This house is big - why does my mom take up so much of it?
OK, I feel guilty already. *sigh*
We bought this house specifically to make room for my mom, who was not flourishing while living on her own.
The downstairs has a huge master bedroom suite (hers) as well as the kitchen, living room, dining room (which is actually my office) and laundry room.
The upstairs -- which she can't go to because she can't do stairs -- is just bedrooms, bathrooms and a media room that my sons and husband enjoy.
Here's the thing:
I feel like my mom is stretching out more and more. She's got oodles of room, but whenever I'm in the house and downstairs, she seems to find reasons to be in the same room as me -- especially in the kitchen. If I even glance in her direction, she perks up like she's been waiting for me to engage. It creeps me out. I find myself going up to my bedroom or to the office/dining room just to be alone. And then I feel guilty.
Look, I get it. She wants interaction.
The thing is, I don't. I don't want conversation with her. There's too much history. I don't mind her living here (too much) but I don't like the sense that she's trying to HAVE A CONVERSATION with me.
I meet weekly with a Stephen minister (a trained listener), so I have someone to talk to about this. I'd just like to hear a broader range of reactions and suggestions.
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At first your question sounded as though you were complaining that your mom was spreading her belongings all over the house, but this dos not seem to be the case.
If it was I would just move them back to her area or tell her too.
Is there any way you could divide off a small apartment for her?
You say she can manage the stairs but you could install a pair lift and do something with the bedrooms.
Would she go out and join in any senior activities and I don't mean bingo at the over 60s but maybe a book club or continueing education.
You and mom are clearly not compatible, has this always been the case.
Talking to a "listener" is a good idea but I think you need more professional councilling
Does she have a TV in her bedroom. Perhaps you can hide out with the boys in the media room.
How easy is it for to get out of the house to visit friends, go to Church or other organization? Is she allowed to have friends over?
Everyone has different needs for social interaction. An example in my family. My Mum is out of the house every day. She goes to Church, Dragon Boats, volunteers, swims, walks the dog, meets friends for lunch or coffee. She has been a member of a social club for over 50 years. My former MIL has lived in this town for 18 years and lives in a 9 plex. She has not met anyone in 18 years beyond her neighbours. She leaves to house every three months to go to the doctor.
If Mum was forced to be home bound, she would go crazy. The same if my former MIL was expected to interact with people every day. Or God forbid, speak to a stranger.
It sounds like you need your space, peace and quiet. Mum needs social activities. You are going to have to provide ways for your mother to socialize.
This is one thing I do not understand about looking after a parent at home. Generally the care giver does not have the time nor energy to ensure the parent has a social life.
First, swap the upstairs media room with your office. That puts you upstairs out of reach in the daytime. Your husband and son probably use the media room in the evening (and with luck mother retires early), and anyway they won’t be sitting ducks for conversations at the same time as they are using the media.
Second, put a motel-style kitchenette upstairs – kettle, microwave, toaster, bar fridge. You have water in a bathroom, just like the motel arrangement. Then you can keep away from the kitchen except for preparing full meals – you might even do lunch upstairs.
I understand the feeling that you are being watched all the time, ready to be ‘company’. Yes, it happened to us with MIL, but at least we were working outside on the farm. Perhaps if you could re-arrange the house so that you are out of reach and it is less of a problem, you could cope better with what is left.
Best wishes.
Holy mackerel, the poor woman was only heating up some instant oatmeal, why on earth did it get so badly on my nerves? BECAUSE!!! AAAARGGGH!!!
So I do sympathise with the tension there must be between you and your mother if she craves contact and you crave not. But.
Do you want to end up living in a household where the head of it 'doesn't mind' your being there but actively does not want to engage with you?
If you're not going to interact with your mother, who is? You need to find alternatives for her. Otherwise, your rescue mission has actually just placed her in a house where she is intensely lonely but never alone. Don't do that to her.
My mom is nearly immobile due to injuries and arthritis. She groans and puffs her way through any movement.
I'm in my early fifties, and I definitely have trouble with pain. I'm fighting back by stretching, strengthening, and maintaining a 'suck it up, buttercup' attitude.
She apologizes frequently and extensively for burping, farting, hiccuping, yawning - but she does all of those, plus the groaning, shuffling her feet, and over-sharing about bathroom matters.
Is this how I'm going to be in 15 years? I can't cope with that thought.
I agree with CM, your mom sounds very lonely & longing for attention. And it is not fair to either of you, you not wanting to talk to her, and her wanting to talk. You need to think about how would you feel being in her shoes? No matter what our parents have done to us does not give us the right to treat them less than human.
