Elder care-Demands by elderly can be selfish and unrealistic!

I wished I had known this years ago !

Yes, Mercy. I remember how much it had hurt to find out he was telling lies about me being a freeloader, did nothing at all, etc... And this was before he had the stroke.

Think our experiences bear great similarity !

Hi bookluvr -
Sounds like you are taking the full load of care giving for your mother. Then everyone is trash talking you while they do nothing. I hate to say this, but this is unfortunately very typical. The ones who do nothing feel entitled to beat up on you, the only one who is doing anything. Every read the story of "Cinderella"? The sibs will always point the finger at you for not doing enough while they are out painting the town. They do this to deflect attention from themselves. Just do the best you can within your conscience and physical ability. Tell the truth about what you are doing.
Just imagine if you were to take a weeks vacation. They would freak out. Sounds like you are very concerned with your mom's welfare and you would not do that because no one else would pick up the slack.
I suggest you contact the local department for the aging and have a frank discussion with the social worker. You cannot force
your sibs to help out, but perhaps you can get a good personal home attendant through Medicare or Medicaid to help with your mom's personal needs so you can get a break.
Also, if she has any money, just hire someone to help out. Probably the sibs don't want anyone cutting into their inheritance so they want you to do all the work free of charge. Obviously they are taking your good nature for granted.
It is great that you love your mother. You do not have to kill yourself taking care of her single handedly.
Good luck!

Hi Kidnumber2, thanks for the advice. When I found this site about 3 years ago, I was a very bitter, resentful, sometimes filled with hatred - towards my sibs and all who thought it was their place to tell me to do more. Mom finally passed away 2 years ago. Alas! Even in high school and college, I tended to write essays with mixed tenses - present tense and past tense, from "I' to 'We" to "I". I was terrible with grammar. Sorry if I made it seem like mom was still here.

Regarding the title of this discussion - to the elderly, it is NOT unrealistic or selfish. Like my dad told me - even before he had his stroke - that that's why they have children - to take care of them in their old age. Just like he did with his mother. And mom's youngest brother did with their mother. It's a cultural thing. It's expected of us. So, to us, it's not unrealistic but expected. Otherwise, we become shameful, disrespectful children, etc.... {shrug} whatever... It is what it is.. you deal with the dealt cards (not that I know how to play poker or bridge.)

That was how my father's parents thought and my mother resented them. Mind you with good cause. My grandfather's idea of playing with his grand-daughter (me) was to catch my ankle with his walking stick and trip me as I ran past. He would giggle as I feel and burnt my knees on the carpet. I could never understand his humour. He once slapped me across the face one time for talking when I should ha been listening. My father told me to ignore him he didn't mean any harm. My father followed his example with my children. Not all grand-parents are admired.

Oops replace feel with fell.

When my older sister got married, they visited Nana who was at home, too sick to attend the wedding. Sis told me that she was shocked that Nana (my dad's mother) told the groom to beat his wife if she deserves it. She was telling him to go ahead and beat up her own granddaughter!

I was thinking I was the only one who thought this - and of course it doesn't help that on my mom's side of the family (i.e. cousins, uncles, aunts) are on mom's side and think nothing of the load it was for me: a daughter on social welfare trying to find employment, not finding anything out there and the stress of caring for a mother who wants to stay in her home until her dying breath - and mom doesn't even have that kind of money to support this demand. And whatever money she is using now at the long-term care home is from the sale of the house. No inheritance for me and the sibling who expects his 50% is making a six figure salary! And me...well social assistance $ is less than $10K/year (Canadian dollars).

Hmm, waitbtill you are old. In other countries, the elderly are always at hime and welcomed as wisdom. Practice forgiveness. You can caretake and still hold boundaries. It is scary to be old and sick. Nursing homes are for dearh and increase deaths. Whatever your religions are, listen go yourselves. Find the positive and work.on that. Life is valuable, and one day, you will be old yourself. I will never nursing home my parents, and also buy mix use zoned land, so you can open a biz as caretake, as even services such as home ekgs and labs are even covered by Medicare and Medicaud. Teach your children to help. Love is a verb. Very disturbed to see this as my first view of a aging suopport forum.

Why is someone practicing medicine, saying he needs to take a depressant. Psych drugs are way over used already, and a few comments here and there are no way ti diagnose and prescribe for depression.

And the very rich are on Medi, as Medi does allow any fancy car and home.

He is being jumped on, as the system is leaving many out that need it. In fact, income guidelines are supposed to have a public comment peeiod, and only 800 plus ecen commented on that last income ruling, as the public and disabled are not even given information to know and access.

