Travelling With My Ageing Parents

By Debbie Loh

After a certain age in young adulthood, it’s quite likely that most of us would rather go on holiday with friends than with our parents. As much as we love our parents, they can be complicated and fussy to travel with. Their interests also tend to be predictable and less, well, “exciting”. At least this was how I felt as a young adult. But recently, I’ve discovered what holidaying with elderly parents could mean.



In my childhood, my parents took me on plenty of domestic holidays. We went to various beaches and hill stations in the country, when there was still a diversity of flora and fauna to see and when Nature, not theme parks or five-star hotels, was the draw. We went to the caves in Mulu, Sarawak, and to Mount Kinabalu and Sipadan Island in Sabah.

These holidays planted the seeds of my love for adventure and travel. Papa, especially, fed that sense of adventure, teaching me about plant and animal life, how mountains were formed and that at one time, the sea covered the land we stood on.

I was too young to appreciate my parents’ tiredness. The packing, un-packing and then the re-packing again. The drive there and back, the change in diet, resulting constipation, and lack of sleep due to unfamiliar beds, were simple irritants that they took in stride. Mum and Papa always looked happy, always ready to play a game, always eager to point out unusual sights and offer interesting facts – they believed vacations should be educational.

Adolescence came, the period when children tend to drift a little from their parents. Soon, it was time for university and after that, working life. I preferred taking holidays with friends who were more easy-going and with whom I had common interests. Though the family lived under one roof, our lives evolved distinctly, and “family times” were reduced to once-in-a-while dinners together and prayers before bedtime. It became a long time since we had a family vacation.

With the passing of time I grew vaguely aware of certain transitions that meant my parents were getting older; vague because they were so part and parcel of daily life that I did not immediately grasp their significance as small milestones. I looked up from my own absorption with work and friends, and gradually realised that my parents were no longer so sprightly and eager to participate in activities outside the house.

There were certain house chores that Mum could no longer perform which my sister and I now had to, like climbing on ladders to clean the ceiling fans. There were new diagnoses of various health complications and an increased number of runs to and from the hospital or clinic.

And, unlike before, Cantonese, Mandarin and Korean serials were now an important daily staple and a dominant topic in conversation. This was a sure indicator that my parents had joined the ranks of the geriatric Chinese serial faithful.

Recently, I went on holiday with my parents in London. London, capital of the world, is the kind of city you soak up by walking its crowded pavements and squeezing together with other bodies on its rattling Tube system. Because it is such a vibrant city, it can be a challenge to visit with elderly parents. But it had always been one of the places my parents had longed to visit all their lives.

Mum and Papa are now in their 60s. Each has a health problem or two, a special quirk or idiosyncrasy, a particular food habit, and the burden of being their age which limits how long they can go out and how far they can walk. But there are advantages too, especially their entitlement to senior citizen discounts on tickets for sight-seeing, the theatre, and transportation. Better yet, they usually want to pay for everything!

I was excited about spending time with them, yet also a little anxious. There’s a saying that the best of friends don’t always make the best of ravelling buddies. The same could be said about family, who know your faults better more than anyone else. The stress of travel can easily bring out our less-than-pleasant sides. I would have to adjust to my parents, and they to me. It was on this holiday that I got an inkling that our roles could, one day, be fully reversed: I would be the caregiver and guardian, and my parents the dependants.

I realised this when I had to take slower steps in order to walk alongside Mum. I had to help her up and down the stairs in Tube stations, and we would miss the train as a result. Thankfully, the London Underground is efficient enough to have trains coming along every few minutes. I found that because I was quicker at navigating our way through the city, by default I became the itinerary planner and tour guide. I sometimes ended up being the spokesperson in buying tickets or when requesting information. I could not move as fast as I wanted to, because I had to consider two older people.

Here are some tips you might find useful when travelling with elderly parents:

• Always locate the nearest toilets wherever you go.
• Allow for regular periods of rest, even if it’s simply just for them to rest their legs.
• Always have drinking water, an extra jacket or windbreaker and some energy snacks to eat on hand.
• Ask them if they have their vitamin supplements, medication or whatever pills they need to take packed for the day’s outing. 
•  Run through the whole day’s itinerary briefly with them before you set off; they like to know what to expect.
• Be prepared to repeat everything you’ve already said another two or three more times, like when explaining which direction you are next headed for, or the number of the bus you are about to board, or the next stop in the itinerary.
• Speak clearly and loudly.
• Walk s-l-o-w-l-y.

And we survived! More than that, we thoroughly enjoyed London and each other’s company. We went to the theatre, traipsed through museums and other historical sites, bought economical but tasty ready-packed lunches from Tesco’s and Sainsbury’s (yes, we did indulge in the higher-end Marks and Spencer’s), and had lunch in the parks and picnics on the grass. Mum was thoroughly wide-eyed at the spring flowers and tulips, and Papa looked more relaxed than ever. He rather grew to like lying down on the grass for naps. London with my parents in their golden years will be a precious memory to treasure. It was when the child and parents recognised and embraced a different side of each other, given the changing seasons within the family.

My relationship with my parents has moved through phases of child-like trust, then self-absorbed adolescence, and independent young adulthood. And now, the discovery of a different level of relationship with my parents in which I learn to adjust myself to them. It reminds me of my own evolving relationship with my Heavenly Father.