Aging in America News

| Observations of a Newly Minted Older Person
| Louis Tenenbaum

| This isn’t the column I planned to write this week, but the minute I started sorting out our own Thanksgiving plans, this one elbowed its way to the front of the line.

Thanksgiving is a special time for families. “Special” in the sense that it’s equal parts heartwarming and hazardous. We all know the jokes: politics at the table, ancient grievances resurrected, mysterious “freeloaders” who never bring a dish. Meanwhile, the older generation may be silently thinking, Does anyone notice how exhausting this is? They might even be white-knuckling their way through dinner prep, not wanting to admit how scary it feels to climb onto a chair for the “good” glasses anymore. Old family patterns are hard to spot and harder to break. And trying to maintain beloved traditions while adjusting to real-life limitations? That’s its own Olympic event.

The week before Thanksgiving was always one of my busiest as a home modifications and aging-in-place contractor. I’d get calls from the local adult child—or the one flying in—hoping to gather the troops for a conversation about Mom or Dad’s care needs.

These meetings can get sticky fast. The out-of-town sibling often has a different agenda than the one who’s been doing the daily heavy lifting. And the older adult at the center of it all may not even know I’m coming, let alone why I’m suddenly standing in their living room with a tape measure. The sister who handles everything year-round may be quietly fuming that the brother from California now wants to “jump in and help.” Everyone sees something differently. And parents understandably get defensive when they’re being talked about in the third person—even if they’ve quietly wondered what comes next.

Thanksgiving has a way of bringing all of this to the surface: the love, the tension, the tradition, and the subtle, unsettling reality that things are changing whether anyone’s ready to acknowledge it or not.

I’d suddenly find myself in a role I never trained for: family negotiator, mediator, therapist-adjacent person with a tool belt. I’m a carpenter, for heaven’s sake—not a referee for sibling dynamics that started in 1973. The person who called me usually meant well, but they often hadn’t clued the rest of the family in on what was about to happen.

So there I’d be, walking into a living room filled with leftovers and unspoken tension, trying to figure out what each person thought the “problem” was—if they even agreed there was one—and whether they expected me to fix it with a grab bar and some diplomacy. And let’s be honest: is Friday morning of Thanksgiving weekend anyone’s ideal time for major life decisions? More than once, I looked over my shoulder, hoping a trained family therapist might wander into the room.

I always assumed the person who reached out had good intentions. Maybe they felt guilty. Maybe they were overwhelmed. Maybe they were terrified they’d only be called in when things got dire. What they didn’t always realize is that big decisions don’t magically happen just because everyone’s in town and in a post-turkey haze. These conversations go better when everyone brings a little grace to the table—right next to the cranberry sauce.

Thanksgiving can be a good moment for this. People are around. Spirits are (mostly) warm. If things line up, it can be the perfect time to sketch out a plan. Maybe that’s true for your family this year. I don’t know which role you play—the worrier, the peacemaker, the “I flew 2,000 miles and I have thoughts” person, or the one who does it all—but a little grace goes a long way. Beneath the tension, most of the concern really does come from care.

Even the tough conversations stretched me in surprising ways. They also reminded me that most of us are just trying to do right by the people we love.

Wishing you and your family a warm, thoughtful, and yes, gracefully imperfect Thanksgiving.

Louis Tenenbaum is a longtime advocate for aging in place, co-founder of the HomesRenewed™ Coalition, the HomesRenewed™ Resource Center, and HomesRenewed Ventures, LLC and a nationally recognized expert on home modifications that support independent living.