BY DONNA MCLEAN
LIFE LINES
Skim through the articles that pop up on your phone and you’ll usually see at least one advising parents on how to deal with their children. Parenting experts cover everything from how to stop bed-wetting to how to keep the teenage daughter from dating a thug (not that she’s going to listen if the thug is cute).
It seems to me, though, that with all us Baby Boomers now in our senior years, the experts would write more advice for grown children on how to deal with their senior citizen parents.
Back in the day, all this counseling was done in the advice columns in newspapers, such as the famous Ann Landers columns that published letters from readers to which Ann would respond with her advice.
A letter from a young adult to Granny the Advice Columnist would go something ike this:
Dear Granny,
My aging mother needs to lose 30 pounds so she’d be happier and look better. Do you think I should tell her this?
30-Something
And Granny’s reply might be—
Dear 30,
As an aging mom myself, I advise you NOT to tell your mother she’d be happier if she lost 30 pounds. Personally, I think she’d be much happier if she had a lemon icebox pie. She’d probably be even happier if you hadn’t eaten a piece of it when you came to lunch, and then she could have had the whole pie for herself later.
It’s OK to tell her she’d be healthier if she lost weight, but she already knows that so don’t act like you’re bringing the News of the Century. And if you tell her she’d look better, you’re implying that she looks fat. Get ready to be cut out of the will.
Granny
Sometimes the kids get alarmed when they leave home, then go back for a visit to find that Mom and Dad are doing things a little differently in their old age. A returning child might write this letter to Granny the Columnist:
Dear Granny,
When I visited my parents recently, there was nothing good to eat in the kitchen. We spent the whole weekend eating take-out! Mom used to cook all the time. Do you think she’s depressed?
Hoping for Home Cooking
And Hoping would read Granny’s reply in the next paper:
Dear Hoping,
I know nothin’ says lovin’ like somethin’ from the oven, but you have your own oven now. Eat at home if you don’t like mom’s new love affair with food that comes wrapped in paper. I personally find that standing up all morning to whip up that five-layer jelly roll cake puts me in a senior depression so I understand what your mom is doing.
Next time you go, YOU make the jelly roll cake and take it to her to eat with the fastfood burgers she’ll serve.
Granny
Some grown kids leave the nest, then return as adults and begin to criticize the nest that the old folks have gotten comfortable with. They need Granny’s advice on how to get Mom and Pop to spiff the place up.
Dear Granny,
When I made my yearly visit to the old home place, I was dismayed to see that things looked a bit shabby. How do I tell the old folks that they need to clean up and modernize the house?
Tidy in Toledo
And Granny replies:
Very carefully. In fact, what are you implying when you tell them they need to “modernize”? That their housekeeping skills are not what they used to be? Neither are their memories, but that’s none of your business either. Do you think they’re running a hotel there for you to check into once a year?
And don’t bother suggesting that they need to redecorate the old homestead with sleek new modern furniture either. They would do that, maybe, if they had any cash left from years of paying for your braces, summer camps, cheerleader outfits and the seven years it took you to get a degree in “general studies.”
Besides, I’ll bet they’re just as fond of the 1970s dining room set and the shag carpet now as they were when they bought it on monthly payments in ‘73.
When your fortune comes in from that job you got at the supermarket as a General Studies Major, maybe you can chip in on the modernizing and get Mom a housekeeper too.
Until then, plant yourself on the sagging sofa once a year, put your feet up on the dusty coffee table, and chill. Until the dead mice start piling up under the bed, I think you can stand it for a couple of days a year.
Granny
One explosive issue between senior parents and their grown offspring occurs when Mom or Dad is alone after the death of the spouse. If the surviving parent chooses to have a “friend” again, the grown kids are often super-critical and suspicious.
Dear Granny,
Mom, who is no spring chicken, is dating again after being a widow for years. I am worried sick. The guy’s a thug! He takes her riding on a motorcycle, and they go to Bingo parlors! We’re afraid he’s only after her for her money! Help!
Concerned in Columbus
And Granny replies—
Dear Concerned,
What is this thug’s name and where can I find him? He sounds like my kinda guy! I’d answer your question, but I gotta warm up my Harley and head for Columbus!
Granny
