Should what they NEED trump what they WANT?

@BlueLegume going back to your OP, we were fortunate that DPIL and DM did react to their changing needs. They both moved to bungalows which helped to keep their independence well into their 80s.

We are in our late 50s and probably planning our retirement much thoughtfully than our parents did.

We are also much more open with our DCs about our plans than DM was. DM's secrecy around finances has made sorting things for financing care more complicated than it needed to be.

@BlueLegume bad daughters anonymous! Thank you for the thread and the helpful opportunity to remember all we’ve learned.

I’ve realised that between caring for parents and children, I forgot who I am and what I enjoy. I’m taking baby steps in making space for me. I’m also mindful of when I try to ‘fix’ my children because of behaviour I learned as a child. I need to let all of them fly or fail.

As a daughter I am making a lot of effort to have the boundaries to just do what I want to do now. Any great escape DF will need to mastermind and execute himself.

There’s a term that comes to mind here. ‘Askhole.’ I saw it recently to describe someone who complains or asks for advice but then ignores advice which would help them. With elderly people it is complicated. They’re at a time in their lives where they feel discomfort but making certain changes is like an acknowledgement that they’re getting old and frail, so they don’t want to make certain changes. Unfortunately they can be a bit like toddlers in terms of the stubbornness. They feel less in control so cling to the need to be in control and one way is by saying no.

in my experience, sometimes you just have to accept it but like with toddlers it’s about choosing battles. Also, I found finding the shades of grey to be helpful. Sometimes there is more than one solution to a problem and it may be about working together to find one which works or even to just go essy on the persuasion. Sometimes the more you persuade, the more they dig in out of stubbornness.

you have my sympathy. It is frustrating when good advice is ignored but it’s about learning to navigate.

Jumping to find solutions is a way of controlling anxiety, by trying to control the situation - every situation - that arises. Like I said my sister has GAD and has had tons of counselling, and part of that is definitely learning to observe in the moment rather than react immediately. Or at least to pause and decide if you want to react, and if so, how? O think therapy often has to be ongoing rather than a quick fix.

It’s so nice to hear about you, rather than your mum! Even if you are putting yourself down so much. I am quite certain you are just as ‘clever’ as your brother, you are just a different person who’s had a different life. Sending you a very un-Mumsnetty hug 🤗.

@BlueLegume I think a lot about mental capacity and how we're told it's so important for our elderly parents to make their own decisions. I feel not enough is made of our our capacity to make our own decisions.

I'm getting better at it. My mother is in a care home now. She still talks about going home and recently had a go at me for reminding her of the difficulties she would face, should she do so.

My solution to that was to say well why not try it. I know full well she's not capable of sorting it out for herself and I am not willing to do it.

Someone here mentioned the Let Them Theory. I recently listened to the audio book and found it very helpful. The Let Me part is what makes it I think.

It's really hard to let go of years and years of family conditioning.

According to one of my siblings ‘your problem BlueLegume is that you are always trying to find solutions’. He is much cleverer than me with a high powered job in education so maybe he is right. Although I found that to be a bit of a word salad. As in my mother tells me a fence panel is down. I get it fixed. He looks at it and sympathises with her.

Yes. And which of you ends up exhausted from doing all the work?

Finding solutions is good. But constantly finding solutions for things that aren't your problem is creating a problem for you.

I think this is true

@BlueLegume

Are you trying to do this on your own? You might find that a good counsellor / therapist can help you work though it more productively and give you tools to call on and different ways to frame conversations and events.

Oh my goodness
light bulb moment.
many years ago we called round at mil (divorced) - narc tendencies.
It was just a drop in.

She was entertaining her daughter and daughter’s new boyfriend.
It was youngest daughter , so a good 40 years difference between mil and this new boyfriend.
Mil was almost giddy with joy as she fussed around him with food , and drink, and, I swear, batting her eyes at him - he must have found it most odd.
I had never seen her as animated ( or moving so nimbly with a girlish giggly)

Capacity is very slippery.

Someone can still have the ability to make decisions but not the ability to really understand consequences. Especially if those consequences go against what they want.

