🪳 Cockroach Café Spring 2024 🪳 🪳

You did a lovely thing for your DSis and her kids. You are absolutely doing your best for your DGM. Eventually though you just run out of goodness and you end up a bit broken.
Things will resolve eventually but for now it's . xx

I know they are busy, they probably do care but...😔

Thank you xx my sister went on holiday - I told her to go, it wasn't fair on the kids not to - but I feel really alone and think I should be doing more to stand up for her. We are still on AAU - it's been 48 hours now. Hopefully a bed will become available soon - I don't feel anyone gives a shit in here tbh

@Nodancingshoes sending hand hold and a bucket of black humour and empathy to get you through the day

Slowly losing my mind here. Its awful in here - I've just been for cry in the toilets. If it was legal, I'd 100% help her to die.

@Juneday yes the expectation is quite something isn’t it. What makes me sad is the fact any visits we do to DM are really just lists of jobs we could easily pay others to do and then we could do something nice with her such as go out for a lunch etc. Instead due to her defiant stubbornness she will not allow anyone outside me and my DSis and DB do anything but she criticises everything we do. For us this also means we are in a perpetual state of anxiety that is so unfair - and sorry before anyone flames me about being selfish it is unfair. This is a DM who has always told us she ‘will never be a burden’ when frankly she always has been with her silly outlandish opinions about everything and everyone. What she fails to grasp is we are not responsible for her happiness and largely her terrible choices in life have ended her up, or rather us her adult kids in a real mess. Ours will also not accept carers in and has told us she will not go in a home. Essentially she has absconded all life responsibilities and delegates everything to us. It is ruining our families. She doesn’t care. I genuinely believe that.

Just been skim reading, and can see same issues, the weird assumption or quietly hoping that a magic fairy - almost always a female relative, will appear to be taxi driver, companion, personal shopper etc. It never occurred to DH to ask for time off b cos I was not working at the point MIL had the fall but he did do his share at the weekends. going to ‘babysit’ DM for 4 days on Sat - DSis encouraged DD to book a week away saying we would help then tells me she can’t help until Tues so I arrange to spend a day with DM and DSis on Tuesday and leave Wednesday pm, DS is also leaving Wednesday and returning some time Thursday…. Then DBro joins for 2 days. Funny how I didn’t agree to anything and am now doing bulk of it …. DM won’t ask for help but can’t walk well, can’t put on shoes, going deaf (no it’s the phone not her!), stopped driving and sits in front shouting instructions to any driver who gives her a lift. She won’t use a shower and will only let DD help her into bath with the chair thing - so she won’t bath for a week. I don’t think DD should go away for a week again unless DM will admit to level of help she needs and find an occasional paid carer. We are all over 2 hours away on a good traffic day. Similar by train.

I am going to take spare walking frame that MiL had. DM refuses a walking stick as she likes both hands free to hold onto things or DD to help her and gets cross if he lets anyone else help. She can still cook well, and play bridge …. Long May both last.

DD wished me happy birthday on the wrong day, he’s getting a lot of dates confused, he shuffles and says hearing aids don’t work. I expect something will have to Happen that forces them both to think about some regular caring help (they have gardener and cleaner).

I can’t think too much about how things will work as obvious health issues start to show, but they do have funds for extra help when they admit they need it. Our visits will become more regular I can see that and told DD to expect now that MiL is no longer with us we have more time for my DPs, however frustrating they are….

No name change, no. I was just making a general observation. 🙂

Yes, another friend and I were talking about this just a few days ago. Work can be a source of stress or a kind of refuge. And it does stop agencies assuming the 60-year-old daughter can automatically take on the role.

I feel very guilty for saying this, but my mother’s frequent hospitalisations have at least given me some space to finish a big project and see friends and just generally draw breath. I know she has 24-hour care.

The same friend and I now wish one another a serene week when we see one another. I wish everyone on this thread the same.

