Aging Well

Beginning to Ask for Help

No one likes to ask for help, but it's a fact of life that the majority of us will need help. Learning how to ask for and accept help with the small stuff can really help when the big stuff arises.

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Helping Grandmother with her phone
By
Liisa Ogburn

When my 77-year-old mother pulled her phone out after lunch during her first trip to our house in fifteen months and said, "Someone has been sexting me," she had our attention.

While my son and I had already seen my parents once in the last fifteen months, my daughters were only recently vaccinated and we had postponed a larger get-together until now.

My mother pulled out her iPhone, put on her reading glasses and opened up her texting application.

She had resisted getting an iPhone long after my father had, but once she had gotten it, she had taken to it like a new gardening tool--texting me photos of sale items at Marshall's in my size, keeping up with the latest hair color of my middle daughter or meals my college son was learning to cook for himself. She sent all of us bitmojis (an application available on the iPhone that creates a cartoon rendering of her with messages like, "Wear Your Mask!" "Bravo!" or "Happy Birthday!"). She texted photos during recent trips after they had finally gotten vaccinated.

While she had become pretty deft at using its tools, she was less so at fixing some of the unwanted intrusions that often come with phones, tablets and computers these days. My son patiently scrolled through her long list of texts and blocked senders, reviewed phone settings, and checked her phone carrier to see if they had any screening tools.

It was an example of how our family relationships are shifting. My parents were no longer the authority on everything. Fortunately, we were in the position to experience some of these shifts outside the realm of a crisis. Here we were on a beautiful Sunday morning, sitting outside on our patio, and not in the waiting area of the Wake Med Emergency Room.

My friend, Art Ross, has led two classes in a seminar I run for my church called "Aging Well" on the importance of having annual meetings with one's adult children, as he and his wife do, to go over "the important stuff," he and his wife's health changes, financial data, important updates to their Power of Attorney, Wills and health directives and other relevant points.

Making these kinds of inroads, while really challenging (so many of my clients say they are not ready for their adult children to "know their business," even if these "children" are in their forties, fifties or sixties), can also be really helpful when truly difficult situations arise, like needing to take driving privileges away, bring in home help or unexpectedly have to communicate an unconscious parent's wishes in the Emergency Room.

When I bring this up in conversations with friends and clients, so many say that they don't like to give up control. Who does? (I probably won't either.)

However, that said, there comes a time, more often than not, when it is necessary and it can be easier on all parties if a loosening of the reins happens before it has to happen.

My mom gives my son college and investment advice. My son helps with her phone and computer. None of us would have predicted he would have to block inappropriate sexting, but what a funny way to end our visit.

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