The Weight of Caring for Ageing Parents
Dedicated to my parents
One day, they will grow old. And perhaps, the responsibility of caring for them will fall upon you. It isn’t just difficult—it’s a trial that shatters the heart and tests the soul. Even if you’ve always shared warmth and closeness with them, you’ll need bottomless reserves of patience, duty, and compassion. They will grow frail, helpless, their once-sharp minds slipping like sand through your fingers. You see their vulnerability, feel that bittersweet mix of love and pity, but sometimes, frustration bubbles beneath the surface, and exhaustion tightens its grip around your chest. We know the stages of a child’s growth—the crises at three, five, twelve, sixteen. But what of ageing parents? We are never prepared.
Caring for them is an unbearable weight. They may be infuriating over the smallest things—grumbling, stubborn, refusing to follow simple advice about their health. They are still adults, and treating them like children would be disrespectful. Yet their frailties are undeniable. They forget yesterday, even an hour ago. Memory fails them—did they turn off the kettle? Lock the door? You repeat yourself, and they stare back at you with hollow eyes.
But the past? They remember that with painful clarity. They will talk endlessly about it—their youth, the days when you were a child. These stories become their refuge, for the future has all but vanished, and they know it. They’ll tell the same tale again and again, until you lose count of how many times you’ve heard it. It wears you down. But you must hold your tongue. Just listen. Or pretend to. Sometimes, that’s all that’s asked of you.
Caring for ageing parents is hardest when they were never perfect. Old wounds still fester within you. They didn’t understand you, didn’t support you, judged you, sometimes treated you unfairly. The pain they caused lingers. Anger simmers, resentment boils in your chest—and now you must spend your time, energy, money on them. How do you accept that? How do you forgive?
You can work through these feelings. Speak to a therapist, confide in friends, write a letter to pour out everything buried inside. But don’t expect caring for them to heal your wounds. Accept that they hurt you—but don’t take it out on them. Don’t repeat their mistakes. Don’t demand apologies, thinking their words will lighten your burden. It’s an illusion. Forgiveness is your labour, not theirs.
Caring for them takes your life from you. You have your own plans, dreams, responsibilities—yet here you are, bound to their side. You watch them fade, and suddenly, it strikes you: soon, they won’t hug you, won’t offer advice, won’t look at you with that familiar warmth that once protected you as a child. Their gaze may turn distant, their eyes holding a stranger where your parent once stood. The thought breaks your heart.
But while they’re still here—weak, helpless—you feel it. Mum and Dad are still here. That knowledge gives you strength, brings back something forgotten, something warm from a childhood long gone. While they live, you can still be their child—even if just a little, even in these fragile moments.
You look at them—people whose time is running out—then at your own children, whose lives stretch ahead. Your children grow independent, slip into their own futures, while your parents cling tighter to you. You stand caught between beginnings and endings, between dawn and dusk. It’s strange, unsettling, terrifying. And then it hits you: one day, you’ll be in their place. And someone will have to stand by you.
What a blessing it would be, if someone listens to your story for the hundredth time without rolling their eyes. If they are patient, as you try to be patient now. Caring for parents isn’t just duty. It’s a reminder—that we’re all bound together, that time is merciless, and that love, even the most complicated kind, is what makes us human.
