Saturday, August 14, 2010

On the Road With, or Without, Elderly Parents - The New Old Age Blog - NYTimes.com

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It’s August, time for a vacation from everything stressful — work, commuting, heat, congestion. But what about caregiving? Do adult children of elderly parents deserve a break from them, too?

Plenty of New Old Age readers no doubt identify with a woman who, describing herself and her husband as “empty-nesters in our 50s,” recently raised this question in Slate’s provocative advice column, “Dear Prudence.” Bringing her husband’s 80-plus-year-old-parents along on vacations, the woman wrote, “is more stressful than going to work.”

The older couple “cannot travel as they used to,” making it difficult for the 50-somethings to relax together, which their punishing jobs rarely allow them to do. Yet her mother-in-law calls almost nightly, she wrote, “begging us to take them.” Her question: “Are we selfish to want to be alone on our vacations?”
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