Someone can sound perfectly sensible 'I don't need a cleaner'. But what you can't hear is the internal voice which is saying 'because DD/DDIL will do it' forgetting or ignoring that DD/DDIL now live hundreds of miles away and only visit occasionally.

IMO capacity often starts to go long before it is recognised. Also, I have noticed that officialdom are quite happy to decide whether or not someone has capacity according to what suits their own purposes.

@BlueLegume you have my sympathy. We skipped this grey area stage as my DM went from okay-ish to care home across the space of 3 months as a result of a fall.

And one thing I know for sure;
What your parents wants should never trump what you need.

Ah. The sibling who has been quite content to watch while you run ragged - yes? Theyre a familiar beast. Just keep suggesting he steps in and does it himself.....

The title of this could be tweaked “Should what they want trump what I want?”
The answer should always be negative. As women we have been conditioned to put others first, but actually we need to earn a living, feed and spend time with our own DCs and live our own lives.

My increasingly common self motto is that my parents independence cannot come at the cost of my own. Also they have had the opportunity to live full and rich lives, I also deserve that ongoing opportunity. I won’t abandon them, but I refuse to sacrifice myself for them.

@BlueLegume and screw him too!!

Very much agree with this.

Even needs Vs wants are not clear cut. My DM absolutely will not accept many things I think she needs. I can accept that.

I think a lot of people can identify with your feelings. One thing toxic parents do is make us feel 'responsible' for their feelings and happiness, even when we're children - having to be 'good enough' to make them happy, being to blame if they're in a bad mood, etc. And it is a hard pattern to break out of.

And I think a lot of people come to this realisation in later life when the parents become more 'child-like' but still try to exert parent-level control. It's psychologically gruelling as well as physically difficult!

Lots of good advice here and on the Stately Homes thread, just want to send you solidarity! 🤗

@BlueLegume I do sympathise as im like that too - what really rang home for me involved a friend - she split with her live in partner, single mum, lost some work contracts- I was busily trying to sort a break out ( abroad) in school holidays and I was going to pay as thought she might need the break and be strapped for cash - she seemed keen , then never followed up and has been on multiple breaks since with family or own and I realised she mattered to me an awful lot more than I mattered to her- she’s actually a lovely friend, but I was busy trying to help when it clearly was fine without my help - so like you im stepping back a bit

Crosspost on the stepping away. Good. Keep it up

I still hold a glimmer of hope that someone will come up with something we haven’t tried.

Such as stepping away? Lots of people have come up with that. Have to you tried it? Properly?

The world is full of people who let their wants trump their needs - that's why we have an economy bouncing from debt crisis to debt crisis and individual households doing the same, a majority of the population with insufficient pension provision, a climate crisis, wars...

You can't make your parents to act differently. But you can react differently.

What about your wants and needs? Are you letting your want to save/control your parents override your need to preserve your own health and sanity?

@BlueLegume I do agree with @rickyrickygrimes - you have let your mother live rent free in your head for far too long without clearing space for your own wants/needs- you sound such a very lovely caring person and she really isn’t - you know that expression on aircraft ‘put on your own mask before others’ - I think you need to take a step back - and give less of a shit I’m afraid or you will be the one needing care - !! If she had been a nicer mum and gave a shit about your wants, needs and health then she wouldn’t be laying all this on you -

I guess part of my issue is that throughout life I have tried to ensure each new ‘chapter’ is something I can manage.

it’s interesting that you picked this out. Are you a generally anxious person? My SIL and my sister both have GAD and I notice that the way they respond to our ageing parents is very different to mine. They both put a lot of energy into trying to control situations because they are anxious about what might ‘go wrong’ if they don’t, or they spiral, catastrophising and worrying about possible dire outcomes. So it makes them quite vulnerable to needy / demanding parents, unable to step back and say ‘on your own head be it’ or some such when they make daft decisions. My SIL in particular finds it incredibly hard to step away from FILs requests, even when it’s affecting her own life, because she can’t handle the anxiety that something bad might happen and it’s her fault.

Do you think you could stop seeing your parents as a situation to ‘manage’ and just step away?