Return to the Nest : Families: Aging parents are moving in with their sons and daughters, who often become full-time care givers rather than enjoy leisure in their retirement.

Woodrow Wilson was President when Gussie Klein stepped off the boat and onto New York soil. At age 16, the girl had set out alone from Hungary on the two-month journey, hoping to earn enough as a seamstress to support herself and help out the family she had left behind. She landed a series of factory jobs, married, raised a daughter and two sons, and opened her home to a steady stream of fellow immigrants who needed shelter until they could create their own version of the American dream.

But last year, Gussie needed shelter herself. For years, her daughter and son-in-law, Helen and Jacob Klein of Calabasas, had urged her to move in with them. Gussie, who has trouble hearing and gets around unsteadily with the help of a walker, resisted as long as she could. But she finally had to admit that she could no longer maintain her New York apartment. She reluctantly asked Helen to come for her. “Bring a big suitcase,” she said.

Now that the three of them live together, the situation “is not all honey and sweetness,” Helen said. Running errands, visiting her grandchildren in Newhall, taking an evening stroll are difficult. Travel is impossible. The Kleins have become all but homebound. Gussie, handsome and alert at 95, is lonely and bored most of the time.

“My mother was always extremely independent and strong,” Helen said. “All of a sudden, that is gone. Our roles are so reversed, it’s terrible.”

But when Helen goes shopping, Gussie invariably calls out for her to be careful. “I’m 67 years old, and I’m still her little girl,” Helen said.

Aging parents are increasingly returning to the nest to live with their offspring--who are looking forward to retirement, travel and long afternoons on the golf course.

In 1980, slightly more than 19,000 people 85 and older lived in the city of Los Angeles; in 1990 the figure had risen to more than 85,000, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Nationwide, about 10% of the more than 3 million senior citizens 85 and older live with their children. As more people celebrate birthdays well into their 80s and 90s, senior citizens are becoming the newest “boomerang” generation.

Many aging parents cannot bathe or use the toilet without help. Some are prone to wandering off in the middle of the night; embarrassment about incontinence keeps others homebound. Those who can’t hear anything softer than a shout spend long days in a lonely, silent world. Dementia may be the cruelest disorder of all. Those afflicted may be so forgetful and confused that they cannot remember to eat, don’t know where they live, and may not recognize family members.

As a result, for thousands of senior citizens living with their parents, the “golden years” are turning out to be exhausting, frustrating and unspeakably sad.

“It is really a difficult situation when suddenly a child has to take care of a parent,” said Judy Wolfe, program director of Valley Senior Service & Resource Center in Reseda. “I encourage sons and daughters to have the mind-set that this is still the mother and they are still the child. The parent may have childlike behaviors, but they are not children, and that must be respected.”

Care-giving daughters and sons face resistance if they adopt a parental attitude, Wolfe said. One aging mother refuses to acknowledge that she has a daughter, instead referring to her offspring as “my bossy sister.” In another case, a 97-year-old mother asked her daughter, “Does the kitten tell the cat what to do?” Another mother declared that her daughter is “meaner than a junkyard dog.”

Family members can alleviate much of this resentment by allowing elderly parents to maintain as much control over their own lives as possible, according to UCLA geriatrics professor Dr. Dan Osterweil, medical director of the Jewish Home for the Aging in Reseda and head of Gerontological Services at Encino Hospital.

“Let them have their own room, their own television and their own telephone,” he suggested. “Let them decide when they will eat and when they will take care of personal grooming and hygiene. When possible, let the elder control their own money and make decisions about their own health.”

But even in the best of circumstances, caring for one’s parents makes for “a 36-hour day,” said Wolfe. “The adult child becomes trapped at home and loses friends and social contact.”

Shirley Ray, a 67-year-old widow, agrees. Her greatest hardship in caring for her 89-year-old mother, Florence Sylvester, is coping with loneliness.

“I am not able to buzz around like I used to,” Ray said. “I miss fellowship. I miss conversation.” As she spoke, her mother, outfitted in brilliant blue pants and a floral blouse, quietly sat beside her, alternately chuckling softly at some secret joke and shaking her head sadly.

