Sacrificing dignity and pride to do the right thing
At the age of 47, I moved home again with my 6 year old daughter. My reasons are not what my parents think, and that’s ok.
All (my) roads lead back home
I was 17 years old the first time I moved out. Freshly graduated from high school, my dad loaded up a small U-Haul trailer with my entire bedroom of belongings and shipped me off to university. Every summer, we moved me back again. Apparently moving back home is habit-forming.
Home was always a rest stop between the various wild gallivants of my young life. It didn’t matter if I’d gone away to school, to study or work overseas, or to live in any one of a number of countries. My parents were always (more or less) gracious in welcoming me back in. At first I was on my own, then with my husband, and eventually with an entourage of children in tow. It was always for now or while I get things sorted out.
Despite my best efforts to follow life’s instruction book, things never seemed to come together the way I, or my parents, thought they should. I’ve been married, divorced, lived and worked in four different countries, raised kids, still raise kids… There is no denying that I am rich in experience. On the finances and assets scale though, I come up stone dry.
That’s the scale that my parents look at when they measure success in life.
Comparing apples to oranges
My brother started off making all the wrong choices. He was constantly in trouble at school, and on more than one occasion with the law as well. Somewhere along the line though he managed to turn all that around. Now, with a wife of 30 years, a waterfront house, two boats (one for fishing the other to live on), and a successful computer programming career, he has earned the awe and admiration of my parents.
My brother has no children (though to be fair that isn’t his fault), has never lived abroad, and has barely travelled. He has always lived fairly close to our parents, but there were many years where they saw me and my children more often than they saw him, even when we lived on the other side of the world. He avoids family functions like the plague.
Somehow though, he is their pride and joy. And I am the one who keeps coming (crawling?) back home.
The prodigal daughter returns…again
It came as no surprise to my parents when I informed them that I was moving back in with them. Where else would I go? After 4 years of living 5 hours away on the wrong side of the border, I didn’t have a real job or a car or any property of my own.
I am in no way trying to portray my parents as shallow. They are simply old-fashioned. To them, work is only a job if you leave the house and come back hours later, and freelancing is nothing more than a hobby. They don’t understand that my fiance and her family is my real family, despite the fact that we have been together for 5 years.
My parents don’t recognize that I still have a home there. They don’t know that a car sits in the driveway without me there to drive it. They don’t realize that I turned down a good job offer at a college so that I could move back home.
That is my secret life. For now, I must play into the role my parents have cast me in.
The performance of a lifetime
This is the ultimate undercover assignment. I’m duping my own parents. The fact that I can is one of the very reasons that I must.
My parents have lived on their own for decades, and have always managed everything perfectly well by themselves. Even the neighbours, who see them regularly heading out to run errands or enjoy meals on the town, would agree. Like everything in life however, there is more going on than meets the casual eye. In their mid-80s, my parents are both dangling their feet in the waters of dementia.
In the past year, I’ve seen minor incidents occur with greater frequency. Each time I visited, I would hear new stories of little mishaps. Pots were left on the stove too long. Breaker switches got removed. The power cable for the television mysteriously relocated itself to a drawer in the spare bedroom. Then there was the small fire that destroyed the barbecue on the back deck in the middle of winter.
It became clear that they really couldn’t be left alone any longer.
My brother’s plan was to hire a live-in caregiver and eventually move them to an assisted living facility.
They don’t like entertaining guests at the best of times, so they would be horrified to have a stranger in the house. I don’t think they would even agree to having someone visit on a regular basis. A caregiver would make them miserable, and would definitely cause a great amount of stress to my mom in particular. As far as moving them to assisted living, my dad has actually often brought the subject up, but is adamantly shot down by my mom every time. Though it may at some point become necessary, despite my interventions, while they are still more-or-less in control of their circumstances, they want to remain at home.
The only solution was for me to move in with them. Now, one does not in good conscience simply walk in and tell one’s parents that they have deteriorated to the point that they cannot live unsupervised. Better that they believe that they are, once again, rescuing me from my own bad luck.
And so I take on the role of undercover caretaker.
Knowingly playing the fool
I cringe every time I hear my dad telling a neighbour or a friend about their sudden full house with a 100% increase in occupancy. Yes, she’s back living with us again, he says with a slight but perceivable air of martyrdom. Having gone from 2 occupants to 4 in their 5-bedroom home apparently causes quite a bit of stress.
It is impossible to ignore the pointed looks and grumbled comments they make when they think I’m not paying attention. We are often reminded that we are living in their house, followed by hints that we need to show an appropriate level of gratitude.
Playing the part of the hard-up daughter is difficult, but the hardest part about acting like freeloader is freeloading. As a caretaker proud and proper, I would cook their meals and clean the house. I would schedule all their appointments and manage household affairs. I could do all of these things that professionals charge exorbitant rates for (that for the record my dad thinks I should be doing), and be happy to collect room and board.
To do that would completely defeat the purpose of my presence though. You see, one of the funny things about living is that you have to live in order to keep living. When someone comes in and does your living for you, you stop living. If I take over the things that my parents have been managing on their own, they will stagnate. I’m not here to make their lives easier, but rather simply less difficult (and less dangerous). I’m here to supervise them as they go through their daily routines. I help, but I will not take over.
And to my parents, that makes me the ungrateful freeloader.
Sometimes the supporting role is the most challenging
Letting my parents believe that they are helping me is kinder than showing them that they are no longer able to safely live on their own. Forcing them to cook meals at home more often instead of eating out 4–5 times a week brings them to healthier eating habits. The intrusion of an energetic 6 year old granddaughter keeps them active and interactive.
Most days it is a thankless job. I miss my fiance and the boys, and they miss me and their sister. It breaks my heart to hear my daughter ask me when we will be able to move back home to be with our family, and I don’t know what to say to her. This was certainly never part of my grand plan.
In the end, I know it is the right thing to do. Our time will come. Now it is time to put my stage-face on again and continue this grand act.