The average life expectancy for Japanese women is 87.13 years (according to the Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare’s “Simplified Life Table” for 2012), maintaining the highest life expectancy in the world for 40 years. This longevity has caused many younger generations to grapple with the issue of how to deal with their aging parents.
Our office receives “concerns about aging parents” every day. When applying for a consultation, they begin with “about caring for my parents,” but as we listen, other issues, such as emotional entanglements between parent and child, often emerge.

A recent consultation was about his mother in her 80s, who had moved into a paid nursing home a few months earlier. The client was a man in his 50s. He was troubled by his mother’s constant complaints, such as “life in the facility is boring,” “there’s no one to talk to,” and “recreation activities are tiring.”

The consultation was about whether to move her to another nursing home or return her to living at home, but the underlying issue was not there.
The problem is the exhaustion that children experience when they are overwhelmed by their parents’ frustrations. Many people leave home at a young age and maintain a distance from their parents. However, as their parents begin to decline, they become more involved and the home becomes a place for them to vent their frustrations.
What’s important to know is that the root cause of their frustration lies in physical decline due to aging. Being unable to walk properly, the death of a loved one, declining physical strength—the irritation they feel over the loss of freedom and enjoyment manifests itself in different forms as dissatisfaction. In other words, resolving one vocal complaint doesn’t make them younger, and new complaints will simply emerge.
Furthermore, even if children try hard to allay their parents’ frustrations, far from being appreciated, their efforts are often futile due to the endless stream of frustration.
In this case, the nursing home they were residing in met relatively favorable conditions, such as attentive service, palatable food, and reliable medical care. The idea that changing the environment will solve the problem is optimistic and is likely to lead to even more dissatisfaction. Instead, I advised them to think about how to make life easier within their current environment. For example, it would be realistic to try out a self-funded outing support service, consult with a care manager, and find someone to talk to. Rather than taking on everything, draw the line somewhere, and don’t feel guilty about making compromises unless it’s a complaint that needs to be resolved (such as abuse in a nursing home).

Even among elderly parents, health conditions and personality traits vary widely, and the conventional wisdom that “it is virtuous for children to care for their parents” needs to be reconsidered in light of the current situation, where elderly people live longer.

Even if there is love between parent and child, it is not realistic to meet every request. There may be times when you can’t answer the phone, or you may be unable or unwilling to provide the support requested.

Separate the presence or absence of love from meeting your parent’s requests. This is a healthy choice in the long term.

※Translating Japanese articles into English with AI