Amen, speaking as the sibling who does less. Mother is 85 and has been very demanding for the past 20+ years; I’m 63, my sister is 48. Although my contributions of time, trouble, and headaches have been substantial, Sis has shouldered the large majority of the burdens, by her own choice; she and Mom have always been close, whereas Mom and I have disliked each other intensely since I was about ten. Of course there are numerous additional details, stories, etc.
As the will now stands, Sis and I are equal beneficiaries. What she doesn’t know is that when the time comes, I intend to accept very little if any of the inheritance. I don’t need it (neither of does she, fwiw) and she very obviously deserves it.
Edit: I should add that Sis and I are equal co-trustees and executors of Mom’s trust.
Don’t do the guilt-trip thing when it comes to potential institutionalization. Your caretakers–whoever they are or will be–need to keep their options open without dealing with all that.
My mother has made it clear that she doesn’t want to go into a home (who does?!) And fortunately right now she doesn’t need it…and I hope every day she never does. But given her present health trajectory, along with the fact that neither she or her children have a whole lot of money, it seems very likely that one day it will happen. It would be nice to know that she’s not going to forever hate us if it got to the point. Whenever she jokingly vilifies the adult children who send their parents to a home, I see lots of sadness and stress in our future.
Dear Mom, The daughter who is paying your phone bill and doctor’s bills, is not trying to put you in a home so she can steal your money. Stop calling your sister and telling her that. She just calls your daughter and we worry about how we’re going to get you someplace safe.
Good advice is to permit yourself to be institutionalized and not kick up a fuss because others will feel bad??
Living too long to be able to take care of yourself is not a crime. The idea that someone ought to just shut up and accept their life sentence in an institution is ridiculous. Imagine someone marching you tomorrow into such a place and telling you you’d be there for the rest of your life and not to complain. Do you think elderly people go through some transformation and lose the desire for independence, freedom, and autonomy? They are just regular people who haven’t died yet. There is no magical loss of humanity that makes it okay to warehouse them somewhere.
If you have previously made arrangements to make your home safe for disabilities and hired a full time caregiver, I don’t have a problem with that option. I actually prefer that option, and will do everything in my professional ability to make that happen. But most people don’t, or can’t afford to. Sooner or later, for them, their home becomes a prison, and their children their jailors.
I’ve yet to meet anyone that really *wants *to “institutionalize” their parent. Rather, I’ve met people who gradually and often only after several serious injuries, realize that their parent is too impaired to safely stay in a private residence, and needs a level of medical care and/or supervision that they are not able to provide, even with home health care at the maximum level allowed by Medicare (which, by the way, several Representatives are trying to get reduced. I don’t *think *they’re going to succeed, but consider that I may soon only be able to get you a CNA and an RN visit a few days a week for 162 days a year in 60 day consecutive chunks.
But sure, I’m willing to hear other options. What do you suggest?
My mother is an only child so all my grandmother’s care falls to her. When she had to admit my 90-year-old grandmother against her will into the care home (doctors determined that it was a “crisis situation”) my mom said “I don’t care if she hates me for the rest of my life. She is SAFE now.”
Thankfully my grandmother quickly adjusted to the home and is content there and only hated my mom for the first couple of weeks.
I do not disagree that sometimes institutionalization is the best of many bad options. That doesn’t make it reasonable to expect anyone to march off to said institution without complaint, anger, etc.
Most people value their freedom over safety. I understand the desire to know your loved one is safe in your absence, and I know that providing the care a person who can no longer care for themselves needs is often simply not possible to arrange without relocating the person. This does not mean that the person whose life is being uprooted at a time when they are most vulnerable should be expected to give up what little freedom they have left with a smile. Someone else’s freedom should not be easy to give away in exchange for your own peace of mind.
The way we treat elderly people in America is excusable only through the arrogance of youth. We act like it’s a big shock when our parents become older and less able and that we should never have been expected to prepare for it in any way. People are encouraged to move far away from their families and are later stuck juggling an impossible workload of childcare, a job, and travel for eldercare. They are stretched thin, heartbroken, and frustrated, but what did they expect would happen?
They are equally shocked when their parents die young. Is there a third alternative that they were somehow counting on?
If I felt that my mother was doing the best she can to prevent going to a nursing home, maybe I would understand your self-righteousness. But she’s not trying to save “private home care” money or trying to improve her lifestyle to delay needing it. She doesn’t want to go to a home, but her actions (and lack thereof) are saying something else.
No one wants to go to a home. So whining about it doesn’t help anyone. It just makes people feel guilty they can’t financially afford to hire 24-hour nursing care…or can’t emotionally afford spending the next decade or two chasing after a demented old lady.
And if parents are allowed to whine about having to go into a home, their adult children should also get to whine about having to care for them, right? Neither going to a nursing home or being a caretaker are anyone’s idea of heaven. Why should one party get to do all the kvetching?
I agree with everything here, too. In the “Advice to middle aged people dealing with ill parents” thread you might consider starting, I’d post that transitions are hard, and if a nursing home becomes an necessity, there are things you can do to help ease the often traumatic transition, like starting before it’s an *urgent *necessity so that your folks can help choose the place they hate the least or even, maybe, like (which is what I said here already), bring plenty of pictures of family and as many familiar things from home as possible, including their own clocks (strange clocks really throw people for a loop, for some reason) and wall art and clothes and sheets and towels, and visit often and get to know the other people living and working there so they become extended family and friends.
Moving to a skilled nursing facility does not, in an ethical and loving family, get Mom off your hands. It means you have a new address to drive to in order to spend time with her as much as you can, and you know she won’t leave the stove on at night while you get some sleep, and someone who knows how can look at her every day and decide if her swollen ankles are a serious medical emergency or not.
How do you know she isn’t doing the best she can? Maybe her best is just not very good. As people age, they often develop poor judgment. They don’t do this to be difficult and make your life harder, it’s just the loss of an ability that is hard to deal with.
If you are doing the best YOU can, there is nothing to feel guilty about. Maybe your best does involve getting your mother to a care facility. All I’m saying is that empathy for the person that can’t take care of themselves is in order, not an insistence that they “should” trot themselves there willingly. Yes, it’s very difficult and unpleasant when they guilt-trip you. It may be possible to reduce the attempts if you make it clear that you hear them and understand why they are upset instead of defending your choice, or it may make no difference.