TELEVISION REVIEW : KGTV’s Worthwhile, If Flawed, Look at ‘Parenting Your Parents’

Anyone contemplating putting their elderly parents in a sterile institution should watch the first half-hour of “Parenting Your Parents,” a KGTV (Channel 10)-produced special airing tonight at 10.

The “Signature Series” special explores the role reversal that takes place when parents become the dependents, when children are called upon to take care of their aging parents. Although much of the hourlong program gets bogged down in narrator Kimberly Hunt’s rhetoric and a superficial treatment of some of the issues, it contains some special moments.

This is not a tabloid TV treatment of the subject. It is not full of nursing home horror stories or the tragic tales that so often accompany the topic.

Instead, “Parenting Your Parents” focuses on what works, as well as uplifting examples of seniors who are being well-cared-for in their last years. In particular, the special, produced by Chuck Apostolas and Jeff Barrett, introduces viewers to some people who have taken the gutsy and sacrificial step of caring for their parents themselves.

The first half-hour of the program is dedicated to these families. They are heroes. They’re doing something few of us would be willing to consider. To many, the idea of taking elderly parents into their homes is hard to comprehend, especially if the parents are sick and require constant attention. Such dedication and sacrifice is inspiring.

Among the couples are Ralph and Katherine Flint, who sold a business they had run for 20 years in the Bay Area in order to move back to San Diego to care for Ralph’s ailing mother, Ida, who has Alzheimer’s disease.

Their entire life revolves around caring for Ida. The task has alienated them from other members of their family, who were unable or unwilling to make a similar sacrifice.

Yet, despite the hassles, the Flints’ story is a hearty tribute to families who stick together. In one of the sweeter moments in the show, it becomes clear that the experience has brought Katherine and Ralph closer.

“Who’s more fortunate? Mom because she has us, or me because I have him?” Katherine wrote in a letter to Channel 10, which Hunt reads during the program.

The most relevant question Hunt asks over and over again is: Why do they do it?

The answers are similar and matter-of-fact. They do it because they believe they have no choice. In some cases, they do it because their parents did it.

“I think nursing homes . . . are viewed as a last resort, when you have exhausted the possibilities of caring for her at home,” said Bill Cockell, a retired Navy admiral who is taking care of his blind mother by himself. “I think she’s much more comfortable and relaxed in the home setting.”

There is enough drama in these stories without Hunt’s wordy and heavy-handed narration, which adds little to the program. She almost never stops talking, saying things like, “It is tough, you bet it is.”

Interviewing a woman named Sylvia Larson, who deals with her parents before and after going to work each day, Hunt says, “Look at Sylvia’s face, and you can see the strain.”

Well, if viewers can see the strain, they don’t need Hunt to tell them about it. More time should have been spent letting the families tell their own stories, instead of letting Hunt try to tell it for them.

Hunt also is needlessly redundant, especially in the second half of the program, which moves away from the families to discuss support organizations.

“If there is one message . . . it is you don’t have to go it alone, there is help out there,” Hunt says, simply repeating what interview subjects have said more than once.

But, instead of leaving it at that, and simply giving information on support agencies, the entire second half of the program is dedicated to quickie reports about some of the institutions available to help, along with seemingly obligatory and superficial interviews with administrators.

It’s all important information, but it could have been easily summarized.

The producers appear to be filling time, especially when they repeat a “Troubleshooter” segment on nursing homes reported by consumer reporter Marti Emerald, which aired during newscasts earlier this month.

“Trouble-shooter Marti Emerald found there are some good (nursing homes) as well as some bad ones,” Hunt explains in one of her more helpful voice-overs.

Emerald’s pieces are superfluous, although, to the producers’ credit, they also give viewers key information about how to call the county ombudsman to check on the credibility of nursing homes.

The producers would have been better off focusing on the families who are managing their situations. Their course, their decision to take care of their parents themselves, raise real questions that don’t get addressed here. What would be the impact on the senior care system if more people took this route? What are the dollars and cents of the various alternatives? These questions go unexplored.

Most glaring is the lack of viewpoint from the seniors themselves. Except for one or two lines, no seniors are interviewed to discuss their predicament or what they would prefer.

Obviously, many of the seniors are incapacitated. But, of the dozens who are shown dancing and walking around neighborhoods, at least one should have been able to rationally discuss his or her plight.

Instead, the program discusses seniors as third parties. They are shown sitting around while others talk about their fates.

In other words, the second half of the program takes the same distant approach to seniors that society far too often takes.