Growing up there’s a natural order of events that often takes place after your born such as attending school, perhaps getting married and having children.
One concept that’s often difficult to wrap your head around is caring for your parents as they age and the emotional and financial decision-making that happens when the time occurs.
Tonight on WGBH2 at 10pm a special program premieres called, “Caring For Mom and Dad"and it re-airs Sunday night, Mother’s Day, at 6 o’clock.
Among the people taking part in this special film :
JANE GROSS, a former New York Times columnist and author of The Bittersweet Season, who discusses her personal experiences and the emotional challenge and financial burden of caring for aging parents, saying bluntly: "Your mother or father better have a gazillion dollars, or by the time this is over, Mom and Dad are broke, and so are you."
AI-JEN POO, from Caring Across Generations, and author of the new, acclaimed book The Age of Dignity
“A lot of people want to work and they want to take care of their families. It shouldn’t be a choice between actually keeping your job and taking care of your family. That is an outdated and old question. For us to be able to create the kind of economy that thrives in the 21st century, employers are going to have to account for family. That’s the bottom line.”
“We’re about to have the largest older population we’ve ever had in the history of this country, and there are people who want to live at home in their communities, live independently, and there’s just no support or infrastructure to make that happen. So we’re a society that hasn’t adequately accounted for family caregiving work historically, and now we’re at a point given all these changes where that is simply not sustainable.”
LARKIN MCPHEE, award-winning filmmaker, producer and director of “Caring For Mom & Dad”
In producing the film, she outlines statistics, gripping caregiving stories, and potential solutions.
Caring for Mom And Dad is narrated by Meryl Streep and airs locally on WGBH2 Thursday, May 7 at 10 p.m. and again Sunday, May 10 at 6 p.m.
To listen to WGBH Morning Edition host Bob Seay interviews Jane Gross click on the link below.
