Avoided Conversations: How Parents and Children delay talking about Widowhood and Dependency in Later life

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Abstract
This paper draws on a 1980 sample survey of middle-aged and elderly residents of a medium-sized Canadian city (N = 464). Few parents and grown-up children discussed in advance what might happen should parents become seriously ill or unable to look after themselves. However, most respondents did feel these matters should be discussed in advance, and most felt that parents should be the ones to raise these issues. This was true for both the middle-aged and the elderly. Elderly men rarely discussed their wives' futures with their children. Both the middle-aged and the elderly rarely talked with siblings or friends about the possibility of their own or their parents' dependency. Discussions that took place were often precipitated by illness. However, children expressed a great deal of concern for parents, especially for older parents. A variety of possible contributing explanations are suggested. These range from unwillingness to acknowledge changing family structure and mortality to parents' view on non-family-provided services.

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