A Values Thing

Considering your parent's values and goals can help you find common ground when you make decisions with them as they age.

One of the most stressful moments of my week used to be the roughly half-hour stretch where I needed to get my two toddlers into the car to go to swim lessons. They love swimming, but don’t understand clocks and can’t be trusted to put on their own shorts.

We pay some astronomical rate for swim class, and they only swim 30 minutes each week, so every minute we are late, I see the dollars sinking to the bottom of the pool like those neon rings. Often, I am so stressed about getting to swim class on time that all three of us arrive frustrated, sometimes with one or all of us in tears.

When I explained this to my therapist, hoping for tips on how to be less reactive and more chill, she said simply, “This sounds like a values thing to me.”

Huh? A values thing? To me, it sounded like an anxiety thing. Being late was making me anxious, and I clearly needed to get it together and be more prepared so we didn’t go through this week after week. If I were just a better parent, I said, then this would all be easier.

“No. First of all, it doesn’t sound like you’re wanting to be a better parent,” my therapist said. “It sounds like you want to be a perfect parent, which absolutely does not exist.”

But back to the values thing. She explained: “It’s fine to value timeliness. A lot of people value timeliness. It is seen by some people to be a sign of respect. So to value respect is also to value timeliness, for them. But for other people, timeliness isn’t valued, or it isn’t tied up with respect. In these situations where you’re going to swim class with your kids, it sounds like you value timeliness over everything else. Over serenity, calm.”

I hadn’t thought about it like that. I absolutely was valuing timeliness over anything else. Since then, I’ve been exploring what other values are at play in my life: tidiness over connection? Work over play? Safety over independence?

The next week, I coached myself in my head. I repeated over and over the values I wanted to prioritize, instead of timeliness: “Connection, calm, fun.” I had already buckled his brother and started the car when my 3-year-old begged to go back in the house to select a particular action figure to bring along. “Connection, calm, fun,” I told myself as I let him run inside and then again when I had to stick Buzz Lightyear’s arm back on when it inevitably fell off. I took deep breaths. I managed to make both kids laugh and get them to class on time without rushing.

I realized that my obsession with being on time, and the anxiety that resulted, was probably the thing making us late. I won’t say I’ve solved it and am now, thank you very much, the perfect parent, but I do think focusing on what I value has helped me parent in a way I’m more proud of.

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When you care for an aging parent, it might help to think of things with this frame, too. Ask yourself what you think your parent is valuing at this stage of life. It might be things like independence, stability, or connection. If you ask yourself what you’re valuing for your parent—it might be different—maybe it’s safety, health, or longevity. You might be able to talk to them directly and ask what their goals and values are as they age, or you might be able to guess at these things by observing them.

When you find yourself in conflict with your parent over where they live, how they care for themselves, or what risks they take, try to pinpoint what value they’re focused on.

When he was younger, my dad loved almost nothing more than being the center of attention and making people laugh. But as he grew older, he mostly wanted to be left alone to watch old movies, eat full bags of veggie straws, hang out with me, and sit in his big recliner. He valued independence, time with me, and comfort above all else.

There came a time when I had to beg him to go into a facility, a nursing home. He couldn’t stand up, even with a walker, couldn’t get out of the recliner, so it wasn’t safe for him to be at home anymore. To me, it was obvious—if he couldn’t be safe there, he couldn’t live there alone. I valued his safety above all else.

But he didn’t. He didn’t want to be in a facility because he knew all three of his most important values would be compromised—he’d be less independent, have less time with me, and be less comfortable.

I always had the most success in talking to my dad when I grounded the conversation in his goals or values. “Dad, I know it’s important to you to be able to spend time with us, especially now with the baby. I want you to be around for a long time. Can we start looking at facilities with physical therapy so you can try living at home again?” Eventually, with many more similar conversations, he relented.

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As my dad aged, he began collecting specialists like scout badges: a primary care doctor, a urologist, a cardiologist, a podiatrist, a rheumatologist. All these white coats had the same singular focus and valued one thing: keeping him alive as long as possible.

Even if your parent is younger or healthier, they have probably started collecting specialists, too.

A mistake I made was assuming all these specialists knew what was best for my dad, and that we didn’t need to talk about his goals or values.

But you do need to talk about it. Your parent needs someone on their side asking the hardest questions about how they want their remaining years playing out, what their goals are, and what they value. Otherwise, everyone and everything will default to the American health care norm: stay alive at all costs.

Is that your parent’s goal? As you look into your own crystal ball and view your own aging journey, would that be your goal?

I bet it’s more nuanced for both of you. Thinking about your own goals might help you put your parent’s goals in perspective. Some goals that might resonate: “stay aware and healthy” or “keep walking every day” or “be able to play with my grandchildren into my 80s” or “die on my own terms, without extraordinary or painful interventions.” You might be surprised by your parent’s non-default goals.

As your parent starts seeing more specialists, adds to their long list of medications, and racks up diagnoses, one of the ways you can help is to revisit their goals and values, to hold them as a sort of compass for how to move forward. And I don’t mean simply talking about them so you can get your parent to do what you think is best. I mean really using them to guide the decisions you make together. It’s not easy to put aside what you want for your parent in favor of what they want for themselves, and you won’t do it perfectly. A perfect caregiver, like a perfect parent, does not exist. But you owe it to them to try. It’s their life, after all, and their values and goals still matter.

Here are three scripts to get you started:

• “I noticed you still babysit Rebecca’s kids every week, no matter how you’re feeling. Would you say that’s the most important thing to you right now?”

• “Since you’ve had a couple of falls, but I know it’s still so important for you to stay at home, can we talk about some home improvements that might make things safer for you here?”

• “I saw that Ryan’s mom is using a walker. I’m sure she’s safer getting around like that. Is that something you’d ever consider?”