Would this level of caring for a parent be too much?

No I’d tell them to get carers as I want to put my children to bed not my parent.

Absolutely not. This is your children's one childhood. Your loyalty should be to them first and foremost. If your parent is not encouraging you to prioritise your children, they are not worth caring for at all.

Absolutely not. Wouldn't do it. Wouldn't entertain it. My children would always come first. I am in my 60's and there is no way any decent parent would be so selfish as to expect this.
This will ruin your childrens lives.
Get on to adult services.
Bet you go no contact that entertain this.
She is not a good parent to expect this.
You must be so conditioned to be doing this and allowing it to risk your life and ruin the lives of your children.
Time to back away, drop the rope, go no contact if thats what it takes.
Your children deserve better than this.
Wake up to that.

This is unsustainable and you will burn out eventually. Also it’s not fair on your DC spending every day there and only going home to bathe and sleep. Your DC need you too. Your parent needs professional carers, contact your local adult social care and get an assessment done. Also if she cannot go out alone this is a safeguarding issue and she may be a candidate for residential care.

It’s so bloody hard @Overwhelmedandneedadvice
All I can say is the more you do, the more she will drain you.
Two years on, and I had to sort, declutter (four huge skips, a house clearance company, van hire and dumping loads of furniture). All at my own expense, because Mother refused to face reality. Yes I was also executor of her will, so had to apply for probate, deal with solicitors. Sort a funeral which she had at 86, refused to plan for. Get a loan to pay for funeral, because every time I tried to talk to her, kindly and gently, about the future, she lashed out verbally and sometimes physically at me.

I’m rambling, but please, as I said a few pages ago. Don’t be me.

looking back, I should have stepped back, got social services involved. Refused the burden. Please do this now.

Surely if she needs help cleaning herself after using the toilet then either she has to move in with you, you have to move in with her or she needs full time carers or a residential home?

Oh love, no! You cannot take this commitment on and you shouldn't take it on.
She chose to have you and you don't owe her anything. You have a child because you love them not to be your carer.
Get onto social services and be their headache until you get proper help.
You might need to be harsh to be mindful.

Not another selfish parent guilt tripping their daughters to do what THEY want.

There are other options. The selfish women just doesn’t want them. Please - this could go on for years and years.

No I wouldn’t do any of that. My children and partner come first. The needs of someone at the end of life don’t trump those of others in the prime of theirs. Quite the reverse.
I hope I don’t do this to my childen. Dreadfully, utterly selfish.

I do believe in providing support for elderly relatives within reason - I relocated to be closer to my parents when dad become unwell with dementia, and I provided a fair amount of care for him, alongside my mother.

But not full time in the way you are talking.

And if my mother ever needs the level of care you describe, I have told her the only way I can provide that is if she allows my teenage daughter and I to move in with her (which would benefit us financially). As it's effectively a full time job you are talking about!

I would still insist we used all care we were entitled to, and even if she wasn't keen, I would expect mom to accept that (and she would).

Do you know whether your mother is entitled to carers, or would it need to be privately funded? I was wondering whether this was part of the issue.

We did get carers provided for my dad at the very end. But it was surprising how unwell he had to become before this was available to us.

The level of care she needs is too high . Especially the toileting . Carers coming in are professionals and will do a better job . They go to so many different houses that they really do not judge anyone's home . All they want is that the necessary items are handy for them . I had carers for my uncle and the help in getting them up in the morning was invaluable. He was washed dressed , breakfast, placed in his chair safely and could watch his TV programs until I called in . Sometimes not even necessary if a lunchtime visit allocated . You can then call in rather than having to be there all day .

Yeah no chance. If they were at end of life I’d be there - but arse wiping daily and sacrificing my own children. No.

get them an ASC assessment- tell them you are not willing or able to provide any care. Then you can reclaim your life and also your relationship with your parents.

if there’s an inheritance prepare yourself for it to be eaten up though.

You can help them out to an extent but you are not their carer. Your children are the most important, you need to keep yourself healthy in order to prioritise your children and help your parent. If the condition is degenerative then it only gets worse, so putting off the inevitable helps no-one. Speaking from experience in this, it takes time and mental battles for parents to accept help for “strangers”.
so many thing I could say right now, but I’m literally the midst of all this shit myself.
I’d 100% care for my parent if I could but the physical, emotional, financial cost plus the sacrifice of my children’s care is not possible, realistic or fair.
The sooner adult social services are involved the better 💐💐💐

OP, this is utterly unsustainable - you are taking your own DC’s childhoods away from them, disadvantaging yourself financially by having to go part-time, and allowing your parent to take over and own your life. It is monstrously selfish of your parent, and you will burn out or have a breakdown. You need to step back. Intimate care is not a reasonable ask from a parent, except in a dire emergency, and your parent needs the assistance of carers. You are going to have to step back, and you and your sister will have to come up with a plan for how to do this so that your parent doesn’t play one of you off against the other. It sounds like an absolutely nightmare scenario, OP. You deserve to be able to live your own life, with your own DC in a normal family atmosphere, not everyone putting their own needs behind those of a selfish parent.

I am retired and have a lot of health problems. One of my main aims is for my AC not to be burdened with this so I enlist all paid help where I can and have installed aids that make life easier, e.g. stair lift, shower seat, grabbers etc.

My AC do help with some things (e.g. one came over at her own suggestion to put in a couple of plants for me - in return I gave DGC a music lesson), and they include me in outings where they can to make it easier for me to be out and about.

