I finally finished transcribing all the FGDs! And in time for the deadline of end May as well! The only thing left to do is to format them and make sure that I have finished translating all the words that I had trouble with, that the structure is the same for all the FGDs, and that the unedited portions of raw data are cleaned up.
During this process of transcribing I have come to think about my mother and father growing older. My mum turns 54 this year, while my dad turns 51 - and this is around the same age as some of the participants in the FGDS. Two of my uncles are 60 and over, which technically could classify them as being senior citizens already. Yet I don't think of any of them as being elderly or being senior citizens - they are all so active and don't look their age. In addition to that I suppose the image of them that I always keep in mind is of the way they were when I was growing up, which would be them in their late 30s and early to mid 40s. So when I look at them, I know they are older, but it doesn't quite register somehow. I guess it's a lot more difficult for us to accept that our parents are growing older and will be classified as "elderly" soon, because we never envision our parents growing old. It's almost as if we expect to grow up, and expect them to remain at the same "immortal" age forever, just older than us.
This will have implactions for how we care for our parents in the future, as well as the expectations we place on ourselves in reference to them. For example, I can't imagine having to send my mother to the hospital for regular checkups in the future, the way she does (and sometimes the rest of us) do with my grandmother. That to me still feels like the extremely distant (if ever) future, yet I have to be realistic and understand that that day will come eventually.
In this case, I would have to say that it is always about a mindset change, of us having to be able to be aware of our mindset now in relation to where our mindset will "have to be" or how it will have to evolve, and it would be better if we anticipated and prepared for it. In this way, we can walk ourselves through it (the changing of mindset) instead of getting a shock one day when we realise that our parents have grown old and that the tables have now turned - we are the caregivers, instead of being the ones cared for.
I think that this would be perhaps the most drastic (and often times painful) mindset change, because it requires such a huge role reversal that we are often not prepared for in society. We expect to become parents one day, we expect to become grandparents, but we do not expect to become the caregivers for our parents (though it remains in our subconscious thought that we will one day). It not only involves us taking on an additional role, but involves us changing where we place our parents in terms of how we organise our lives, and also requires that we give up a part of our "identity" (being the child who can always ask one's parents for help). One day, should our parents ever become so frail that we have to look after them like children or newborns even, that would be the most painful, because we would remember the way they used to be when we were young, being completely incongruous with the way they are now.
I certainly do not relish the day when I have to admit to myself that my parents are old, and that I must take on the role of caregiver. I am not sure if I am ready to start looking after my parents at all, and if I ever will be. Fortunately, both my parents are ridiculously healthy, going to the gym frequently and watching their diets consciously, and I am especially thankful that they are both mentally sound. I just hope that when the day comes when I have to help look after them that I will be prepared and know what to do.
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