For those of us that have siblings, we grew up playing together, celebrating holidays, and birthdays. They became our first best friend, and we have many wonderful memories with them through our childhood. But as we began to get older those moments slowly became less frequent as we began our lives as adults. It typically starts when one goes off to college and then graduating and starting their new careers – sometimes requiring them to relocate – and then eventually getting married and starting their own families.
If you’re fortunate when the time comes that your parents begin needing more assistance you and your siblings will work together to find the best solution for your parent’s needs. However, the reality is that not all families have that benefit and for many families, there are divisions and other factors that divide siblings rather than unite them.
There can be any number of reasons for the division. Maybe the siblings were never close growing up or one of the siblings feel that their opinion or input is never sought or considered and in some cases, one sibling may have been chosen as the power of attorney over their other siblings causing resentment and hurt.
If you’re like most families, there is probably somewhere in the middle of these extremes that you and your siblings find yourselves.
If caring for your parents is causing further division, we want to help provide some tips for ways that you can recognize the issues and deal with them so that you can find ways to get your sibling’s help and support.
There are usually several factors that can cause these issues to begin or reignite – things like resentment, sharing responsibilities, the type of care that is chosen, financial disagreements, inheritance issues, and decisions on end-of-life care.
There is no silver bullet for families when it comes to these very personal and intimate decisions. There are often times already an established history that needs to be overcome and for the benefit of everyone in the family, they need to be put aside. But sometimes that is a lot easier said than done. We are going to go through and offer tips that we hope can help families and siblings work together to help care for their parents.