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50/50 Rule guide aims to help siblings manage parents’ care fairly by Kareem Yasin
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hen aging parents require increasing levels of care, their adult children are often called upon to step up. But what happens when family members do not share in the responsibilities equally, or are not in agreement on how to best deal with the situation? “Recently I was speaking with a woman that was no longer on speaking terms with her sister because they couldn’t agree on how to provide the best level of care to their parent,” said Michelle Rogers, president of the Mountain View branch of Home Instead Senior Care, a senior-care-services company. “Even though the other sister was still engaged with the parent, all of the elements of primary care giving were falling on her.” Often, the allocation of responsibilities has to do with children’s locations, with an unfair share often falling on those siblings who live closest to their parents. But these people, like anyone, occasionally need time away. Rogers says it is important for there to be a dialog between siblings in order to ensure that the primary caregiver has the opportunity to take personal time or to meet their other obligations. This might be achieved by more
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distant family members arranging to take over care-giving duties for short periods, or by them taking on tasks such as bill paying that don’t require physical proximity. A new public-education guide published by Home Instead Senior Care seeks to benefit siblings struggling to compromise on the care they are able to provide for their elderly parents. Called the 50/50 Rule, the free guide (which is accessible at www.homeinstead.com) aims to encourage communication between siblings in order to prevent unnecessary family rifts. The 50 in the program’s name refers to the average age at which children are most likely to be needed to seek out care-giving opportunities for parents. But it also stresses the need for all members of a family to share decision-making and care-giving responsibilities on an equal basis, which is often not the case. According to a survey of 75 Americans conducted by Home Instead Senior Care, the bulk of caregiving responsibilities will much of the time fall on just one sibling, with this true for 43 percent of respondents. This imbalance has sometimes led to a deterioration of family relationships. “I was speaking with a woman in Sunnyvale recently who
Courtesy of Home Instead Senior Care
3 iving parents equal time