I am retired and live with my husband of 35 years. Our 3 children are all married and we have 3 grandchildren (and one on the way). None of our children live close by and we are considering moving closer to our children (to another state) to help them with their growing families. However, that will mean we are 12 hours away from my mother who is 84, lives alone, and increasingly needs more help. (Currently we live just 2 hours from her). I really want to move closer to our children and they also want us to move. It will be a warmer climate and an exciting new start. But I do not want to live that far from my mother, and she will not want to move away from her friends and activities. I am looking for advise about this situation.
We can't and shouldn't live life by the "what if's" but one day at a time and handle situations as they arise. If mother WANTS to move, that's another story.
PS
From your profile
I am caring for my mother with age-related decline, anxiety, arthritis, depression, diabetes, heart disease, incontinence, and mobility problems.
Based on all of your mother's health issues, I change my answer to......see if you can get her to move into AL nearby to where you move. She's got entirely too many health issues to be living alone anywhere, imo, and needs to be where caregivers and nurses are there 24/7.
If your mother would like to move nearby to a nice small apartment, and that's what you would like also, that's great. But I would make it clear that the next move would be to assisted living where you could visit, perhaps go on outings and take her to appointments here and there, have the great grands visit. Such a choice would be up to her.
This encourages your mom to continue to live an independent life. And not to become dependent on you--but rather to know when she should join an independent living community.
Of course plan for what you can, but try to avoid letting imagined scenarios have too much weight in the equation.
While it may be good to have a rough plan of what happens when your Mother is no longer able to live independantly, it is impossible to plan for every type of scenario.
Trust that you will find a way, if/when those decisions have to be made in a crises.
Should you let her move in with you if you decide to encourage her to move with you? NO!!!
If and when the time comes when your mother requires more help and agrees to leave her friends and the life she knows, she can move to an assisted living facility near you or in the city where she's at now.
Your mother has lived her life the way she's wanted, so now it's time for you to do the same.
If your mother’s reluctance to move with you is ‘friends and activities’, remember that both will drop down progressively. ‘Friends’ of the same age get old themselves, stop coming and in fact some of them will die. After a while, my MIL had a 'friend' visit not much more than once a year. 'Activities’ often require transport which gets hard too. If M’s reluctance is about staying in her house, remember that will also get more difficult without a lot of input (whether paid or unpaid), requiring a fair bit of organisation. If there are younger family who would provide all that input, it might work out OK, but without that sort of help, your mother will not cope well on her own.
M’s ‘reluctance’ puts pressure on you to keep things just the way they are, which is the way she likes it. Except that ‘the way they are’ is not going to last too long anyway.
My suggestion is to do what you want to do. Make the offer to M, but don’t stress if she turns it down. If you force it, no-one will be happy. Wait until she has experience of living without your support, and then offer again. You may find that her reluctance has disappeared. The more you give in to what she wants, the longer it will take for her to realise that she is better off not trying to call all the shots.
If it was me I just couldn't move from my mom. But that's just me. There is no wrong , no right, there is only what's right for you.
I moved to another state when my husband’s job ( the company ) moved him . My parents followed because my mother’s plan was for me to take care of them . She was unhappy in her new surroundings and blamed my husband . It was horrible. So NO , do not encourage your mother to move . You can tell her you are moving and invite her to live in an apartment near you followed by assisted living if / when she is ready . But do not forcefully encourage it . Leave it up to her for now if she’s making do on her own . Since it’s 12 hours away , when Mom needs help , then I would encourage she move to AL near you.
We are not moving my MIL near us , she will stay 4 hours away when she needs assisted living . She would not want to move away . I know that even suggesting it would be a mistake . I have an AL picked out already .
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