Lidiar con tus viejos: Reflexiones sobre la Vejez y la Dignidad Familiar

March 12, 2026·59 min·4 clips

Santiago propone reemplazar 'esperanza' por 'aceptación' cuando se cuida a alguien con una enfermedad degenerativa sin cura: aceptar el dolor es la única herramienta real.

1. La FM's Aquí y Ahora on a Wednesday night hosts a special book interview edition with Santiago Schlesinger, author of Lidiar con tus viejos, a personal account of accompanying aging parents. 2. Santiago Schlesinger is a Colombian lawyer, economist, MBA, public sector veteran, entrepreneur, drummer, composer, and music producer whose surname traces to a German ancestor who co-founded the New York Philharmonic in the 19th century. 3. The episode's core question is how to find practical tools for navigating the emotional, logistical, and ethical complexities of aging parents — not from a therapeutic manual, but from lived experience. 4. Schlesinger explains the title's use of 'viejos' (old ones) as a term of endearment inherited from his father's years working in Uruguay, where it is a common and affectionate form of address. 5. He describes the genesis of the book as spontaneous and unplanned: he realized his parents — like beloved bands — had always felt permanent, and was caught off guard by the moment that certainty broke. 6. His mother has had an incurable degenerative illness since approximately 2016, the specific disease is not named, with no genetic family history that explains it and no medical intervention beyond slowing the decline. 7. His sister emigrated roughly 30 years ago, married abroad, and lives on another continent; her interactions with their parents naturally focus on positive topics, while Schlesinger handles the daily, often stressful, realities of proximity. 8. Schlesinger clarifies that neither sibling chose their geographic situation with parental care in mind — circumstances placed him nearby and her far away — and that his sister experiences guilt about the distance. 9. He proposes replacing 'esperanza' (hope) with 'aceptación' (acceptance) as the central tool for managing a loved one's irreversible decline, arguing that hope implies expecting what will not come and breeds frustration. 10. Acceptance, in his framework, means accepting pain, anger, frustration, the disease itself, and the passage of time — not resignation but a realistic foundation for taking useful action. 11. He confirms being 'emocionalmente abierto' (emotionally open) to his mother's life cycle ending, given that her condition will only worsen and there is no stabilization possible. 12. He draws an analogy between the social acceptance of euthanizing suffering animals and the taboo around the same conversation for humans, calling for an open, family-empowering public debate on dignified dying. 13. The host discloses that his own mother died three years ago after 17 years of decline from a similar illness, and that Catholic faith gave him and his two siblings the strength to endure. 14. Schlesinger responds that he is 100% atheist, believes life ends completely at death, and that this conviction reinforces his drive to reduce suffering in this life because there is, in his view, nothing after. 15. He describes the atheism as leading him toward 'the religion of probabilities' — accepting that some people will fall into painful statistical outcomes, and that his response is to make the best of the only life that exists. 16. Schlesinger has been in psychiatric care for over 20 years, predating his parents' aging, primarily because he is, in his words, an 'overthinker' who processes situations backward and forward simultaneously. 17. He acknowledges the guilt of sometimes not visiting his mother because seeing her affects him too deeply, and frames the guilt itself as something to accept rather than argue away. 18. The host notes that Schlesinger's book resonates without requiring a religious or psychological framework — it speaks from a purely human place that both believers and atheists can recognize in their own experience. 19. The episode is interview-format, intimate and unhurried, with the host also sharing personal loss, which creates a mutual disclosure dynamic rare in Colombian radio. 20. Listeners who are adults in the 35-60 age range with aging parents, or who have recently navigated parental decline or death, would find the episode directly relevant; listeners seeking practical care-giving advice or clinical guidance would find it too personal and non-prescriptive.

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