Gnarly, don;t be too dismayed. Realize that MOST people on here are posting because the idyllic dream of a happy, rich, multigenerational household did not materialize as they hoped. Forgiveness is good but some elders are too impaired to recognize boundaries, and put caregivers and even children in danger, which can't be accepted. It is good to stay very involved with a parent who is placed in a facility of any kind to make sure that care is optimal, and I would say never say never...many people have been hurt by making that promise, and by hurt I mean lost marriages, had DCFS called because of harm to children, lost their health or even their life to the attempt to be the 24/7 caregiver to someone who really can't be managed in a home setting because of their needs or their behavior.

And, commenting about depression is just something to think about - many people don't think of angry hostile behavior as possibly relating to depression, and that's not really very uncommon. Someone lashing out and being "mean" rather than sad and crying all the time may benefit from antidepressant Rx, but someone has to think of it first :-) You are right though that more of an evaluation should be done before jumping to that conclusion.

Thanks. Im sorry but all the anger and want ti be rid if, seeing all as just stsrt is really upsetting. I get its hard, but please people, dont lose the best of you.
I caretook, since 16. Also, mynparents were abusive to us. But, Im tellibg you, forgiveness brought us closer, even if it was inly me forgiving.
Ive lived all alone and away from fam, too, and you can really be preyed upin out there. Family is value, unless severely dangeeous, of course. Gbless.

So glad to find this page and discussion. I have the same thoughts / feelings about my mother. She has all kinds of things she wants me to do for her, but when I ask her to do something within her abilities towards that - like making a phone call to get information, or if I offer to schedule someone who could take her where she wants to go but it will cost her a little money - the tune changes. I find myself wondering when she really needs help and when she is just trying to maniuplate me, a behavior that goes back to when I was a child. She's in assisted living, I find it very frustrating when she wants me to take time off of work to do things the staff are paid to do for her. Don't really have a point here - other than to say I'm a little relieved to know I'm not alone and not so crazy.

Gnarly - you've made certain choices and they've worked for you. That doesn't make your point of view superior or more informed. It doesn't obligate anyone else to follow you or insure that they'd have positive results if they did.

My mother is one of the most unwise people I've every known. She's shallow, thoughtless, selfish, and demanding. Any culture that would impute wisdom to elderly people just because they're old is, in my opinion, ridiculous. If my mother was eligible for a nursing home, she'd be in one.

I forgive her, but that's really not the point. Should I put aside all my personal goals and desires in order to make her final years as comfortable and pleasant as possible? I don't think so. There's nothing about her being old that makes the quality of her life more important than the quality of mine. I'm sorry if those views disturb you, but people are entitled to hold their own truth and speak it out loud. Too bad if others don't agree.

Well said CarlaCB

Gnarly, maybe you have by now, but spend some time reading up on others lives on this site. Look, when I first found this site, I too, thought man folks seem to be ready to push the easy button to put a parent in some other living situation. But then I got the shock and awe of my own reality with my parents and found it quickly firsthand why that is sometimes necessary.

I come from a blended, multicultural family that expect you to take care of your parents until death. However, when I really got to experience how involved care taking really is I realized I couldn't do it all myself. I went to bed one night with my jaw hurting so bad I thought I might not wake up the next morning. I am a Christian and thought well absent from the body present with the Lord, but I really didn't want to die. And I am still fairly young and otherwise in good health. I don't want to die like that anyway.

Sometimes the most kind, loving and merciful thing we can do for a parent or other family member is to get them into the hands of good care they need to ensure the best quality of life at that point in their lives. They need it, but so do we. I'd rather be an advocate in that way than to run myself into the ground and leave this earth before they do. Many, as you have read, come from some horrendous family circumstances that make it even more of a challenge. I commend them for doing so in the face of such pain and hurt many times.

This is not to condemn you at all, so please don't take it that way. It's just to say sometimes we have to step back and see the bigger picture outside of our own world. Believe me, it's a lot going on out there! Be well.

Gnarly, I think it's important to notice that the people on this forum are usually the ones helping the parents. These aren't the sibs who see the parents once a year for 4 days. The feelings they express are normal and just being human. Few of us have people in our daily lives that we can say these things to because they don't understand.

I understand that in other countries, other cultures, the tradition has been for elders to remain at home with family. I do wonder, however, if that hasn't been changing as women are working fulltime, smaller families means fewer sibs and families are no longer in a small geographic area (which allows for the whole family to take care of each other.)

As our parents are living into their 90's, it has become difficult to keep them home as was the tradition. We often have multiple parents to care for, with our spouse's parents aging as well. And having parents in their 90's means we are seniors with our own health issues as well. Having our own physical limits, plus our spouse's limits and elderly parents with increasing health needs......it becomes impossible to keep everyone at home and care for them properly.