The living room walls of their small Chatsworth mobile home are lined with Reader’s Digest Condensed Books, poetry and Christian tracts. Ray loves to read, but she wishes she could share ideas with someone. She can’t even get to church much anymore, she said, and instead settles for watching religious shows on television.

“There aren’t a lot of people who understand the situation,” Ray said. “They can be sympathetic, but they feel sorry for the one with the illness.” She said that her mother’s worsening incontinence, wandering episodes and occasional temper outbursts are becoming difficult to bear.

“I heard that funny noise,” Sylvester responded, as she did whenever her daughter said something she objected to--such as when Ray noted that her mother “wears Depends” and swings her cane in occasional fits of pique.

“No wonder I’m crazy,” the older woman added cheerfully.

“Sometimes,” Ray admitted, “I think I would like a prolonged respite. But then I look at Mother, and I remember her peeling potatoes and carrots and doing all those things, and I sure would miss her.”

To relieve her isolation, Ray attends support group meetings for care givers at Valley Senior Center, and she sends her mother to the center’s adult day-care program.

“Being around others in the same situation helps me realize I am not alone,” she said. “There are lots of us out there, and we share and sound off.”

Deanna Mayer, 54, and Lindalee Wakely, 50, support each other in caring for their mother, Inez Wakely, in their Canoga Park home. The sisters, both divorced with adult children, are outspoken, good-natured and fiercely devoted to family.

“My mother was a wonderful homemaker and great cook. She was the epitome of motherhood,” Lindalee said. “All my high school friends wished they had my parents; when they had problems, they called my mother.”

But now Inez regularly loses her purse, hides items in her bra and stashes food in her bedroom until it becomes maggot-infested. Sometimes she wanders out the door and gets lost. On one occasion, Lindalee walked into the kitchen and found her mother graciously serving lunch to a stranger who happened to be strolling by. Inez cries often, begs to go “home” to the Oklahoma farmhouse where she was born 74 years ago, and says she wants to be in heaven with her husband, the late cowboy singer Jimmy Wakely.

“She remembers her childhood; she remembers her happy marriage,” Lindalee said. “But she forgets what happened five minutes ago.”

As her daughters discuss the pain and frustration of caring for a parent with dementia, Inez stares lovingly at old framed publicity stills of her husband, ever the good guy in white Stetson and spurs. Oblivious to the conversation centering on her, she roams from room to room, cradling an ancient Chihuahua named Baby Tu and smiling delightedly when the dog licks her face.

Deanna and Lindalee say their mother is physically well, but that the stress is affecting their health. Deanna, a Sherman Oaks medical assistant, has lived with her mother since 1982. In the beginning, she was able to go to work and leave Inez home alone as long as she phoned every hour or so. But as her mother’s mental condition worsened, Deanna spent much of her day with a knot in her stomach.

“I would go to work in the morning and throw up my breakfast,” she said. “I lived on Alka-Seltzer.”

Her doctor told her: “I am not worried about your mother. I am worried about you.”

Lindalee moved in with her sister and mother after her divorce last year. Since she works at home as a transcriber, she can keep an eye out for their mother during the day, relieving Deanna. But now Lindalee has a permanently sore, constricted throat.

“It’s from constantly holding back tears,” she said. Deanna and Lindalee chain-smoke, and neither gets much sleep. They spend restless, insomniac nights, worried that their mother will wander out the door or accidentally set the house on fire.

“It is very stressful to take a much older, infirm person into the household,” said Dorie Gradwohl, director of Valley Storefront Jewish Family Service, a senior center in North Hollywood. “It takes its toll in wear and tear on family members. A parent may become too much to handle physically; the adult children are not able to continue their lifestyle; and quite often, one of the adult children becomes ill.”

An overwhelmed Deanna once shouted, “I hate this!” Lindalee overheard the outburst.

“When I heard her say the word hate, it just destroyed me,” she said. “Then a week later, I said it.” Deanna and Lindalee are now considering placing their mother in one of the adult day-care programs available at senior centers and hospitals.

But they say a nursing home is out of the question.

“Putting her in a home would kill all of us,” Lindalee said. “It is really hard, and I do need a break, but I love this person. She never said ‘no’ to any of her kids, and we can’t say ‘no’ to her. Life sometimes sure does suck eggs.”