Eldercare Choices Revive Sibling Fights

Richard Aylward visits with his mother, Pat, at the assisted living facility she lives in, Tuesday, Dec. 12, 2006, in Burr Ridge, Ill. The decisions that Richard and his two sisters made as they sorted out their mother's possessions before moving her into the facility caused conflict and tensions between the siblings, and similar sibling squabbles over ailing parents are playing out in much the same way across the country this holiday season and could number in the millions. (AP Photo/Brian Kersey) (Brian Kersey - AP)

"One person takes charge, the other is more submissive; one sibling is the joker, smoothing over disagreements with humor, while another sibling is the serious one, all efficiency and business," Carpenter said.

Sometimes the roles help, because the family originally may have developed them to take advantage of individual strengths, he said.

"In other cases, however, when those roles have never been really helpful, they get in the way of making parent-care decisions, just as they probably got in the way of lots of family decisions throughout life," Carpenter said.

Sisters tend to criticize their brothers for not doing enough, while brothers don't take enough credit for what they do, said Sarah Matthews, a professor of sociology at Cleveland State University, who has conducted research on siblings with aging parents.

Her interviews with 149 pairs of siblings found women and men have different expectations. Sisters saw their siblings as a team. They expected cooperation. They wanted communication about what each sibling was doing for the aging parent. Sisters also felt they knew more about what needed to be done.

Brothers, on the other hand, acted independently and expected to negotiate directly with their parent without keeping their sisters informed.

"That tended to annoy the sisters," Matthews said, and the brothers didn't understand their sisters' irritation. When asked generally what they were doing for their parents, the men said, "Not much." But then they gave specific examples that revealed they did a lot more than their sisters knew, Matthews said.

The eldest son holds sway in families from some cultural backgrounds, said Dr. Gail Gazelle of Palliative Care Associates in Brookline, Mass.

"No matter how bad the parent's relationship has been with that son and how derelict he has been in his caregiving duties, he will be deferred to in decision-making in those families," Gazelle said, "much to the chagrin of the daughters who've been giving care for years."

Gazelle advises siblings to stay focused on what their parents would want, and to remember that their relationships with siblings will endure long after their parents' deaths.

"That is what is going to live on and that relationship is very important," she said.

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