My 80-year-old dad is unrealistic about his future. Why can’t he move into a retirement village? | Leading questions

I have recently been through the exhausting process of helping my dad sell the family home and downsize into an apartment. It was entirely his idea and I applaud the decision he has made at the right time, before an age-related crisis forced changes. However I cannot support the fact he has moved into a city apartment that is completely inappropriate for the stage of life he is at. He is 80 years old, but in his mind still a “man about town” fantasising about an active city lifestyle in a place he doesn’t belong.

His health is generally good and of course he is an adult who can make his own choices. But I just worry that he is stuck in an unrealistic expectation of what his future will be like as he ages. I’m his only family support, so I just know when it all falls apart I will be the one to have to pick up the pieces. He is never open to talking honestly about these topics and just jokes about it when I try. Why can’t he just move into a retirement village and stop this defensive posturing and denial of his actual position and status in life as an elderly person? There is no shame in acknowledging the truth, and there is dignity in accepting your fate with grace. Help me help him to see this!

Eleanor says: You asked your last question rhetorically but let me answer it. Why can’t he just move into a retirement village? Probably because he doesn’t want to until it’s absolutely necessary. I don’t find this difficult to understand.

Some day in the not-too-distant future, he may not be able to live independently. If that possibility was on your horizon, would you be in a hurry to hasten it? Would you want to be done with what might be your last years of living the way you want – in a city, in an apartment, independently?

You say he has unrealistic fantasies of the future, but it also sounds possible he’s trying to get the most from his present.

You’re right that he is only going to age more and perhaps get less independent from here. I know how difficult that is to witness and to care for. But an acorn isn’t an oak tree. The fact this life may soon be unworkable doesn’t oblige him to give it up now.

It would be different if there were signs he already cannot care for himself, but you said his health is good (and since you didn’t mention any, I’m assuming there aren’t hazards in the apartment such as steep stairs or a shower in a bathtub). His age doesn’t mean much by itself these days. I know 90-year-olds who live independently, 65-year-olds in full-time care and 80-year-olds swimming long distances in the ocean or completing multi-day treks. You’d need chutzpah and a good parry if you wanted to tell them they should be in a retirement village. People in their 80s and 90s don’t have to act as though they’re finished with it all, until they actually are.

What I heard in your letter was frustration and exhaustion about how much falls to you. Selling and downsizing is a huge job for you. It will be another huge job if he has to move again or needs high-involvement care. It’s natural to feel frustrated and burnt out and just plain sad about having to do this for your dad – having to parent your own parent.

One response is to hold fixed that you’re the only source of help, and the attendant frustration that he will not alter his life so that it generates lower-care burdens. Another is he keeps his life the way he wants, and together you make it so that you’re not the only one supporting this. The care load might be bigger in the second scenario, but it doesn’t all have to fall to you. It can really help to enlist help, for yourself as much as for him – care through ageing is hard work but there are resources he can access to distribute that work differently. It may also help if you frame conversations about this kind of help as being for your own peace of mind rather than his inevitable decline.

As difficult as it will be for you to navigate changes as your father ages, try to remember it’s also difficult for him. You said there’s no shame in acknowledging the truth, but there’s not a lot of fun in it either. Few of us feel calm acceptance about losing our mobility or memory on the way to our own decline and death. It won’t help either of you, if that conversation comes, if he feels as though you’re rapping your watch as you wait.

The reader’s letter has been edited for length.

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