I'm self employed and myself and my customer this afternoon were having the same conversations that we are having here. We both have elderly family members/ responsibilities and both said that we don't know how people who are employed in jobs where they have to physically be there and can't take or make endless phone calls manage.
For both of us,there seemed to be very little time between losing the responsibility for caring for children,before we were launched into caring for family members.
I'm fortunate in that I can work around most things,but if I don't work, I don't get paid,and the work I'm currently doing trying to keep the family business running is also unpaid.

@Abra1t , did you name change or am I being dense not being able to find your previous post?

Not sure of your circumstances but I will pass on the advice of my colleague whose husband had terminal cancer and advised me never to give up work to become a carer. She muddled through, it was really tough, but work gave her something for herself and stopped her whole life being taken over by his illness.

It's a bit like when your kids are small and you pay nearly as much for childcare as you get in salary. It's often worth it to keep your skills up and have some life that isn't just your kids.

That can be even more important when you're caring for an elderly relative, you have no idea how long it will go on for, and the situation is only ever going to get worse.

I don't think anyone should feel under pressure to give up their job for a parent unless they are 100% sure they want to do that.

@northender having sole responsibility must be very hard on you. I share responsibility for my grandmother with my sister and it's still bloody hard.
Hospital visits are proving soul destroying - she is still on the Acute assessment unit as there are no beds on the wards. Several people with dementia in the bays around her who are on their own and frightened - it's heartbreaking. The nurses are very kind but they can only do so much. I'm breaking my visits down to little and often instead of one long visit.

Thing is, I don't want to give up work. It's a very, very competitive field, and I have put in so many decades to get here. And when my mother dies, I'd be left without her--and without the work I love. I'm thinking ahead to the coming years here.

There's a bit of slack and if I work hard around crises, I can just about keep it together, but it's so hard.

@northender welcome. Lots of good advice on here and it always helps to share. We are definitely a generation with parents, some, who seem to think we can simply drop everything for them. That I am learning is not always helpful. Anyway hope you get something here.

Just posting to mark my spot. My parents are elderly and both failing in different ways. I'm an only child so it falls to me. They live in a pretty isolated rural location which will be unsuitable at some point soon, but their housing situation is pretty complex legally. Anyway I think this thread will be a good place for me.

Nan is in hospital. She went in this morning with severe back pain. They've x-rayed her pelvis and back and she has historical fractures to the spine and a serious liver problem. I don't know what will happen next but for now she is in the best place.

I remember a couple of months ago I got a phone call mid morning from the carer doing the daily welfare check (fortunately mum's forgotten she pays for as she doesn't think she needs any help). She asked if I could "pop round" as mum was very down. Not only do I live an hour away but I was at a work meeting an hour in the opposite direction with a contractor. On top of that in the previous 10 days I had taken an emergency afternoon off when mum had a fall and an emergency day when DH was taken to hospital with a suspected stroke. I'm sure the carer thinks I'm a heartless cow for saying no, I can't.

It’s situations like this - common, widespread ones where people are doing their best - that make me wonder about Universal Basic Income. It doesn’t solve the problems of the workplace and I recognise most of the examples here want to work, but it would take away the worry of precarity, and free people up to be more flexible to be able to care, or be self employed, or take on part time work, or a combination.
Sigh. When I rule the world…

It is unsustainable really at that level around work.

With my Dad it is ok at the moment, most of what he needs slots into my days off and my husband helps with the other days, but he is also a carer for my disabled child so if my Dad needs more he would need to accept outside help.

Can't provide help for my Aunt as she is hundreds of miles away. Not even going to try as I have a disability, so does DH, two disabled children, but one higher needs. Social care keep trying to get me to do things, for my Aunt, but I have told them categorically I cannot. If I step in even a tiny bit they will continue to do nothing which I can't facilitate long term.

I get 3 days carers leave and then discretionary unpaid special leave, but we rely on my income, so can't afford to lose my job.

