easy to find them. Let us be considerate of this preference of theirs.

④ Have a pleasant conversation

Parents love having a conversation with their children. They feel the greatest happiness when they are talking with them in person or even at least over the phone. They always wonder how their children are doing, and they also have many tips about life, which they want to give to their children from what they learned while living their lives. That is why children need patience to agree with their parents during the conversation, and let them finish what they want to say even if it sounds like they are nagging or even if it sounds a little boring. Since the elderly have a hard time understanding a high tone, speak clearly and slowly in a low voice, and make it simple when you explain something. The elderly often pretend that they’ve understood what they heard, because it is too much to make sure they’ve understood it every single time. Therefore, it is good to summarize the content and tell them the main points after the conversation.

⑤ Express love and gratitude with concern for them

It is hard to make the parents happy without knowing what they like or dislike and what they think. Try to always see how they are doing, ask them what they would like to eat, how their health is, how they are feeling, and if there is anything that they are concerned about. The parents may not express although there are things that they want or find inconvenient because they don’t want to be burden on their children. Also, hold their hands, and often express your love and gratitude to them. Elderly parents feel energetic when they feel loved and cared by their children.

⑥ Show them a smile

When the child looks or sounds worried, the parents worry more than the child does and cannot sleep. It is not polite to blame or express hatred toward someone or scold a younger person in front of the elderly. When talking with your parents, try to look gentle and polite, and reassure them with positive words even if you are having a hard time. Still, your parents will probably notice it, but they will appreciate your effort not to worry them.

Humans, animals, and even plants receive life from their parents. Parents give life to their children and cannot forget them even for a moment. Since the parents have given their children the greatest love in the world, shouldn’t the children also give back love to their parents?

The elderly who receive love and support from their children in a good relationship with them, can keep good physical functions and cognitive skills for a longer time, compared with those who don’t. Grown-up children have sufficient abilities to solve problems with their elderly parents and also to make them happy. Do not keep postponing expressing your love to them, but let them feel your sincere love for them at the right moment as much as your circumstances allow you. You cannot give too much love to your parents.