Why is there so much stigma around 'putting them in a home'?

Is she being paid Attendance Allowance? Every little helps, and AA could take £5000 a year off the fees.

They are there because they are frail in mind or body, or both.
I did know of one woman, only early 60s, at FiL’s first care home, who had nothing at all wrong with her, but had put herself there after her dh died - she no longer wanted all the hassle of running a home, maintenance, bills etc. Was happy to do her own thing - she was out a lot - and have all meals provided, washing done, etc.

I should imagine that she was a rarity though!

@coldcallerbaiter we looked into live in care for an aunt of dh - frail but no dementia, and would have needed help at night. So that would have meant more than one on shifts. It would have worked out more expensive than a reasonably nice care home, especially when you take into account all the expenses of running a home, with food on top.

If you are in a care home with people paid for by the state, the majority will have dementia.

I've watched a few fictional series featuring care homes. For the most part they are so wide of the mark - lucid elderly people sitting in lovely airy rooms, then taking themselves for a stroll round the well-kept gardens. Walking up and down stairs with no help. Playing bridge in the evenings. Dinner dances. Some residents can do some of these things, but let's face it, they're all there for a reason.

@CatTheme This had me in tears and gave me the fucking rage.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5018190-heart-breaking-photo-of-dolly-who-was-incarcerated-for-being-pregnant?page=1

The fact that you are wrestling with this shows what a kind and responsible person you are, OP.

PP have articulated the problems , often in the light of their own experience. I would just be repeating them if I shared mine, so I won’t bother you with it.

What I found helpful though, was to harden my heart a bit; not against my parent and their needs, but towards the outsiders who are boosting their own self esteem by criticism of my actions. In one case I did actually say to someone :‘Judge not, lest you be judged’. At least it shut them up.

The other mantra I found helpful was something a priest once said to me: that everyone in these situations has ‘equal rights’ . Your DM deserves care and consideration, but not more than your children, your husband , even yourself. Of course, you may choose to sacrifice your own share, but you don’t really have the right to sacrifice the needs of the other people in your life. My own mother would ‘I’ve had my life. You haven’t ‘.

Don’t feel afraid to stand up for yourself. When other people start the guilt trip, just look them in the eye and say ‘ but that’s what she says she wants. I’m not going against her wishes to satisfy what other people think would be better’.

Your mother is fortunate to have a child who is so interested in her welfare. I hope you find the best solution, and can set your heart at rest.

I like this guy

It's about keeping them safe and meeting their needs for food, medication and warmth.

When it gets to the stage they can't tell day from night, start to get physically violent and are incontinent, that's best managed in a home. I saw the start of that with dad before he got ill. Paranoia and confusion, refusal to take medication because he thought mum was poisoning him, "sundowning" symptoms with being really shouty and upset all evening, not sleeping, anxiety if he was in unfamiliar surroundings, starting to have "accidents" when using the toilet, not managing to dress himself.

Dementia is only ever going one way, it's just the speed of decline which varies. It is very difficult for family members as the person you know and love just isn't there any more. You have to try to take emotion out of it and consider what is best for the elderly person, not what you want, or what you think society expects. I would never, ever judge anyone making the decision that a home is what's best for an elderly parent as I have seen the reality of the situation - and we weren't even in that bad a situation compared with many.

Solidarity to everyone else going through this.

I agree, @Misthios , no one wants to think of themselves or a loved one totally confused, incontinent, etc. Sadly that’s what can happen though. In her final years, my DH’s grandma regularly wandered into the street in her nightwear, frequently didn’t recognize her children, etc. She would have been far safer in a home, but DH’s uncle insisted on trying to care for her in her home (they lived next door). It almost broke him and his family.

I think it's because people are in total denial about how bad it can get for elderly people. They have this idea that "care" means popping in to have a cup of tea and a chat, maybe running the hoover round every week and organising a Tesco delivery. They don't want to think about what it can be like, especially with a parent who has dementia, who is up all night shouting, can't wash themselves or take themselves to the toilet, can't be left for 5 minutes.

MIL and FIL regularly make the "never going in a home" speech and DH and his sibling just nod and smile sympathetically. They don't know what a care home is like, they just have this idea that it's sort of like hospital, and smells. They definitely don't want to think about a stage where they are incontinent and don't recognise their grandchildren. Agree that when it gets to that stage it's about meeting needs not dealing with wants. It's also remarkably selfish to expect adult children to put their own lives on hold for years on end to become 24/7 carers.

DH in particular saw what I went through with my own dad whose care needs were not being met at home and who would have been going into care had he not fallen ill and died in hospital.

I used to love Waiting For God, funny you should mention it as I was thinking about it this lunchtime.

These days they wouldn’t be in a home at all, they’d be in retirement flats or maybe sheltered housing. Diana used to steal her neice’s sports car and go off for joy rides, I seem to recall. I used to hope to be like her when I got to be old. Any way, her and Tom were perfectly capable individuals, she had a gammy leg and walked with a stick, he pretended to have dementia when it suited him. They’d have been fine living independently.