I do not require anywhere near the level of care that your parent does - I can find ways round most problems myself - but my AC know that I do not want these sort of care needs to fall to them and that I will obtain bought-in care if I was in that situation. In that way I can continue to have good times with the AC rather than them being overwhelmed with caring for me. They are all busy people - with work, family commitments and (equally important) enjoying themselves and living life.

I think that your parent is asking too much and there needs to be a way of discussing this with them. As others have said, Adult Services can make a full assessment of needs and suggest what they might be able to offer.

I can see this a difficult subject to broach but hope that you can find a way.

I’m sorry but they need external help. This is far too much for you to deal with.
Does your sibling help at all, or is it mainly yourself?

If you were in a position where you didn’t have to work, and you were happy with this level of support, then all well and good, but it doesn’t sound like this is the case.

Be kind to yourself and your children and reduce help. You can support your parent by helping them seek outside help.

And she WILL accept care, if you and your sister don't do it. She's not going to lie there and starve, lying in her own faeces. The carers will arrive and she'll let them feed her and clean her.

So you're financially disadvantaged by doing this, too? Having to go part time?

No, you can't carry on with this. You and your sister need to make a pact, and do everything you can to set up a support system from social care. Once you have it in place, you both 'get a virus' and can't help, and the carers have to be called in

DF was similar - my dc were 5 & 6 years old, I lived an hour away, worked full time etc. It just wasnt possible for me to take on all the caring tasks, either financially or for my own DC sake.

Stop looking at it as a package. It iant do everything or be the devil himself. Be honest - what do you feel able or grudgingly happy to commit to? For me, it was a weekly visit, online Wiltshire Foods order, doing laundry, not much scope for anything else. So then having a 'cleaner' (aka a carer) in each day was essential. "I've arranged xyz to pop in to clean up a bit" was the polite lie we went with.

You say you “have to” spend every day at her house and your mother “wont have people in the house”, but those are choices, not unavoidable certainties. You have to make your own decision about how you want you and your children’s lives to be- though I must agree with the others that this won’t be a positive thing for your children or you. Maybe think of it like this: you’re currently putting your mother’s wants before your only experience of raising a family, and before your children’s only experience of childhood. She’s in a situation where she needs care, but that does not mean you have to provide that care. It’s very difficult but I promise it will be so much easier once the boundaries are firmly in place and alternative arrangements made.

so hard for you

the ‘win’t accept care from anyone else’ is putting huge guilt and pressure onto you.

that his their decision to make and he is entitled to do so -

BUT it doesn’t mean you have to do it!

you need to be realistic how much or how little you are able and want to do - set your limits and that is that. You have to think about your own family and your mental health too .

you ask social services to urgently do both a full care assessment on your parents and a carers assessment on you and your sibling and in it you state emphatically exactly what you can / can’t do .

you can’t allow your own life to be dictated to by others.

your parent may not be happy with the idea of outside care but you have to be kind but gently firm that you are not doing it all and show them this is not going to happen and that they have to be open about accepting outside help.

best of luck in such a hard position but you have to stay strung and be firm about how much you take on .

Yes im very sorry and agree with others, this is not sustainable. Its not only already affected your health, this is compromising your current earnings in a pinched economy, it will be affecting your pension and very likely your future employment prospects if you are unable to make what progress you can in the workplace. It sounds like your parent is really minimising it all. 5 mins here, 5 mins there...........except it clearly isnt.
This is also bound to be affecting your capacity to be a mum as its so exhausting and you are a single parent with no other help.

I would talk with your sibling and explain you cant go on like this. Others have mentioned, ask for an adult social care assessment for your parent and apply for attendance allowance and use that money for carers. It is not reasonable to say they dont want anyone outside of family..... So just say no you cant do it anymore.

It sounds perhaps like it might be hard for you to advocate for yourself with your parent....... If you need to make something up (for example, the gp advised that due to your anxiety and the health problems,( eg you are not sleeping/your blood pressure is alarming /you are getting debilitating migraines etc,) you are now experiencing, they have recommended you step back as a carer for at least 6 months), then dont be afraid of doing that. We are not dealing with a reasonable person here so do not hesitate to take an easier route to where you need to be, which is back in your own home. It doesnt really matter how long you say you need a break for, getting out of this will help you feel strong enough to resist getting pulled back in. Set a boundary of anything you can still do..... You are only going to be able to visit on a sunday or twice a month from now on for one or two hours, for example.......

The thing is, you are sacrificing your energy and your mental health, but carers can equally fulfil everything you have been doing.

What parent who is loving or fully compos mentis would expect this from their daughter who is a single parent mum running her own household?

Something to also consider: do you think its possible that the degenerative disease or some other, as yet undiagnosed condition could be affecting your parent's judgement and understanding? (they cannot and wont ever ever understand how much this is taking a toll on you) It might be easier for you to stand up for your right to have your own life and to have greater presence in your children's s lives, if you can perhaps consider that this could be a genuine possibility. I hope your sibling will support you in this. I think for this to work you are both going to have to agree, otherwise the sibling will be lumbered with all of it, and it will be them breaking down next.

All the best.

You absolutely cannot continue like this. You are a single parent with a job. Your priority is your children and yourself. If your circumstances were substantially different then maybe a significant amount of your mother’s care could be managed - but this is not sustainable. Call adult social care tomorrow and get the ball rolling with a care needs assessment. Make it abundantly clear that you are unable to provide consistent care yourself.

Assuming you work, how flexible is your employer? I would say it is hard to do alongside work, though to be fair "proper" carers from agencies spend a lot less time/do a lot less for their service users than any of us would want to do for family.

My friend was like you until the day her back went lifting mil out of the bath. Then they were both in a pickle.

I suggest you talk to your GP about how to handle this situation, who to contact for help. Your mother is young to be this infirm.