Communicate

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Good morning, folks.
Want to have kind of a little interesting conversation this morning about a word? You know, one word. And that word is Communicate. It is defined as sharing or exchanging information, news, or ideas.
So what does communicate have to do with what we talk about all the time?

The complexities of aging, the complexities of care, all the pieces that go into that. I'm not going to mention my four letter word – called PLAN.

----I'm going to talk about communicate.

So why?
Why should we communicate as we age?
Think about that question - Let's talk about the typical, I mean many, many, many, many times. Is this all families? No. But many times, if there's children in the family, that go on to college or go on to a trade school, become adults, they find work, they find careers.

They move away from where the family is, where they came from. They moved a few miles hundreds of miles, couple states, maybe across the country, maybe across the world…Based on the job that they're working within.

So communicate.
What does that mean?

And a lot of families, as you're younger, you're reaching out and you're calling mom and dad a lot and you're checking in to make sure everything's OK. A lot of it is maybe you're away at school and maybe there's some homesickness and you need to hear their voice to feel more secure.

Then we get a little bit older. Maybe we meet a spouse, meet a partner. At some point, maybe we, the adult children, have children of their own.

A lot of times what happens that, amount of communication lessens. People don't call home as much.
People don't check in as much. And are those conversations when adult children do check in with parents, are they deep and do they cover a lot of subject area or are they a little more superficial?

Maybe talking about what's going on in your life, the adult child, your spouse, your partner, maybe the children, especially if there's young children in the family checking them. What's going on with Mom and Dad?

And a lot of times, those are the conversations and you're not really sharing or exchanging information or news. And maybe you're doing another word, which is a really tough word called assuming.
That's a really tough word.

I mentioned that all the time, we don't want to assume, but maybe you as the adult child, you're now in your 30s, you're now in your 40s, you're not calling mom and Dad as often as you used to. And there's an assumption on your part - that they're fine. And they're doing well.

I've talked about the fact that in my specific situation with my wife, we did too much, assuming, that bad word with all four of our parents. We thought they were doing really well, they were active and we thought they were doing well - but they weren't.

And our conversations and our communication weren’t deep enough to really understand that. So let me ask you guys a question. Does this sound like you? You're calling mom and Dad. Let's say you're in your 40s now and Mom and dad are in their 60s, 70s, or older. So, mom, how you doing? Oh, I'm doing great. How's Dad? He’s doing great too, went for a nice walk this morning. We're doing well.

That's what you hear a lot of the time. I mean, do family members really want to tell their adult children that they're not doing well? I mean, I'm sure there are families out there where that conversation does happen, and mom and dad start opening up and say “we're not doing well”.

But I can bet you in a lot of families, don’t, they tend to hide it.
Men are worse - We’re tough. We're not going to tell someone we're not doing well.
I'm not a woman, so I can't speak for women. But I've worked with clients where Mom is hiding it as well. She doesn't want her daughter or son or son-in-law or daughter-in-law to understand she's not doing well. Communication.

Communicate - Sharing or exchanging information.
 
So what do we do?
We called. You know, we're the adult child. We're 45-50 years of age we call home. We don't live anywhere near home. We call home once a week, every other week, and only “everything's great. Went for a walk this morning. Dad and I just went to the store. We're doing great. Blah blah blah.”
And you believe him? And you assume, everything's going well.
 
But you know what? We got to change that again, I'm not mentioning that four letter word. But we as a country need to understand when you're the 45 year old, you're the 50 year old, you're the 55 year old. So if we use a 30 year differential to mom or dad, I put my I put mom or dad in their 80s.
 
Are they really doing well? Are they really going to share and communicate what's going on with them? Or do you need to dig a little deeper?
Maybe ask some probing questions that'll get mom or dad to open up. Maybe you want to find out what their daily life is like, what their daily activity is like.

• Are they literally getting up?
• Somewhat getting ready for the day, somewhat eating and then sitting on the couch or a chair watching TV most of the day?
• Or are they really active? Are they getting out?
• Do they really feel good or is something going on?

My point to this whole conversation: As the adult children, as we start getting older, again, late 30s forties into our 50s, we still have mom. We still have dad. But we have to understand stuff happens.

• Are mom and dad really taking care of themselves.
• Are they really watching what they eat?
• Are they eating the appropriate things?
• Are they getting a lot of exercise, a little bit of exercise? Or nothing.

 
We need to be able to ask those probing questions to get a deeper understanding.
Why? Because, as in my life, we didn't have that understanding. We were assuming.
And then the phone started ringing and we found out that the four parents that we thought were doing really well, weren’t.
 
So what happens if there's a solid level of an exchange or sharing of information or news?
You know, Dad actually had to go to the doctor yesterday and they asked him to go into the hospital overnight, and they're doing a bunch of tests. Mom needs to share that. Or Dad needs to share that about Mom - and not keep it to themselves.
 
Why?
It affects the whole family.
And we need to understand, as I'm saying, stuff happens.
 
The earlier we understand what's going on in our older loved ones lives, the easier it'll be.
I talk about that all the time. When so many folks wait till they get a phone call because Mom or Dad is flat on their back in the emergency room. Yeah, you can still deal with it, but it's really tough.
 
It can get really expensive and really tough.
When you get ahead of it, to the appropriate communication, there are a lot of things that can be done differently. It will never be easy, but it'll make things easier for that individual mom, dad for the family, etc.
 
I'm going to bring this little episode to a close, but if there's anything you learn from this, please communicate. Please, as you age and mom and Dad age, ask those probing questions. Don't take it at face value. “That's doing great, we went for a walk this morning.”
 
Ask. Find out. Understand.
And if things are starting to change, talk to mom, talk to Dad. Understand what's changing. Understand how you, your spouse, your partner, irrespective of where you live, can help Mom and Dad out.
 
Communicate.
Sharing or exchanging information, news, or ideas.
 
As always, folks, if you want to get in touch with me comments questions would like to be a guest on our podcast, [email protected].
And until we talk again, have yourself, an awesome day.
​~Richard Wexler