Lessons Learned from Aging Parents: Annoying or Not

I was leaving an event the other night when I noticed someone with a T-shirt I thought was quite funny. It said: “The best revenge is living long enough to annoy your children.” I laughed at the time.

The next day I got on a bus and went to visit my elderly mother. After I arrived I began to think twice about the humor of that shirt.

My mother has become harder and harder to be around. She sees the world in a very different manner than do I. She deals with the world and with people in a very different manner than do I. I find it very annoying. I find her energy hard to be around. In fact, I often get quite aggravated and angry when I am with her.

My eldest sister is better at being around her. She is able to get to a place of compassion and understanding for my mother’s emotional state. I can do that when I’m not with her, when I’m removed from her energy. When I’m with her, I get pulled in and reactive. I don’t respond thoughtfully.

Going back to the saying on the shirt, I think as our parents get older and begin to annoy us, it’s not about revenge but about learning – our learning, that is. Just as children teach parents so many things, elderly parents teach their children one last lesson. It’s a lesson about putting ourselves in a parental role with them. We do this with our own children when they annoy us. We find a way, like my sister does, to be understanding and compassionate, to remove ourselves, disentangle ourselves, and step back. We need to see our parents not as parents but simply as people. We need to cut the final apron string. We need to be the adults in the relationship as our parents become more childlike.

I suppose we simply need to grow up – the rest of the way. Maybe the fact that we don’t want to take that last developmental stage constitutes the element that makes the whole situation so difficult.  Maybe that’s why we don’t want to reach within and find the compassion and understanding and patience. We just want our parents to be our parents. We want them to take care of us – to understand us and be patient and compassionate with us. We see that as their job with us, not ours with them.

Possibly, that’s the final lesson they have to teach us: That it’s our job as well. If we can learn to be understanding, patient, compassionate and loving even when our aging parent isn’t being nice, doesn’t see the world our way, doesn’t behave in a way we enjoy or like, doesn’t treat us well, doesn’t have anything nice to say, is disinterested – or whatever, we can find it within our hearts to do this for other people we encounter who behave this way as well.

When you think about aging this way, you might just find your annoying parents a bit less annoying. I did.