When they say everything's fine (and it really isn't)

You can see it clearly. The mouldy food in the fridge. The washing sitting wet in the machine for a week. Dad without his walker at 2am. Mum having a quiet cry because she can't read her own handwriting anymore.

And yet, according to them? Everything is absolutely fine.

If you're nodding, you're in good company. Denial - or what geriatrician Dr Stephanie Ward more generously calls "differences in awareness" - is one of the most common and most maddening experiences in the sandwich generation. You're not overreacting. You're not being bossy. You're watching something real, and being told you're imagining it.

Here's what's actually going on and what, realistically, you can do about it.

It's tempting to call it stubbornness. Sometimes it is. Dr Stephanie Ward, Geriatrician and consulting expert on the ABC's Old Person's Home for 4-year olds joined the Club Sandwich podcast recently to explains that what looks like denial is often something more complicated - and more human.

Pride and grief. Acknowledging that you can no longer do things you've done your whole life is genuinely hard. There's real grief in that. Real loss of identity. The person who raised a family, built a career, cared for their own parents - now being told they need a cleaner, or can't manage the stove safely. Of course there's resistance.

A self-image that hasn't caught up. As Dr Ward puts it, most older people still feel a version of their younger selves on the inside. They'll walk past a shop window and be startled by their reflection. In their minds, they're still capable of everything they used to do. Their perception of their own abilities is genuinely out of step with reality -  not because they're being difficult, but because that's how ageing works for many people.

Fear of what comes next. Accepting a cleaner isn't just accepting a cleaner. For many older people, it feels like the first step on a path that ends in an aged care facility. They're not being irrational. They're trying to hold the line. As Dr Ward notes, "maybe it's just a cleaner now, but maybe in six months they're gonna put me in an aged care facility." Understanding that fear doesn't mean surrendering to it but it does change how you approach the conversation.

Genuine cognitive change. This one is harder to sit with, but important to name. Sometimes what looks like denial is actually a symptom of mild cognitive impairment or early dementia - conditions that reduce self-awareness and affect judgment. If your parent is making decisions that seem completely out of character, it's worth getting a professional assessment. Not because you want to overrule them, but because you need to understand what you're working with.

Here's something worth pausing on. This generation is genuinely stoic in a way that can be hard for us to fully comprehend.

Dr Ward makes this point directly on Club Sandwich: "They're superheroes themselves. They're trying to deal with a lot on their own plate each day." Pain. Fatigue. Deteriorating vision or hearing. Getting through an ordinary morning when your body is working against you. That takes real resilience. What looks like denial is sometimes just a person who has a much higher threshold for discomfort than you do, and who has spent a lifetime not complaining.

That doesn't mean the risks aren't real. But it's worth holding both things at once: they may genuinely be managing better than you think, and there are things that need to change.

Hard truth. You probably can't logic your parent into accepting help. Not in one conversation. Not with the right facts, the right tone, or the perfectly constructed argument.

What tends to work is slower, less satisfying, and more effective.

Focus on one thing. Not the whole list. Not the big picture. Just the single issue that carries the most risk right now. The food safety. The falls risk. The medication. Pick the thing you genuinely can't let go of, and start there. Leave the rest for later.

Frame it as something you need, not something they need. This sounds counterintuitive, but Dr Ward highlights it as one of the most effective approaches: many older parents are deeply motivated by not wanting to be a burden. If you can honestly say "I need you to do this for me ...the worry is too much", that lands differently than "you need help." It preserves their agency. It gives them something to do for you, rather than something being done to them.

Let the idea take root. You might not get yes today. Or next month. But an idea mentioned gently, more than once, without pressure, has a way of settling in. As Dr Ward puts it, sometimes it just takes persistence and letting something "take seed." Don't mistake silence for refusal.

Use a professional voice. There's a reason your parent might hear the same thing from their GP that they've refused to hear from you for months. You're still the baby who needed help riding a bike. A geriatrician, a GP, or an aged care social worker carries a different kind of authority, not because they know your parent better than you do, but because they're not embedded in the family dynamic. Use that.

Try the side door. Dr Ward's practical suggestion: sometimes it's easier for an older parent to accept help when it doesn't come from you directly. A friend dropping in. A neighbour checking the fridge. Help that looks social rather than medical. The goal is the same. The path is just less confrontational.

This is the part nobody wants to hear, but Dr Ward says it plainly on Club Sandwich: "We have to make peace with what we can do and what we can't."

You cannot change your parent's personality. You cannot undo a lifetime of stoicism or stubbornness. You cannot always prevent the incident, the fall, the health crisis that finally makes everything clear. What you can do is lay the groundwork so that when something does happen, the conversation you've already started is easier to complete.

That's not failure. That's the reality of caring for someone who has the right to make their own decisions, even imperfect ones. Dr Ward calls it the "dignity of risk"  - it is the idea that autonomy includes the right to make choices others might not make for you. It's uncomfortable when it's someone you love. But it's also part of respecting who they are.

Where that changes is when cognitive impairment is affecting their judgment in ways that aren't consistent with their own values and history. That's when getting professional support (and potentially exploring legal options like enduring guardianship or power of attorney) becomes important. That's not overruling your parent. That's protecting them.

It's easy to pour all your energy into changing what your parent will or won't accept. But there's a question worth turning inward too: are you getting any support through this?

Dr Ward is direct about this on the podcast: even she, as a geriatrician, has sought peer support when navigating ageing family members. Just talking it through with someone who understands - a professional, another caregiver, a GP - can shift your perspective, validate what you're seeing, and help you work out what actually needs to happen next.

You're not imagining what you're seeing. And you don't have to figure out what to do with it alone.

Identify the one risk you genuinely can't let go of. Just one. Then think about who (not just you)could help address it. A GP who could raise it clinically. A sibling who could reinforce it. A professional who could assess it. You don't have to be the only one having this conversation.

Want to go deeper? Listen to the full Club Sandwich episode with Dr Stephanie Ward on denial and resistance, including her practical advice on navigating this without destroying your relationship in the process. Listen here.