There is no dearth of challenges that an immigrant to US (or
any country for that matter) faces. Getting trained to have a successful career
in a new country, making a living in a new work environment, and raising
children in a new culture are some of them. Add to that the biggest one of them
all: What to do about the aging parents you left behind in the old country, say
India.
How to take care of them and who takes care depends on a
whole bunch of factors. The most important is where the children are located.
If all of them are in US, it is one thing. If at least one is in India, a
different set of issues needs to be dealt with.
Let us start with the scenario of all in US.
There are basically three options: bring the parents to this
country, find someone (a relative, a friend) who will look after them in India,
or have one of the siblings go back to India when parents age and need care.
Each has its own set of benefits and difficulties.
Bringing parents to this country clearly has some benefits.
The children can take turns at looking after them, and being close to their
loved ones would definitely have a positive impact on the parents as they glide
through their golden years. In addition, external factors such as the lack of
pollution, noise, and maddening traffic would add to the quality of life.
Finally, the medical system in US is better set up for the end phase of life;
in terms of nursing homes, palliative care facilities and hospices. Such
institutional options are lacking in India, where home care is the only way.
However, transition from India to US is a tough one for
parents. They find themselves totally uprooted from the familiar surroundings.
Not being able to drive, or walk anywhere, makes them prisoners in the gilded
cages of their children. They have few friends and their children, busy in
their lives, may not be able to provide comfort and company they had hoped for.
If they do end up going to nursing homes, unfamiliar people and food makes that
experience quite unpleasant.
It is equally hard on their children, the immigrants. As
they struggle through the tough phase of their
children growing up, there is an additional demand placed by their parents.
Once the really old age sets in, and/or only one parent is left, life can
become quite challenging. There are no servants to serve the needs of an old person,
as would be the case in India. Hired help is available but at very high cost.
If the parent cannot be left alone, the quality of life gets severely impacted.
Placing the parents in a nursing home does provide relief but the guilt that
accompanies that decision is deep and unrelenting. Finally, given how long
people live, this phase of parent’s life may coincide with children’s early
retirement stage, a time period that they had set aside to relax and explore
the world. It is hard not to build resentment and self-pity under the
circumstances.
So, may be the parents should stay in India instead of
emigrating to US to be with their children. However, that too is not a great
solution. There has to be someone…uncle, aunt, neighbor…who is willing to look
after them. As the parents age, the burden on these friends and relatives may
become too much, and at that stage bringing parents to US may not be a viable
option. For the immigrants, leaving their parents back home not only brings enormous
guilt but also requires asking the caretakers to provide support they may not
be willing or able to. Further, from a very practical perspective, such an
arrangement would mean seeing their annual vacations getting chewed up by the
same two trips to India. Goodbye to any other travels or experiences.
Some immigrants to US end up relocating to India just to
make the later life of their parents enjoyable. This solution is fine for
parents but it leads to complete dislocation in the life of immigrants, who now
find themselves becoming immigrants again, with the same problems of adjustment
in a society that is unrecognizable from what it used to be when they left. Further,
the grandchildren, Americans by birth, find the adjustment very difficult and frequently
go back to US. So, now instead of making the twice-a-year trips to India to see
parents, the immigrants end up making similar trips to US!
One would think that having a sibling who decides not to
emigrate to US would solve the problem. However, that too is not satisfactory
because now the burden of taking care of aging parents falls squarely on that
person. It would be difficult for that sibling not to harbor feeling of
resentment toward the America based ones who escape the responsibility and have
to make just a couple of trips per year to do their share. As I wrote in one of
my earlier Blog Posts, unfair distribution of parental care is a major factor
in relationships among siblings breaking down.
So, there you have it, dear fellow immigrants. If you are
already in the middle of this phase of your life, I am sure you would agree
with what I am saying.
If you haven’t yet
faced this challenge, you are in for a big surprise.
