To not want to help out my great aunt

Absolutely not! Don’t even think about starting this - it’s the thin end of a wedge.

If you feel that you would like to offer some help – say you’ll do some online research and find some numbers of cleaners local to her, and a meal delivery service.

Even if she lived next door its a big ask but an hour away?!?!!

Absolutely not if she needs help she needs to employ a carer

@SemiRetiredLoveGoddeess I think it does depend where you live, my Dad gets Meals on Wheels and they're pretty good.

“Of course I want to. But, very obviously, I can’t.”

@TheHateUGive

Have you ever noticed how the ‘we help each other out’ so often involves women doing unpaid labour while men .. don’t.

why do you imagine that might be?

Exactly this. That is a big ask or anyone let alone a mum of young children.

looks like in the mix you’ve had some good advice @SooPanda. I wonder where some of the pp’s live and what their lives are really like?! A different world to the rest of us!

It can be very hard taking on the responsibility of caring for another/even helping them out, alongside our own lives and families.

Your aunt is lucky to have you, as is your dm but I think you are sensible to focus on ‘things only I can do’ rather than doing ‘things I could do’ (just listening to Gareth Southgate’s book at the moment - can’t take the credit for that one myself but it’s a good point & well made!)

Doubt it meals on wheels is still.available. Thought it bit the dust years ago.

Maybe it depends on where you live.

So much this ^

She can pay for a cleaner etc like most elderly people do

I absolutely adored my great uncle, saw him reasonably regularly .. (few times a year). He lived approx an hour away too..
There is still no way I’d commit to driving there and cleaning a few times a week - it’s ludicrous!Even if I was compensated financially it’s still a big ask!
Apply fir attendance allowance if she needs help (it’s not means tested), and she can use that money (about £70 pw) to pay cleaners, gardeners, window cleaners etc

You’ve conveniently missed the part where OP says great aunt lives an hours drive away!! So an hours cleaning/cooking etc is actually 3 hours with the round trip, the cost of fuel also being catered in, mum wants her to do this ‘every other day’ meaning OP will be working her day job, then an extra 9 hours a week of driving and cleaning at her aunts, and getting home likely after the kids are in bed!! So missing out on her family time and evening down time!

Every other day? Are they mad?
FFS say no, absolutely no way.

OP your mother and her aunt are complete cheeky fxxkers.

Push back hard and say no.

I would be putting your mother in her place and taking space.

How dare she tell you what you should be doing.
.

Of course you mean karma for the great aunt who has never bothered with OP, and is therefore completely different to the friend of your MIL in this scenario?
Not for OP spending 3 hours every few days to clean for someone who is essentially a stranger.

It's an obvious no. However, you or better your DM could help GA set up dome home arrangements.

my husband has known her all his life and was very touched she bothered to stay in touch even after his mum died when she she was in fact still healthy and able

@August1980 Surely the emotional bond is the major factor here, your DH clearly cares for this lady and feels cared for by her in return.

The OP barely knows her great-aunt and is being asked to do alot for her, it's a very different scenario.

I would visit as a relative.

But not help with day to day.

She might need help organising and setting up the help.

It sounds like she might need a live in carer.

Maybe you should research state boarding schools or send your own kids away to live with another relative, and then you'll have plenty of time to help your aunt?

I can't think of any other way you can work full-time, do a two hour round trip and caring in between and still be back to pick up your kids and take them to their activities, supervise their homework and the like. So I guess if you agree to this, the kids have to go.

Wowsers! I help an 85 year old who was friends with my late MIL! She doesn’t live close by and has a daughter who lives abroad… she didn’t ask for help. Her daughter (who I don’t know well asked) I do know the lady as she was a friend of my mother in law who passed away 10 years ago… I don’t expect anything she has always been warm to me and to my children re Christmas, birthday cards etc. my husband has known her all his life and was very touched she bothered to stay in touch even after his mum died when she she was in fact still healthy and able… I have a toddler and we just carve out time to run errands, drop in for coffee/take her for one of she fancies it! If you can’t you can’t…I suppose..karma and all that

Ask for payment. It's a second job. Share your hours of availability. Tell her it's money for your kids / holidays / education fund etc.

Personally, I would offer to help at least once a month, for free. Under your circumstances. Every other day is mental for a 2-hr roundtrip!

Whaattt?
3 or 4 hours commitment every couple of days? For someone you hardly know?

Absolutely NOT!

@SooPanda unless there's a lot of backstory, this is such an unreasonable request. YANBU to say no.

I’ll not be able to physically go more than once a month (or whatever) due to work and the kids but I’m more than happy to help you sort out carers/a cleaner etc if you think great aunt needs that help.

People who respond that way are invariably those who would find every excuse in the book not to do it and foist the responsibility off onto some other poor sucker.

What an absolute ridiculous response. The op has a job and children. It us absolutely nit her job to do this. I wonder if she had a brother would he get told to do it?