Is a complete lack of ‘life admin’ skills a common thing, particularly in older women?

[ElphabaTheGreen]

DFIL died recently. DMIL (70 years old) is bereft, quite understandably, because they were that rare, utterly, utterly besotted and devoted couple from the day they met until the day he died 48 years later. I used to use the fact that they even had the one email address as testament to what an inseparable, devoted couple they were (it was [email protected]).

Until it became apparent, now that DFIL has gone, that the lone email address is actually testament to how utterly, utterly devoid of life admin skills DMIL is.

She had no idea how to use the email address. She had no idea how to access their bank accounts. She hadn’t the faintest idea what their incomings/outgoings/savings were. She hadn’t the first clue how to arrange the death certificate or funeral, even when given basic, basic instructions and multiple calls from the bereavement office at the hospital. You might just as well be speaking German to her as having a basic grasp of wills, probate, or transfer of any of DFIL’s accounts to her name. All queries from the solicitor get forwarded to DH to deal with - not because she’s mired in grief but because she cannot grasp requests for even basic information such as confirmation of address. She has no idea how to book her car in for an MOT, no idea how to even put screen wash in her car. My DH has been helping her with all of this, obviously, but when she asked, ‘Will I still be able to afford holidays?’ he just looked at her with slightly desperate incredulity because she wouldn’t have the faintest idea how to book one, she’s never driven further than 20 minutes from her house by herself (DFIL drove anything further) so would never know how to get to an airport or onto an aeroplane by herself, navigate a foreign country, arrange and deal with foreign currency...

DH and I thought she had managed her own father’s finances and funeral up until he died a couple of years ago but nope - DFIL did it all.

DH is gobsmacked at how lacking in basic skills she is to the point that he’s wondering if she’s even in an early stage of dementia. I don’t think she is, because she is slowly picking up on bits here and there and I think there’s light at the end of the tunnel in giving her some basic competency in running her own life. I think all of the above was just always and entirely DFIL’s responsibility in which she had zero interest so was perfectly happy leaving all the ‘hard stuff’ to him. What we’re not sure of is whether there might have been an element of DFIL realising how utterly inept DMIL was at all of it from the get go and just took over sharpish because it was easier.

What flummoxes me about this, though, is she’s the first generation of women, surely, who would have grown up with the understanding that women could and should be as self-sufficient as possible so would surely have felt some obligation to keep herself more informed and engaged, particularly in their finances? She went back to work after DH was born (their only child) so it’s not like she clung entirely to the role of 50s housewife. What’s more, she was a secondary teacher, working up until 2010 or 2011 so she would have worked well into the technological revolution. She would surely have used computers and email for work, needed to use PowerPoint, Word (DH was showing her the other day how to cut and paste in an email which was new to her...). Her main subject was home economics/food technology but I’m pretty sure her final years were spent doing relief in the one school. Looking at her now, I have a feeling she may have been one of those relief teachers who the kids were delighted to get - a period of sacking off maths because Mrs DH’sMum has no clue on the subject but instead she’d ruffle their hair and reminisce about how she taught their parents.

Before anyone suggests financial abuse on the part of DFIL - no, not the slightest chance. He was the kindest man to ever walk the earth. By contrast, if I ever needed help with childcare, it was DMIL I’d arrange it with as she was their very efficient social secretary - DFIL was scatty as fuck with anything like that. He also never ironed a shirt in his life, packed a suitcase or switched on a hoover - that was her department. So they had clearly defined roles. Nevertheless, if she’d gone first, DFIL would have managed living independently far better than it looks like she will because he knew how to function in the wider world.

Very, very long ramble to basically ask, how common is this? Is she unusually lacking in skills to manage her own life or is this an alarmingly frequent occurrence?

@bluebluezoo

My mum was widowed in the mid 80’s.

It was a huge shock how many banks, shops, credit card companies, higher purchase agencies etc simply refused to deal with a woman, especially one that left husbands salary blank on application forms.

Even me, single in the early 90’s struggled to get estate agents and the like to take me seriously. One bloke on a shop (pre-online of course) actually told me everything on his books was under offer, and no I couldn’t view that one in the window. Similarly with dfs and the like, i was simply ignored by salesmen. Thank god for John Lewis who took a lot of time and found me a lovely sofa. Car sales too often didn’t bother if I didn’t have a man with me.

So for that generation I can see how much would have been left to the husband.

Sorry, but I'm of "that" generation in that I was buying furniture, cars, taking out loans, etc in the 80s and 90s and simply don't recognise what you're talking about. I bought, probably, 3 cars in the 80s and didn't "suffer" any of that nonsense - I went in, talked to the salesmen, did test drives, and bought the cars, including arranging the HP. It was just the same as it is today. I went into banks to arrange loans, open accounts, take out credit cards, etc - no problem at all. Likewise talked to pension salesmen to take out my private pension. I've never been ignored or belittled "just because I'm a woman". Perhaps it's a matter of confidence, how you act, how you look, etc??