I used to bristle when someone did the judgemental "I would never do this to my parent". Now, I just quietly think "you don't know what you'll do when it's not a hypothetical thing and you have to live with the real consequences of your decision."

No one can understand or criticise another carers decision's as they do not fully understand the equation. Circumstances - what stage your own family life is at, timing, depth of elders ill health, relationships, your own personal health and that of your husband and children, employment demands, financial restraints, amount of additional carer's, timings, past relationships with your elder's etc....
Judge and you shall be judged...
This forum ( in my opinion) is about support and exchange of ideas with a view to finding the strength to cope with each new day and challenge. To feel you are not alone. It is not helpful to face criticism or judgement when you are trying your best on a course you have had no training for nor do you know what chapter is coming next.

I am dealing with a mother who insists that we take her to Christmas Eve service. We do not like to drive at night as we are in our 50s. She wants to tell us where to go on Christmas Day. Denny's is not our first choice. But it is her's. Any thoughts on how to deal with this? My current plan is to visit after work Sat nite and bring her food on Christmas Day.

KATESL - it is called setting boundaries and it is very difficult, but important to do. Tell your mom your plans. When she starts to argue, cry - whatever tell her "this works for me, I love you, talk with you later" and hang up. If you are in person - "this works for me, I love you, gotta go" and exit the situation. It will difficult as she will likely pull out all of the stops of the FOG that worked in the past to manipulate you - but what can she really do? I am learning balance because as soon as I started to say "no" to my manipulative mom - it was so empowering I did it just because I could. Now, I ask for time to think, agree to what I feel I can/want to do and say "no, that doesn't work for me" to the rest. Your life, your choice. As my therapist said when I wrestled with setting boundaries "in this situation someone will be angry or unhappy - you or your mom. Why should it be you? it is YOUR life" Good luck. Remember - you love your mom, you like to help your mom, but you are not your mom's slave. Do what you want, when you want, with a large helping of love - for your mom and for yourself also.

KATESL: "Mom, I just do not feel comfortable driving at night. I'd be glad to call the church office and see if they can suggest someone in your congregation who lives nearby and who might be willing to pick you up. Or I will arrange for a cab for both ways. I just can't provide the ride." Be polite, be firm, and don't back down. This is a fairly easy one, because you do have a legitimate "reason" to not do it. So, start with an easy one! Kimber is right that this isn't going to be easy, and she is also right that it CAN BE DONE.

Good luck!

By all means say "no" to anything you feel might be dangerous. For many people night vision starts to go fairly early so this is a very legitimate reason to not drive at night. At any rate, you really have no obligation to be parents' go-fer.

Igh. I completely relate this this. I have already seen what happens to those in my family who step in to help. When an adult child stepped in to care for my grandfather for 12 years, everyone was appreciative. Gave up time with family, vacations, etc. But as soon as granddad passed away, relatives couldn't kick the caregiver out of his house fast enough and sell. The executor, another one of his adult children, convinced him not to change his will when he wanted to leave more to the caregiver, so the adult child was left with equal share after providing care for 12 years for free...My parents were perfectly happy with this situation. None of them speak now. And in my family the aging parents have never been nor will they ever be wrong about anything or at fault for anything. So when my aging mother broke her hip, her aging body wasn't at fault, someone obviously pushed her. Luckily I was with her, with a friend as witness, but the repeated family history is that I pushed her....Yet everyone wants ME to be the caregiver?!?!? Forget it.
My parents also retired and moved near other retired relatives when their own parents were still active. Having kids at 20 and only have to put 25 years in for a pension will do that. But having kids later as my parents did, and our generation working until 65 or 70...means no one is retiring anytime soon. But the aging parents STILL expect someone to move to their retirement town to care for them! None of their children has ties to their town. My MIL by contrast talks with her children and their spouses about plans. She's planning in advance and is clear minded about all the potential issues. So I KNOW it is possible for aging adults to do this. It is possible for them to show some amount of respect. Some just refuse to let go of what they WANT to have happen! Thanks for letting me vent.

