Take our Family Estrangement Test for the Adult Child

Find a Family Therapy Therapist

Old family roles and unresolved resentments often resurface when a parent needs more care.

Unequal caregiving can leave one sibling overwhelmed and another criticized or shut out.

Conflict over money, housing, or medical care may reflect deeper wounds that began years earlier.

Clear communication, shared responsibility, and forgiveness can strengthen the whole family.

This post is Part 3 of a series.

I’ll never forget the day my sister put my mom on an airplane, looked me in the eyes, smiled, tapped me on the shoulder and said, “You’re it!”

For years, she had taken increasingly greater care of our aging mother—checking in every day, taking her to doctors’ appointments, and being there for her in a thousand other ways. When Mom eventually moved to California, my sister passed the caregiving baton to me.While there were unspeakably difficult challenges during the years leading up to Mom’s passing, taking primary responsibility for her care turned out to be one of the greatest joys of my life. Sharing responsibility for our mother’s happiness, health, and well-being as she grew older was the right thing to do. It also left my older sister and younger brother deeply grateful.Sibling relationships can be complicated, and they can either help or hinder families as parents grow older. There’s no such thing as a perfect sibling relationship. But brothers and sisters who get caught in corrosive rivalries and long-held resentments can suffer immeasurably. Those who are blessed with closeness—or are willing to work toward it—can benefit immeasurably.The same dynamics can apply to only children, whose stepbrothers, stepsisters, cousins, or close friends become sibling-like members of the family caregiving circle.When sibling........

© Psychology Today