I don't like my mother most of the time; we have a very bad history, but I look at her as a person who is frail, can't take care of herself, little long stand up for herself. Do I lose it with her at time, yes, am I prefect, h3ll no! But I try!
I am not trying to make you feel guilty. I just want you to see her side. Either find away to spend a little time with her, or get someone to come in to spend time with her, or get her somewhere were she can socialize.
Like CM stated, "you have place her in a house were she is lonely, but never alone". That is not fair to her!
To clarify some things:
There are three other adults living here -- my husband and two adult sons. So there are other people for her to interact with, and she does. There's no problems or friction there.
She has been relatively isolated for many years, and seemed to be by choice.
She is new to the area, so doesn't have friends. She is not very mobile -- a martyr to arthritis and past injuries, and not able to drive -- so getting out is a big project and leaves her quite spent.
We were quite close when i was young, but a lot has happened since then that make me want to be as different from her as I can be. That's a challenge because in public people often comment on how alike we are. *wince*
She hasn't made deliberately bad decisions. She's just been a perpetual victim, it seems to me. I need to be strong, capable, and resilient. I can't play the
pity me/pity you' game with her. I don't want her congratulations or her sympathy for my life. (She says from time to time that she 'wants to be like me when she grows up.' I can't express how uncomfortable it makes me to hear that.)
I value your feedback - even the feedback that suggests I'm being hard-hearted. I want to figure this out and do better, but I need help. Thank you all for listening.
Talk to you soon!
I say this to preface what I’ll say here. A warning as such - since you don’t “know” me.
I am a straight shooter - pretty blunt and to the point. So please don’t think I’m being mean or judging. I’m not. Just giving my thoughts and opinions - since you asked.
It strikes me as unfair and unkind that you would move your mother into your home and then treat her like you wish she wasn’t there. More unkind- in my opinion- than if you had left her where she was. Mentally and emotionally, at least.
Perhaps your mother got her hopes up and saw this as an opportunity to once again have a close relationship with you. Is she even aware of the disdain you have for her - or is she bewildered and following you around trying to get you to like her once more? The comment about her wanting to be like you is surely an attempt to flatter you.
Clearly, you should not have moved your mother in with you - but you did. I highly doubt when you made the invitation that she expect it to be as it is. Or did you spell it out that you would be treating her more or less as a slight aquatance living under your roof?
I think you need to hold up your end of the implied arrangement. Suck it up and give the poor old gal a bit of your time.
Try setting up a routine that has a definite beginning and end - coffee together in the morning before you head to your office. A specific time and routine that she can count on and look forward to - it may very well reduce the amount of time mom spends following you around hoping for a sunbeam of your attention.
Look - I get it. I was close to my mother as a child and even as a teen but from then on - things got very complicated and dysfunctional. By the time my mom passed I had discovered that I really didn’t like her much as a person.
Still - for the last six years of her life I looked after her and every detail in her life. But I never considered having her live with my hubby, adult son and me in my home. Remaining civil would have been the least of it - refraining from smothering her in her sleep would more have been the challenge. So - I get it. Totally.
But - you did ask her to live with you and your family. Unless you stipulated this lack of contact in the beginning - I think you need to make a little bit of time and warmth with and for her. She doesn’t want to talk with your husband and your sons instead of you.
I know there is about as much point to saying this as there is to counselling parents of young children never to get cross with them because they're only yours for such a short time... (always goes down especially well in crowded supermarkets, I find, hem-hem)...
But now that my mother is not getting up my nose any more I miss her dreadfully and I wish I had shown her more love and less of the intense irritation and frustration which were all there, bundled up together. You can still hug yours, I can't.
Give her a bear hug from me, then go and put a lock on your office door :)
You moved your mom from Arizona to Texas. I am guessing she had friends there. She no has no friends locally.
If you do not want the interaction maybe your Mom would be better in Assisted or Independent Living. That way she would have a community of people that she can interact with, things to do, places to go.
If you want to keep her with you then you need to establish a "work time" and a "home time" You should find another room where you can set up your office and go there when "work starts" and then you can "come home" when work is done.
Since my Husband died I am alone in my house (excluding the dogs and cats) and I do want conversation. I volunteer at the Hospice that helped care for my Husband, I have a 2 hour a day 4 day a week part-time job so I get out, I talk to people. If I didn't I think I could become depressed.
People NEED people...wow sounds like that could be a good song ;)...
People need to be engaged.
If your mom is up to it get her involved with volunteering.
Find an Adult Day Care
Locate the local Senior Center, she can meet people, play games
You are doing her no favors by having her rattle around the house with nothing to do but want interaction.
Sorry to be so harsh.
