Baby Boomers and Aging Parents

By: Marge Pickering Picone
Submitted: 2007-01-17 16:20:55
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I just watched the movie called "The Thing About My Folks" with Paul Reiser. If you want a stroll down memory lane of what it is or was like to have your parents around, this will do it. It has enough to make you laugh and pause while you fill in the scenes with what your own dad would have said and the types of interactions that were of the times. Dad at work while mom was at home with us and dinner was put on the table by 5:30 every night. If you weren't there, you got the aluminum plate left in the oven until you got home. Dads went fishing and to ball games or they listened on the AM radio. They read the paper after super and watched the news at 6 o'clock. Their way of putting stability in our lives was by schedules. You knew that Thursday night was grocery shopping night and that chores were done on Saturday before you could go out to play and Sunday noon was the main dinner of the week.

You never thought of them as being like you and the way you interact with your children or relationship. We didn't see them as a couple like us; we saw them as Mom and Dad instead of sexual beings. The technology of today broadened a very large generation gap for the parents of us baby boomers. I see that we still want and expect something (I don't know if we even know what that is) from our parents yet communication gaps fail to render the right outcome. Unfortunately, some may pass away before we figure out what that "something" is but you know for sure that your children won't lack for it.

If you still have your parents, it's not too late. You can try talking to them from an honest point without blaming them for every wrong turn you managed to take in your own life. They respond from the time frame they were raised. You just have to take into consideration the gap time of your age to theirs. If they were young parents in the 1940's and 1950's look at the era before jumping down their throats. They raised you according to the times, the technology and the financial ability they possessed. The other thing to keep in mind is your interpretation of anything that was said or done when you were young. You have kept that child's interpretation alive for years. If the same things were said today with the education and maturity of now, don't you think the outcome would have been different? Sometimes it is just having the nerve to ask them what they meant. It is surprising to find out the answers. It turns out totally different then what you thought or dramatized.

I'm sure after seeing the dynamics of them interacting with your grand-parents, that they had all the same differences and gaps as we did. Times keep changing and even if you’re determined to have a great relationship with your children, technology has leaped ahead again and creates another big gap. We seem to be involved more with our grandchildren and possibly can relate to them easier than we could our own. We can be the bridge between our children and grandchildren.

With better health and awareness, we can be present mentally, physically and emotionally longer for our growing families. Keeping our minds open helps too!

Marge Pickering-Picone is a Nutrition Consultant for Professional Nutrition Services of Rochester, Inc. and the Founder of http://www.aging-baby-boomer-guide.com

Article source: Expert Articles