Parents

The one with all the answers

After spending many years being the one with all the answers you almost forget that you are also someone’s daughter. This seems to be true for me atleast.

Whenever my kids need comfort or are curious about why things are the way they are, they ask mom (aka me). They are always so sure that I will know the answer or have the solution they seek. While I know their needs will shift and with age they may call upon me less, I am happy to have the answers now. I am no stranger to this shift as I’ve experienced it firsthand but instead with myself as the child.

I once turned to my mother for all the answers until I didnt. It seems just this weekend now I am the one my own mother is turning to for answers. We are in the process of deciding upon her long- term care needs and its seems she turns to me now. She is older, a little more forgetful, and not able to do all the things she once did for me. In fact, now she needs help completely many tasks for herself and well that is where we are now.

The shift

For me at least, I believe the shift happened when I reached about 12 years old. I suddenly believed I knew everything there was to know and my mom was even sometimes “annoying”. Then all the way through my teens I turned to my peers for answers instead of my mother. It wasn’t up until college, marriage, and definitely motherhood that I found myself ringing up my mother almost daily, once again in search of answers. Now I’m on my fourth child and I have less first time mother questions for her so the dials have becomes less frequent. It wasn’t until recently while visiting for the holidays that I realized now it’s my turn.

She needed a lot of help with tasks that seem simple to me but are now difficult for her. She mentioned that some of her friends had purchased hybrid long- term care insurance policies. She said they use the benefits for care and are able to afford extra help. She mentioned she never opted for hybrid long term care insurance and now it’s too late. She’s worried she doesn’t have enough funds to cover the care she needs. She is asking me to help her review her savings, options, or if I would be able to help out. She’s worried about burdening me but she needs the help. I don’t know enough about hybrid LTC or long-term care but I am trying my best to learn.

Currently and for the past seven years I have been focused on being the source of comfort my children need. So much so that I forgot that I still need my own sense of comfort and that it’s still my own mother. Afterall , I am still a daughter however, I am also a mother and I am happy to now shift into the source of comfort for my forgetful mother.