My mother after 4 years of hell for my sister and later myself is finally going to a nursing home. It took her falling and breaking a hip but I have to honest for my sister and myself it is a relief.
No one goes into a care giving situation realizing that they will be a captive, their live turned up side down, unable to leave or even take a vacation, all due to the selfishness and stubbornness of an elderly parent. But it comes on gradually. First it's just a visit one or twice a week. Then its cleaning up, then laundry, then mowing the lawn, then doing dishes, then shampooing their hair, then changing the bed, buying groceries. And my God when she got an alarm for falling, she would press it when she wanted someone to come over. And it was never enough. And the criticism and anger.
My mother was abusive towards me and at age 18 I left and our relationship was strained, so I was not going to be her caregiver but it fell to my sister and I only stepped in because she literally was killing my sister. My brother other than borrowing large sums of money to keep his house from foreclosure and live in her basement at age 60 rent free for 2 years, did nothing. He only left when mom became a burden and he had to help out.
When I went down to see my sister (it cost about $800 to fly out) and I am on disability, the first thing I did was disconnect her house phone and block mom's number. Which finally forced my brother to step up. But this was only 2 months ago.
I am angry at the stay in the home case workers because even after my mom was diagnosed with Dementia, they still took her word that she needed no home help. She hadn't bathed in 2 years, was wearing the same outfit for 4 weeks and her kitchen was a disaster and she wasn't eating properly. Even when the nurse at the emergency contacted her and told her our mom was in crisis and need immediate placement, this case worker wriggled out and said it wasn't a real crisis. If they want seniors to stay in their homes, the care should be there even if the senior says no. Dumping everything on the children, who are themselves seniors is wrong. It's done only to save money.
I should have rescued my sister long before and that is my only regret. My sister and I will visit only on a limited basis as my mother is verbally abusive.
Don't wait till you are sick and worn to a frazzle. Cut off ties. The agencies or another sibling will step in and so they should.
A senior parent while they have their facilities must make a care plan that does not include their children. With parents living till 100 these days, it means the children are enslaved to their aging parents for up to 20 years. And if my mom's current situation has taught me anything it's that if you do not make plan for when you are unable to look after yourself, someone else will and you won't like it because it will be what is available.
My mother could have had a nice quality of life had she moved into an independent living center for the past 10 years. Instead she chose to live in a house where she could not move around and not bath and refused delivered meals. Her life was a mess but it was her own choosing. I said to my sister, she is drowning and dragging you down. And someone is drowning, you have to cut them loose or they will kill you.
Something has to change because this situation with senior parents cannot continue this way.

This is such an unfortunate situation. I think the previous generation was accustomed to having their children care for them at home.
However with all the mobility (that is normal these days) some of the elders have not "caught up" in their mind that they need to downsize, live in senior residence, etc.
And shame on the caseworker who neglected to see that your mother was properly bathed.
I do not have kids and am currently 58 years old - far from retirement age. However, my plan is to put my name on a list for a senior residence as soon as I am of age so that I can maintain an independent and decent lifestyle in a community that supports seniors. This is a realistic outlook for today's living.
As a caveat, some have divorced parents living in different places. Mission Impossible if they are not set up for independent living.
As a note to the woman whose mom wants to make all the Christmas plans, I agree with the responder that suggested she get a ride from someone from the church. When my late grandmother was older and unable to drive, she solicited her parish for a ride to mass. They were very accommodating. When the seniors get older, they can get very set in what they want to do on any given day. They are accustomed to being the boss. It is wise to say "I will think about it and let you know". This way you are not overextending yourself and do not have a knee jerk reaction every time mom asks. Sometimes it is hard to say no to them as they get older. There is often a way to include them without derailing your own life. If not, we all do our best.
I miss my deceased relatives and wish I had spent time with one in particular a bit more, but I did the best I could do at that time.

I am dealing with an 83 year old father who was pretty independent until a few years ago. His disease has brought out the hatred in him. He would throw any one of his three daughters under the bus to assume their health. I am 55 and have heart issues but am the ONLY one he will allow to take him to a doctor's appointment. He is in assisted living and the workers will bring him to the appointment to the city I live in (which is around 25 miles away), but he INSISTS that I go pick him up and take him. Its 100 miles on me when all is said and done. He won't have it any other way and if I say no, he starts to recruit extended family members that we really don't want in our business. Neither of my sisters will help either. Its not as bad as a few years ago when he was first diagnosed and spent the better part of the year in a hospital, but he just keeps on getting his way. I am so sick of it. I want so badly to break free of him and his selfish ways. Then, in the next moment, I feel guilty for wanting my own life. I want to run away alot of days. I can't even think clearly about it anymore.

Tired, how about trying a little manipulation of your own: tell him you will take him to his appointment, but make arrangements with the AL to use their services without telling him. When it is time to go make an excuse that something came up and you can't come and get him (car trouble? diarrhea? last minute work assignment?) but you have arranged for the AL to bring him to you LOL :)

My sister and I have been taking care of my mother from a social standpoint sinc e my dad died in 1988. At this point she has burned us both out and we cannot stand her. November 2015 she has a stroke and heart attack. Along with being finally diagnosed with vascular dementia....I went to her primary care ...to no avail. She is now in an alf....I don't care if I ever see her and neither does my sister. Sad but 28 years we are done.