There were a few Asian residents in the home MIL was in.

I was thinking about the old TV programme 'Waiting for God' QOD which was about people in residential care. Not that I ever watched it! But I saw a few clips and remember it being about highly competent and apparently fit and healthy people who looked about 75 at most. The sort of people who in the 50s might have lived in a boarding house hotel. Nothing like what our families are going through.

And as far as the 'Asian model' goes, I agree entirely. There are already specialist nursing homes in London and perhaps other cities catering for Asian residents, which indicates that the rhetoric spouted by Trevor Phillips and others no longer fits the reality of modern family life in ANY group. As I work in a stroke team, I see this often.

we bought a house with my mum and the plan is that all the time she has enough marbles and i WANT to do care (doesn't need it yet) then she stays, but when she is no longer mentally competent it is to do what suits me and then of course my sister.
Its only fair - we used to, as a family, own a chain of "old peoples homes" - the days of sweet sane old folk having afternoon tea is long gone. Supported flats or family support or carers for a period, like you have done, are the next step. After that its more for EMI and dementia, Alzheimer's. The impact on your lives if you moved her with you, or rearranged her home will be as distressing and confusing as those that can occur when people go into homes.
My in laws both went into care because they were incapable of self care and we couldn't give them the 24/7 supervision they needed.

my opinion anyway, i personally have no family experience of just physical infirmity.

So glad I found this thread and will read all the posts. Sitting here in tears. Mum went into care two weeks ago as even regular visits from a carer wasnt enough to keep her safe from falls and on top of toilet hygiene.I'm the only one of 5 siblings who live nearby,or even in the country. Today the surveyor and photographer came to arrange the sales of her wee house,the funds from which will pay her care fees until they run out. Probs 2 years if she lives that long.
Sister abroad,who rarely visited,has driven this as a pp said on page 1 then fucked off back home leaving me fielding tearful phone calls ftom mum asking when she can come home. It has been the most stressful and horrible period of my 60 years of life. Anyone who thinks " putting them in a home" is an easy option clearly has never done it.

Please OP, ignore them! From experience, people are usually judgemental about it because they are utterly clueless about what it’s like to try to care adequately for anyone with dementia past the early stages.

Some people also like to say, very piously, ‘In other countries people look after their own!’ - i.e, it’s only us nasty, selfish Brits who don’t.

In any case, that just isn’t true. We used to have Indian friends, in India, one of whose parents with dementia was very well cared for by two live in carers a long way from their home. As they pointed out, such arrangements are far cheaper and easier to organise than they would be in the U.K., and added that it was common.

Of course the poor in many countries simply have no choice. A dd who was working in Cambodia saw at first hand the care of an elderly grandmother with dementia in a poor, rural village. She was tied to a chair outside all day, to stop her wandering off and getting lost - and to stop her incontinence messing the house - and was hosed down once a day to clean her up.

How awful for your mother.

Agree on the dignitas trope thing. It just doesn't work that way with dementia.

My father was always very loud (and rather judgemental of people with failing health) when younger, with lots of "I'll top myself if that happens to me" or "shoot me if that happens etc". Buggered off and left my mother for a far younger woman who enjoyed his whole "silver fox" vibe, until the silver fox succumbed to Parkinson's and dementia, at which point he came home and, to my fury, my mother ended up looking after him, spending her last years of relative health and mobility trapped in the house looking after him (whilst spending £60k pa on waking care because, characteristically, he roamed the house at night). So, how did that " I'll top myself" work out then, Daddy.

@MrsDanversGlidesAgain Anyone can make the decision to not go into a home. No one else has to take on the care.
Sometimes when someone does not want to go into a home you have to leave them to fail.

We left my FIL who did not want carers going into a home. His children had all been helping out, but kept saying he needed a carer instead. In the end they all said from this date we are no longer helping you. We will help you find a carer, but we are not going to do caring for you any longer. He lasted one and a half days before phoning up and asking for help to get a carer.

Yes. My grandparents were terrified of going into the local hospital because it was previously the workhouse. My grandparents were born in the 1890s. The last workhouses closed in 1948

Reading this I've just realised why my great aunt (born in 1898) was adamantly against going into hospital in her 70s. Hospitals for her were where people went to die and of course she'd remember workhouses, as well.

OP - pp have already said about a time when people weren’t treated well. “putting in a home“ also has the connotation of a past time when people with disabilities were sent to an institution and never spoken of again. Implications these days that by placing them in a home you are abandoning them

Came onto this thread to say much the same - it's the phrasing, as if the person going into the home has no agency over the decision and it's like disposing of an unwanted pet. DGM always tearfully begged DM 'don't put me in a home' so she stayed at home - and she turned DM into a 24 hours a day nurse who had no life of her own and who ran around after a toxic old woman.

As for so many things in life, advance preparation is the key.