No one lives on this planet completely alone. Everything we do affects others. Therefore, the decisions we make about our own life affect everyone around us, especially our family. As intelligent San Francisco women, we.jpg)
know this all too well.
How many of us have cared for dying parents who refused to quit smoking all of their lives because it was “their own choice?” “It’s my life and I’ll smoke if I want to,” is the mantra of most smokers. But is it their life or yours as well, that is interrupted and thrown into a painful saga of treatments, turmoil and sadness when the smoking catches up with them in later years?
We’re not even talking about second-hand smoking-related illnesses here. We are simply talking about the illnesses that many smokers will deal with as their life goes on. Many will say, “Well, none of us live forever so I choose to live my life the way I want to and if I die, I die.” Really? There is a huge difference between living your life then leaving this world quietly and peacefully, and dying a prolonged, painful death. One’s family deals with the consequences of their loved one’s decision, having had no part of the choices that were made earlier on by their loved one.
Considering the outrageous price of home-care in the Bay Area, many adult children, especially women, end up caring for their aging parents. Watching a parent die in pain is horrendous. In the end, the choice they made wasn’t just about their life alone at all, was it?
As the caregiver of a parent, you are left feeling helpless, horribly saddened and yes, sometimes quite angry and feeling guilty that you do, in fact, feel angry because you should be spending your life enjoying your life; not caring for a debilitated parent who would otherwise be healthy if not for the cigarettes.
How many times have we, as a parent, heard our children say, “I’m an adult now, Mom, I need to live my life, my way,” only to find ourselves picking up the pieces after a really bad decision that the “adult” child made? Emotionally, financially and as a life-disrupting event for a parent, our adult children’s decisions affect us in a big way.
Parents often put their own lives on hold while they help their kids pull their own lives back together. So, whose life was affected by the child’s bad decision? Not just the adult child’s life was affected by bad judgment and an unwillingness to listen to reasoning that might have prevented the bad situation; the aging parent’s life is often greatly affected, as well.
There are certainly those of you among our readers who will argue that everyone has a right to live their own lives, and kids need to make mistakes in order to learn. Of course that's true. Unfortunately, so often one person's right to do their own thing and live their own life often means that their loved ones will be left paying the price for it.
