PBS's "Caring for Your Parents" (9 tonight, WQED) is not entertainment. And it's not, strictly speaking, educational. But it is illustrative of the obstacles many of us will face as our parents age.

"They cared for us, and now we have to care for them," says the narrator in this production from WBGH, PBS's Boston station.

"Parents" focuses on the challenges faced by five Rhode Island families from assorted social classes all dealing with aging parents. Some of the elderly parents live with their families; others are in a nursing home. Bert and Mac continue to live on their own, but they discuss with their children the need for a game plan for when the time comes that they can no longer live on their own in their longtime home.

"They're from a generation that wanted to be able to take care of themselves and not be a burden on their children," says Joyce, Bert and Mac's daughter. "Now they have to learn that they have to rely back on us and not be afraid to ask."

"Caring for Your Parents" is not a lot of fun to watch. In fact, it's a major downer. But it's worth seeing because it will make viewers think about their own situations, how they will handle these crises should they arise.

A doctor notes that data show that having a daughter is the No. 1 predictor of not having to move into a nursing home. Indeed, in "Caring for Your Parents," it's almost always the daughter, who is also a mother charged with taking care of her own family, who is the primary caregiver for an elderly parent. In the case of Ricardo, who visits his divorced parents in two separate nursing homes every day after work, asking his wife to care for his Alzheimer's-afflicted mother proved to be a bridge too far. During the course of filming, Ricardo and his wife separate.

"Parents," which runs 90 minutes, also addresses the toll the stress takes on the caregiver (Ricardo develops a heart condition) and the inter-family anger that can develop when one child is saddled with most of that responsibility.

But it's not just gloom and doom as "Parents" explores the work of managing a decline. It also shows the "transformative moments" that can emerge, little joyful episodes and the revelation that learning to care for one's parents may also teach people how to better care for other people in their lives.