Mom’s birthday is August 13, and this year that date got me thinking again about moms in my work and how they demonstrate the tireless devotion that my mom poured into my brothers and me. These moms, with their kids and their special needs, don’t get out of their caregiving roles on their kids’ 18th birthday, or their kids’ 38th birthday or on any day, often times. The caregiving duties of these moms may last their lifetime. These duties are not routine or easy, either. They are dirty and exhausting, sometimes painful. These duties cause a strain that can break marriages and age moms prematurely. For my mom clients, though, their greatest concern is not the duration of their caregiving duties or the impact that the duties may have on their health and their other relationships. Rather, their biggest, wake up in the middle of the night panics occur when they wonder who will care for their child when they are gone.

These panics are easier to address in some cases than in others. In some cases, when mom is court-appointed guardian for her adult child, and mom is aging and needing help, but not yet ready to step-aside completely, we have asked the court to appoint another adult child as co-guardian, so that the other adult child will become more familiar with reporting to the court, and sustaining the care of the protected person. When mom resigns as guardian or passes away, her co-guardian assumes the role of sole guardian, and no further petition to the court is necessary. 

In other cases, when mom has no other adult child or she has no other adult child who is appropriate or willing to serve as co-guardian, and if mom and/or the protected person has a source of funds, mom has hired a professional guardian to meet regularly with the protected person. The professional guardian  and the mom and the protected person get to know each other over time, with the idea that if mom can’t serve as guardian any more, a petition to appoint the professional guardian could be filed and this transition from mom as guardian to the professional as guardian would occur more smoothly.

I have had a few cases in which no friends or family members could serve as guardian, and no money exists to pay a professional. In these cases, it is difficult to quell mom’s panic, because no easy answer to who will take her place as guardian exists. In those cases, my clients have just put their heads down kept caring for their children. 

When their kids are younger than 18, moms don’t need any special authority to keep caring for their children, other than the natural authority that comes with being a mom. But when a child turns 18 years old, the rules change, and mom’s authority to provide care and make care decisions for her child ends. This seems absurd to some of my clients, who manage every aspect of their 18-year old children’s lives, including eating, going to the bathroom, getting dressed, and keeping them from running out into the street. How could this child have the right to make decisions for himself? 

It’s true though, and unless the court appoints a guardian for the 18-year old, no one will have authority to consent to medical treatment or make decisions about where he lives except for the 18-year old. Acknowledging this, Oregon law authorizes a petition for the appointment of a guardian for an incapacitated 17-year old as much as three months prior to the 18th birthday. In the last few months, several clients have hired me to help them with this, paying me money and subjecting themselves to court oversight in order to become guardians and to have ongoing authority to care for their child after their child is 18. 

My mom’s life was blessed and it was hard. In her final days, when my brothers and my dad and I did not understand or acknowledge that mom would die soon, mom used every ounce of her waning energy to choke down food, to suck Ensure through a straw, to stay alive. I don’t think she did this for herself, because she was in pain. I think that she did it for us, because she knew that we needed her. I keep meeting moms with this kind of commitment to their children, and they continue to amaze me.