9 ways to honour your aging parents

The fifth commandment to ‘honour your father and mother’ takes on new meaning when parents become frail and dependent. Christopher Ash suggests nine ways you can care for them with grace

Dave and Kathy have three teenage children. The oldest is off to college this autumn. Dave’s dad died ten years ago and his mum lives nearby, enjoying good health in her early 80s.

Kathy’s mum has just died suddenly and unexpectedly. Her dad is quite frail and lives a five-hour drive away. Kathy is an only child. Her mother’s death has raised urgent questions about her dad’s care in his old age.

Some of you will recognise this because you are living it. You are “the sandwich generation”, squeezed between your own children and your aging parents. Once they cared for you, and now you are beginning to care for them.

I remember a friend of mine reflecting on this as he fed his frail mother with a spoon in her hospital bed; there was once a time when…