How to start talking to your parent about aging

It's not about having one big talk, it's about finding a way to have continual conversations about aging.

If you have never talked to your parent about aging, now is the time. Whether you’re in your 50s and they’re pushing 80 and this is something you’ve been actively avoiding, or you’re still in your 30s while they are just inching towards 60, it’s time. You can avoid this conversation until something bad happens, but I promise it’s easier if you start when they’re doing well.

When your parents are getting older, there’s not just one big talk you need to have. It’s not something you can cross off your to-do list. It’s the start of a dialogue that (hopefully) lasts decades.

A framework for conversations with your aging parent

One of my (many) beige flags is that I love pop sociology/psychology books, the kind lining the shelves at airport bookstores. When I read “Supercommunicators” by Charles Duhigg, I couldn’t help but think of conversations with my dad. There were many times I tried to start conversations with him and he shut me down as I asked too many questions or we talked so far past each other, we shouldn’t have bothered to talk at all.

All conversations are negotiations, Duhigg argues. They’re “a subtle give-and-take over which topics we’ll dive into and which we’ll skirt around; the rules for how we’ll speak and listen.”

If you’re entirely avoiding the conversation about aging, you aren’t learning which topics your parent would accept discussing, and you’re missing an opportunity. Unless something has happened, you probably don’t need to start with the hardest conversations. You don’t need to ask where they’ll move when they can’t live alone, when they’ll stop driving, why they won’t give up drinking, or what kind of funeral they envision. Each of these conversations might happen, eventually, but don’t have to start there.

Me leaning on my dad, probably around the time I should have started talking to him about aging (just kidding). I think I’m 6 or 7 here, so he’s not quite 50.

Maybe at first, it’s safer to talk one level removed from your parent—you can discuss your friends’ parents, or something you saw in the news, or even your own grandparents or great-grandparents. Or maybe you can talk about your parent’s workout routine, their diet, their medications.

Testing out topics related to aging can help you draw a mental map of the toughest terrain, the safest paths, and how far you have to go. Then, as you start to draw this map, every conversation will have two goals, the first being to determine what everyone wants out of the conversation.

“These desires are often revealed via a series of offers and counteroffers, invitations and refusals, that are nearly subconscious but expose if people are willing to play along…and it serves a crucial purpose: To help us find a set of subjects that we are all willing to embrace,” Duhigg says.

A set of subjects we are all willing to embrace.

What topics are on the table will vary depending on the circumstances. My dad was more than willing to gossip about everyone in his apartment complex—who was using a walker now, who didn’t make it to the board meeting, who was drinking too much—but much less willing to talk about the physical challenges he faced himself.

I had the most success in talking with my dad when I grounded the conversation in one of his goals and made him laugh. “Dad, I know it’s important to you to be able to stay living at home. One thing you have to be able to do to stay here is take care of your hygiene. The condo board will kick you out if they can smell you from the hallway. Can I start working on a plan to get someone here to help you shower?”

The second goal of your conversations with your parent, according to the model in “Supercommunicators,” is to “figure out the rules for how we will speak, listen, and make decisions together.”

Another mistake I often made with my dad was assuming I knew what was best for him. If he would just do what I say, I thought, he would be much happier and healthier. But most people don’t like to be told how to live. They want to, at the very least, participate in the decision-making about their lives.

When you make decisions for your parent, instead of with your parent, and when you talk to them in a way that makes clear you’re in charge of the conversation, you take away some of their agency. You are treating them like a child. Your parent is an adult, and you are an adult. You will both benefit from speaking to one another as respectful adults.

Your job is to figure out what makes your parent keep talking and what makes them change the subject. If you give advice, do they shut down? If you chat casually in the car, are they more likely to respond well?

If you’ve never talked about your parent’s feelings with them—maybe you have a dad who doesn’t discuss his hard childhood, or a superhero mom who can’t acknowledge that she is, in fact, mortal—talking about aging is going to be a challenge. But facing that challenge can open the door to a new level of your relationship with your parent.

So, how do you get started?

You know your parent better than I do. How you choose to talk about it will vary depending on: (1) how far along your parent is in their aging process; (2) whether something has recently occurred, like a fall or a diagnosis, that has made this conversation suddenly more urgent; and (3) what your relationship with your parent is like.

Some ideas for starting the conversation:

1. “Kristen’s mom is moving into a new place, so she’s getting rid of a ton of stuff. When grandma went into the nursing home, did you have to manage all her stuff by yourself?”

2. “It’s pretty impressive how committed you are to getting to your bowling league each week. Where does that commitment come from? Why is bowling such a priority for you?”

3. “How are you feeling lately? I know you have had some setbacks with your back/heart/knee recently. Do you feel like things are going in the right direction?”

4. “I know you lost your parents when you were pretty young. Did a lot of things fall to you to manage? Can you tell me about that?”

5. “What’s the hardest thing about being 65?”

Some people also feel more comfortable with “what if” conversations, talking in hypotheticals.

1. “I know Nana had hearing aids from a pretty young age. If I start to notice you struggling with hearing, what do you want me to do?”

2. “The stairs in this house are so steep! What if one day, you can’t climb them anymore? Have you thought about what we would need to do?”

3. “Your kidney disease seems pretty under control now with the new meds you’re on. Have you thought about what you want to do if it progresses? Will you do dialysis?”

4. “I read an essay about someone whose parent realized that they should stop driving in their 70s. I know you’re so far from that now, but is this something you’ve thought about? How would you know if it’s time to stop driving?”

5. “If I die suddenly, like in a car accident, you know I want my ashes scattered at the Grand Canyon, right? If you were to die suddenly, what would you want us to do?”

Throwing it back to you

Have you had conversations with your parent about aging? Did they go well? What were you able to talk about? What were you definitely not able to talk about? I’d love if you shared in the comments to give other folks a sense of what might work.