1. By God's grace, I've just started a full time job that I find fascinating but physically & mentally exhausting - working in a classroom of young autistic children. I'm on break now, but normal li y I'm away from home for 10-12 hrs / day.
2. I had my mom move her because she was living alone, out of state, and could no longer safely care for herself. I am her only child since my brother's suicide 4 yrs ago.
3. She has a TV in her room. She used to watch TV a lot when she lived alone, but i don't see / hear her doing that anymore.
4. I do have conversations with her: I ask if there are things she needs to get for her, if she is settling in ok, if she needs to go anywhere. But i won't engage in waffly communication; if she needs something, she can say so. I won't chase her around to remind her to ask for what she needs. She is still capable. I know there will come a time when she isn't. I will take care of her then and learn what she needs. But for now she needs to use her voice.
5. She says she is getting stronger and losing weight now that she is here. She is talking about going upstairs. 😒 I have no idea why.
The tragedy, for her, is that in becoming that person you have nothing in common with her. You have completely outgrown her. She is evidently aware of it, and considers it an excellent bargain if it means her daughter is happy and fulfilled.
But, a cat may look at a king. I expect if an interviewer were to sit down and ask her, she'd say one of the best points about her move is being able to see you so often. It doesn't mean she in her own mind feels the right to demand more of you.
You don't want her plaudits, you don't want her gaze. I do understand. I just don't know what you expect her to do instead.
[aside - I expect the ambition to go upstairs is so that she can join in better with the rest of the family. You can just let that slide, can't you? It's not very likely to happen, and even if it did I don't suppose it would trouble "the boys" too much.]
I think, this is going to go one of two ways. Either you will adjust to her being a constant presence and it'll stop getting under your skin so much. Or, your sensitivity will become a positive allergy. If that happens, how will you get through it? What can you do to prevent it?
I'm not sure how to respond to the interesting news of your job, except to congratulate you on it warmly. Do you have any reflections on what it might say about your feelings around interpersonal relationships?
Look, I feel as if I'm poking you to see if I can find any tender spots. I'm sorry, I'll stop. But you wanted broader perspectives and suggestions.
How do you want this to go? What do you want to happen? How are you going to lay those intrusive ghosts to rest?
Mom wants to go upstairs to be with you - and to be a member of the household family. How can you not see that? Are the walls you’ve built really that high? It seems the guys are in the media room and you’re hiding in your bedroom. Mom is isolated by herself on the lower level of the house. Her physical limitations from going upstairs to be with other people - instead of being alone just makes this situation all the more tragic.
Perhaps mom use use to watch a lot of TV because she was indeed living alone. Now she is with family - people - and is hoping for a little human contact and interaction.
Do yourself and your mom a favor and move her to an Assisted Living facility or - if she’s strong enough and has the funds Independent Living.
This whole set-up is sounding like some sort of passive/aggressive punishment- for mom. I expect at this point mom is greatly missing her “lovely neighbors and church friends”. People you chose to remove her from. People who did want to have conversations with her.
Just because she can’t live alone it doesn’t mean she has to live with you.
On a side note - I worked for ten years as the HR Director for a program that served children and young adults with Autism. I hired and trained the staff among other things. I also have a son who has severe Autism. Based on things you’ve said here - even in your choice of words describing your new job - I wouldn’t be surprised if this position doesn’t work out for you. I’m truly not saying that to be
mean - just being honest. But who knows? I hope you took the
position for other reasons besides it being a full time job.
Take a moment and put yourself in her shoes, imagine you are retired, your husband dead and you are living with your son and DIL far from everything you find familiar. Don't forget you are older, slower, frailer too, and that it seems that the move was made due to practical convenience and you don't really feel welcome there. What would you want to do next?
This project just sounds like some obligation you’ve undertaken since you’re an only child, but not because there’s any sense of love (or even like) on your part. I would either try very hard for an attitude adjustment, follow the many suggestions you’ve been given here to help her adjust without you. Or find her a nice assisted or independent living arrangement, and chalk it up to learning experience about yourself.
My grandma lived with us when she could no longer live alone. She and my mom had very little in common.
Grandma would say "I'm lonely".
Mom would say "what am I, chopped liver?" (really)
Grandma would sigh and explain that she missed talking to people of her own age. There were no senior centers in those days. The only other little old lady in the neighborhood mostly spoke Italian and had very little in common with Grandma.
Please, get your mom some human interaction time. Research adult day care, senior centers, etc.
I get that you can't be your mother's entire world. But it's not fair to isolate her the way you and your family are doing. Living in Assisted Living is something else you should consider.
LOTS of regret at the choice, but too late to change anything.
