Lucille: Children In The Elderly Family

Introduction Lucille is a 68-year-old widow is lives on a fixed income from her husband’s retirement pension and social security. Currently, she has no known health issues and likes to spend her time gardening and cooking. Lucille and her husband have three kids together, which all have their own families to attend to. There is some concern involving her daughter, Alice, involving alcohol and substance abuse plus how she has chosen to raise her three children. There have been moments of absenteeism which has lasted for several days and the living conditions are not acceptable per county standards (Plummer, Makris, & Brocksen, 2014, p. 69). As a result, child welfare was contacted and the children were placed in custody of Lucille. The placement of the children has taken a toll on Lucille, not only mentally, but also physically. Lucille has gained weight due using food to comfort her and has increased her stress level as a result of the added duties. To understand and work through Lucille’s new roles within her family she had attended a support group as well as individual meetings to assess …show more content…
As a result, I came up with the broad research question of how does depression affect the ability to parent of those in the elderly population? Individuals in the elderly population do not handle stress in the same manner as a person that is in their 20’s. Not only does Lucille feel the effects of depression as a result of the situation, but how does it affect her ability to parent her grandchildren that have been placed in her care? One must also wonder if there are family dynamics within the family in regards to the adult ‘child’ and his or her parent; this could also add on more stress for the grandparents (Kroll, 2007, p. 89). There may be feelings of anger, sadness, or even guilt in regards to the children being placed in the care of the