agonyaunt | (no subject)

Dear Eric: When my family's children were young, they mostly traveled the 200 miles to visit for holidays. Now the children are older, and have jobs, friends et cetera. The parents now seem to expect us to do the traveling. We are in our late 70s, and this is getting harder to do.

The change in beds, food, schedules and houses put a toll on our physical body that takes days to recover. This seems hard for them to understand as they haven’t reached this stage.

We now are faced with missing holidays with them to comply with their demands. I have faced the possibility of loneliness that older people seemingly endure nowadays. Is there an answer to this problem or must I endure pain and trauma to see family in older age?

– Sad, Lonely and In Pain

Dear Sad: As I suspect you already know, you’re not alone in facing this issue. Many families experience a disconnect between generations around travel and making special times, especially as families spread farther apart geographically. Often, everyone is trying their best but finding that there are simply too many competing and seemingly conflicting needs.

However, there are solutions. Talk to your younger family members about what you’re experiencing and what you need. Try to do it in advance so that the conversation can be heard as a request to plan, rather than a demand for course correction. “Travel is getting harder for us, and it takes a toll on us that we didn’t feel when we were younger. We really want to see you and be included. Can we work together to find a solution that works for everyone?”

Acknowledging that you understand where another person is coming from goes a long way. Hopefully, your family members will also come to understand where you’re coming from, as well. Sometimes family can feel like a closed-off room that you’re either inside of or outside of. But a family is a system that is constantly in flux. So, it’s less a room, than it is an open courtyard. It sometimes takes some prodding or conversation to remind family members of that. We are constantly making and remaking our families and our gatherings. Children grow up, adults age, people come in and exit for various reasons. Our desire to see each other can remain the same but the means of doing so have to be flexible.

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This letter lost me with the phrase "comply with their demands". I wanted to be sympathetic - I was sympathetic! - but that wording... eesh!

Regardless, my advice to LW would be the same: What would you do if you lived in a different country and didn't have money for a plane ticket? Whatever it is, do that.

LW is correct, travel is physically demanding and becomes more so as one gets older. To be fair, logistically it's easier, and less expensive, to coordinate travel arrangements for 2 people (LW and spouse), than try to coordinate arrangements for 3 or more people (their kids and grandkids), especially as grandkids grow older and busier.

What did LW and spouse do when their kids were young? Did LW and spouse always pack up their kids to travel to LW's parents, or did LW's parents visit them? If the expectation was that kids/grandkids always visit parents, at some point those visits will become fewer. LW and spouse may have to adjust their expectations if they find they can no longer travel. Maybe only their kids (with younger grandkids in tow) will be able to make the trip. Maybe older grandkids can drop by on their own. LW needs to talk to their kids and grandkids to work out alternatives acceptable to everyone.

It makes me wonder if a disabling condition has come upon LW as they age, that travel is "Pain and Trauma". My step-dad and his partner still travel between their own 2 homes in different states twice a year, and are going to a family gathering out of state for two weeks this summer. They are both getting fragile, and he's talked about how glad he'll be after all the socializing is over at end of summer. But they're still able to go. They are both 87. Aging is so different for so many people. My mother was no longer able to travel in her early 60s and died at 65. In her last few years, people who wanted to see her came to visit. It is definitely about conversations and making choices.

If they're otherwise people of goodwill, my first step would be to spell everything out in much more detail than you think you have to. I think most of us don't like to dwell on what's physically wrong with us, and sometimes doing so doesn't work. But IME lots of reasonable, kind people honestly do not understand that "travel is hard for us now" means "I will not be able to sleep for a week after due to stiffness and pain, and your other parent won't be able to do anything but sleep," or whatever the situation is, rather than "the TSA is tedious, we don't like that part." I think a lot of able-bodied people hear things like, "it's harder for us to travel now that we're older" and think it equates more closely to their own experiences when it doesn't.

This is especially true if people are in denial about their parents' aging and are motivated, even subconsciously, to minimize.

My parents can't visit anymore either for similar reasons, and I've accepted that if I want to see them, I have to travel to them.

And also: my parents have neighbors and friends and activities they still enjoy, and they are not lonely. (My sister happens to live an hour away from them too, which is good, but my parents also have their own social circle.)

Yeah, LW needs to talk to their kids and name the problem. But also, if you're expecting your loneliness to be dealt with by people 200 miles away...maybe you need to move closer to them?

LW, did you ever treat all the travel your family did - while wrangling small children! - as a major gift to you, deserving gratitude and praise? Or did you take it as your due, and ignore the price they paid to make life easier for you? Sounds like they did a LOT of stressful, possibly-expensive holiday travel for your sake. That's more than a lot of people get!

The attitude you're showing here (lack of any expression of gratitude, "comply with their demands") suggests that you just think it's always their job to sacrifice, and not worthy of any notice, but if YOU are asked to sacrifice anything, it's a terrible family-breaking insult. Reconsider that.

Also, I agree with the comments that you need to a) be clearer about your disabilities and limitations, so that you can all plan together, and b) stop relying on rare physical visits from people 200 miles away to relieve loneliness. Do you talk to any of your family online? Have any local friends? Are you just catastrophizing about the Doom of Loneliness that Awaits, or are you really becoming isolated? Either way you might benefit from some kind of counseling, to talk through what the problem is and what you can do about it. Family guilt-trips are not a solution - they're a recipe for estrangement.

The change in beds, food, schedules and houses put a toll on our physical body that takes days to recover... Now the children are older, and have jobs, friends et cetera. The parents now seem to expect us to do the traveling.

The family find travelling difficult *too*. Just because LW find it genuinely a struggle, doesn't mean that the family with children with different ages and lots of commitments finds it easy.

Maybe they do find it easier, but maybe not. As several people said (a) make it clear that it's genuinely hard for you (b) see if there's anything that makes it easier (are the children better off and could contribute to LW travelling in a less exhausting way, or are you better off and could contribute to their travel?) (c) given the difficulties, see what the best way of seeing each other is. (Roughly how many trips a year each? Other ways of staying in touch? Fewer, longer trips? Either part of the family interested in moving to be closer? LW has any other ways of seeing people locally?)

LW seems to feel entitled to their family's company on their schedule and on their terms, and this has been going on for a long time if their children were traveling 200 miles with small children for holidays with the ensuing changes in food, beds, schedules, and houses doubtless making life uncomfortable. And now those small children have had the temerity to grow older and get jobs and friends and have things they want to do! And it's only right that the parents are not going to force them, if that is even possible, to go wait on the grandparents, who think a preference is a demand when other people state it.

Possibly, not centering everything on "the holidays," whatever those may be, would help. Ask your children, with or without their children, to visit for a long weekend, and be nice to them when they come.