SIL simply DOES NOT interract with Mother AT ALL. Nothing. I don't know why, I am not privy to the inside dynamics. Mother is Brother's responsibility, completely. (100% by HIS CHOICE) Once in a while she is invited to dinner (25 feet away!) and she relishes the time with the 3 remaining adult kids at home, but is VERY lonely. She goes once a week to Bingo at the Sr Center and once a week to church for an hour. All her friends have died. Brother is so controlling he would not allow us to hire outside help for her--which would have been a great blessing to her. He also "hovers" if one of us siblings come to visit. Mother is not happy, nor is she unhappy. She just "is".
I am only "allowed" to see Mother if I "sneak" in while brother is at work (and he only works PT, due to poor health) or if I take her to lunch I have to meet her on the sidewalk in front of the house.
I am also tired of trying to "talk" to mother. I can handle about and hour with her and I am bored senseless--as she talks about people I don't know or spends the whole time talking about the OTHER sibs, who are pretty much MIA.
I think it might be more humane to move your mom to a place with people in similar situations...people who WILL talk to her. Daily interractions with others is probably what she really NEEDS.
I'm only 62, but my kids already talk over and around me and don't even think of me as a person. I have all my "marbles" but they are obviously bored by me, even after very short periods of time. I can see the writing on the wall--I will BE your mother in 10 years. I have overheard my kids talking about me in the same fashion you're speaking of your mom.
It hurts. I am planning to be as independent as humanly possible and staying out of their business and their lives as much as they want.
w/O doubt your mom is feeling shoved aside and hurt. And I KNOW, it's hard to talk to someone who rambles and waffles on and on and there's no sense in what they're saying---maybe mom needs to be someplace else.
i think I am really fit and look so but if one more shop assistant ignores me or one more person asks if I am OK just because I am sitting quietly I will pop a vien. I have perfected the “look” so they back off
You recognize that you “have history”. I always envied friends who had close, companionable interactions with their mothers, AND my mother had WONDERFULLY sweet friendships with MY friends, but for some reason, NEVER with me.
And then, she became my total care, and I began to realize how vulnerable and frightened and traumatized she was by all she’d lost when she’d broken her hip. That was my turning point.
For all of her failings as far as I was concerned, I was forced to notice how courageous she was in the face of her loss, and how hard she attempted to right herself after the accident that had devastated her life.
She’d changed, and ultimately I changed, at least enough to understand her value to others. That was what allowed me to cherish a new friendship I’d never have expected to happen, and it lasted through the 5 years u til she died. I cherish the memory of it even after the 11 years since she died.
Can you consider the possibility of opening yourself, just a bit, to actively sharing some part of your mutual life? You can be the boss about how or how much. Even folding laundry can be something you can share, just to feel that you’re getting some work done.
I can imagine feeling “creeped out” by having to make cute, idle chat, but maybe some mutual parallel activity, with innocuous comments about the weather or the news? A “thank you” for her with folding the towels? Whatever YOU can tolerate on a short list developed by yourself, and pre planning for the small time increments that you are able to spend- “Mom, could you give me 15 minutes to fold these table napkins?” Then stop and go back to work?
Thinking of you. I get the awkwardness. I lived it. Hope you find a way for you both to move it forward........
I do sometimes work alongside my mom, though it's tricky because her movements are very, very slow, and I tend to be focused on getting the job done and moving on to the next thing that needs doing.
Maybe, though, I could develop a list of 'conversation starters' and, as you suggest, set a mental timer. That would also help me with the feeling I struggle with that I am her source of entertainment for the day. Some days after work I don't feel like talking. (I work in a very social environment all day. Quiet is delicious after that!)
My mother has been living with us for about 6 months now, so we are settled into it. She is much healthier and fitter now -- her shuffling gait is gone, and she now makes the trip to the mailbox (about half a block away) ever day or so.
We are negotiating boundaries. She has laid claim to the kitchen in ways that exclude my adult son from using it, so we are having to push back on that.
We are encouraging her to get out more and develop her own interests and relationships apart from us. I am also going to check and see if there are things that we could do to make her bedroom/living room/bathroom suite more comfortable for her.
Good that she is getting exercise and her own social life in the community.
then organise low cost transport for her to go there and back
can you make part of the garden her own
can you make her bedroom more like a bedsit with TV. Radio and record player. Perhaps a little spot for making a cup of tea and having a biscuit. Hang up her favourite photos and such a comfort arm chair
Ask her each evening “would you like a cuppa” and call her out to sit with all of you. Look, I didn’t care for my Mum all that much but after she died I found out some things which made me realise that I didn’t know her at all. Try and know your mother a little bit more and get her grandchildren to pick up some of the slack. After all if it wasn’t for her, they wouldn’t be here