The government have no idea and the whole PIP, DWP situation is going to make things massively worse for disabled people and carers.

They need to pay carers more to take the burden off the state, this generation have to work and cannot juggle kids, work and elderly care on a pittance.

I always laugh when people (male,politicians) wonder why wome in their 50s and 60s aren’t working. My job is flexible but has tight deadlines and is unforgiving. You either do it well or you will be savaged.

On Friday afternoon I was dealing with my mother, two hours away, her sudden and uncontrollable diarrahea and clean-up, then an ambulance and a and e until midnight, when I left to get some sleep. I caught up on some work this weekend but my brain is shot, just fried. She is entering her final weeks and has had ten hospital admissions since December.

Which Employer would want me? I have to cancel things suddenly and have no way of telling how long I need away from my desk.

I’m self-employed with no sick pay or annual leave. I love my work and want to keep going, but there are so many crises.

Taking the bigger picture, i wish those in government realised this is why it is so difficult to be a carer and hold down a job, particularly full time and/or irregular hours. If you luck out with a flexible employer such as mine, great but I have the kind of WFH job that can be done anywhere anytime and my boss is chilled about “core hours” as long as I record billable time spent accurately. There’s not many jobs like mine. Employers have a right to expect reliable employees to be able to continue their business, and if there wasn’t a business there wouldn’t be a job there. But it’s very often not the carers fault that they can’t be reliable due to the relentless and random nature of the crises we face.

i wish there was some kind of job exchange where carers can advertise themselves for work on what they know they can do and employers willing to be flexible and needing for the right staff can take them up on it. I’ve been in the situation in the past where I’ve advertised for staff and had no suitable candidates at all. I’d have gladly taken someone able to commit to do a good job 2 days a week than have a full time vacancy empty for months. But HR, policies and procedures etc etc all conspire to make this difficult.

Covering sickness is a particular problem if it's more than a week or two as there's no 'extra' money to pay someone else to cover the work as we're still paying the person who is off sick.

Employers used to be able to reclaim the Statutory Sick Pay part from the govt which at least gave a buffer and could mean we could partially pay for cover for the job but now it's all on the employer to pay it.

We get 5 days for a spouse, parent or sibling when my dad died it was 2 days after my manager's mum died and there wre only 3 of us in the team. We wouldn't leave the most junior person on his own so we tag teamed and took the 5 days in 1s and 2s as we needed. BUT my manager was very flexible about taking the odd couple of hours as needed.

Our compassionate leave is two days paid leave for a close relative (parent, sibling). You wouldn't get it for an aunt or uncle, unless they'd effectively brought you up or something similar! If longer is needed people usually get a FIT note from their GP. For getting houses cleared people usually use annual leave.

Budget-wise it'll vary between employers but statutory amounts (eg maternity or Shared Parental Leave) are reclaimed from the govt and the rest (if employer pays more than statutory) comes out of the existing departmental staffing budget. So I'd need to cover maternity leave or sick pay from existing staff costs, in practice that means not filling vacancies immediately so there's some money available. And keeping fingers crossed there aren't too many people on sick leave or maternity leave simultaneously!

Yes that’s my understanding of emergency unpaid leave too, to spend the time making new arrangements not to do the caring yourself. Eg your childminder broke her leg, you spend the day on the phone finding a new one. Never mind the reality of finding a new childminder on a days notice!

There’s also the bereavement leave of a week if I lose someone close to me, which is impossible, but I presume in that situation we’re expected to get a fit note and take sick leave if we need more time off work. I’m assuming sick leave comes out of a different budget/is accounted for in a different way to special leave such as bereavement.

No, never had anything like that anywhere I've worked. There's unpaid leave to deal with an emergency such as a childminder being ill, schoolchild getting into a fight(!) or elderly parent admitted to hospital or you can take annual leave at short notice.

The unpaid leave is very much worded that it's to deal with the immediate situation and it isn't to be used to do the caring yourself!