With the average individual life expectancy rising, parents are living longer and longer as their children continue to age deeper into adulthood themselves. Many of those who are caregivers to their elderly parents are themselves elderly. In fact, the average age of someone who is giving care to someone aged 65 or older is a surprisingly high 63 years old themselves. This means that many of those engaged in caregiving are themselves aging along with those they care for, which results in many retirement-aged adult children caring for their senior parents.
When compared to someone younger or middle-aged, older caregivers have a different set of tools they can employ. But the fact is that no matter the age of the caregiver, providing care to someone that they love is a commitment.
Older caregivers have two major advantages in contrast to younger ones, which is their life experience and their connections. Caregiving for someone you love takes a great deal of energy and even under the best circumstances will have a heavy emotional toll. WIth the increased amount of life experience that older adults have, comes a much deeper emotional well of emotional history to draw upon. They will have more coping mechanisms that they developed over their lifetimes through their own struggles with their own emotions. And with being of an advanced age themselves, they may have a deeper sympathy or sense of empathy for dealing with the situations they find themselves in with those they’re giving care to.
Outside of their life experience, older people are better able to consult with and draw upon the life experience of their peers, who may be better experienced or more suited to offer advice or provide guidance to good resources. Older people can take better advantage of professional, personal, and religious networks that they’ve built over the course of their lives, whether it's a coworker dealing with a parent with dementia, or a friend dealing with their mom’s stroke.
However, the older we get the smaller our social circles can become. As we age, we lose people around us for a variety of reasons. This means that older caregivers can be at a greater risk of isolation without a wide pool of friends and family to draw assistance from.
With the advantages that an older caregiver can have, there can also come challenges that may not be something younger caregivers face. Older caregivers may have medical complications or chronic issues of their own to deal with. Normal, everyday tasks they may do to care for their parents may be more cumbersome than they would be for younger caregivers. And even if they might be fortunate enough to be in good overall health themselves, they may not have the energy reserves required for committed, long term caregiving, especially if they;ve been engaged in doing it for a long time already.
Older caregivers may be looking to retire themselves and perhaps did not expect to be providing care to a parent themselves. They may have grown children of their own and may be grandparents and want to spend time with their own families.