I was buying furniture, cars, taking out loans, etc in the 80s and 90s and simply don't recognise what you're talking about

Same. I bought a house all by myself in 1991.

"Because I lived either alone, or with housemates and not a partner until I was 30, I think I learned to do all the jobs, because I had to and there was no-one else to do them."

I've always lived alone and am much older than 30, but still can't do all the things that MNers think are compulsory life skills like cooking a roast, DIY and driving. I don't really care.

" I've never been ignored or belittled "just because I'm a woman". Perhaps it's a matter of confidence, how you act, how you look, etc??"

Or maybe it's different in different places?

@WombatChocolate I think many men have retained some kind of infantile persona through life...especially working class men. They need to be fed and looked after by a woman. Making decisions about certain things to do with children or schools or childcare is very much for women to do and men like to suggest they are incapable in these areas, or perhaps become incapable through lack of practice.

One of the "red flags" I always used to use when dating was the relationship between the lad and his Mum. There was no way I was going to take over the "Mum" role so I checked that his relationship with his Mum was healthy but not too close. A lad whose Mum was still buying all his clothes etc in his 20's was a definite no no as was a lad who hadn't learned to drive. My eventual husband (of 30+ years now) still lived at home in his mid 20's but was very independent - he'd eat out, clean his own room, do his own washing, etc - basically his Mum wouldn't have put up with him being a lazy slacker. I liked that!!

Perhaps it's a matter of confidence, how you act, how you look, etc?

Yes women, if you are on the receiving end of sexism, it’s probably your own fault. You should change how you look, so men pay more attention to you

I’ve been belittled by men in car garages, recently, and I’m a very confident 40 year old NHS consultant (and yes I kicked up a stink about it). I’ve already posted my DMs experience when she tried to buy an Audi. Perhaps you could consider that some men are just sexists, and 30-40 years ago it was far more acceptable to voice that?

@Gwenhwyfar

" I've never been ignored or belittled "just because I'm a woman". Perhaps it's a matter of confidence, how you act, how you look, etc??"

Or maybe it's different in different places?

I'm sure there are places, even today, where women are belittled, but it's the exception rather than the norm, as it was in the 80s and 90s. There are still "dinosaurs" round, but they're getting fewer and fewer. Easy enough to move on to a different shop/bank/showroom or whatever if you come across one!

I think it used to be. My grans (who'd be in their 90's now) had steep learning curves after their husbands died. They managed the "housekeeping" budget but didn't do anything beyond that so when they're husbands died they needed help to sort everything out

Your mil's difficulties may be a combination of not having dealt with such things before but also deep grief as can happen with such a close partnership can affect cognitive abilities significantly. Sometimes temporarily occasionally permanently

Trauma affects the brain in many ways.

I saw similar with my mums mum as she and her husband were similarly close and we genuinely worried in the first year if she'd die of a broken heart (again a rare but genuine ailment) she rallied around the anniversary and went on to live a long and happy life after him. He'd passed fairly young early 60's due to a congenital condition he'd struggled with all his life.

Another possibility given her age is an undiagnosed learning disability. Dyslexia or even dyscalculia? My mum has a sibling I suspect is undiagnosed dyslexic. He barely managed school to 14 years old, left without qualifications got an apprenticeship in construction and that is what he's worked in since - same company since he was 14! He's never had to complete any forms there or anything he still gets paid in cash

My parents are in their mid 70's my mum is more tech savvy than some teens! But that was partly her job and very much interests her, she regularly thrashes the grandkids at video games (and laughs at me for calling them video games!). My dad had a manual job most of his life, never spent much time working a computer (towards the end of his career he had to do staff annual assessments on word but he hated it and he'd type one fingered!) can't work a smart phone (he has a brick which mum turns on for him). He's pretty savvy as a consumer and with more complex finances than a basic budget and has set up things so he and mum are now comfortable after many years of struggling when we were younger, but he also forgets he has a much better army pension than is available now. He also is terrible for still converting prices into old money and nearly giving himself a heart attack! But he understands how things like pensions and ISAs work (certainly better than I do I'm clueless and need to rectify this!) but they both stubbornly stick to being with BT for their broadband and phone so some things are frustrating.

But I'm finding myself becoming mistrustful of "new" companies for essentials like energy and broadband and I'm 48

My ex when I met him was very poorly educated financially and his mum was an accountant! He had no idea that overdrafts cost you money, that interest rates changed, that credit cards weren't "free" etc I had to do a lot of work to get him to understand basics and he was only 24 at the time.

My dad is very ill now and bedridden and he and mum have made wills, POA, put life assurance in place for mum (Dad can't get any now) made sure each other knows all passwords etc mums had health issues too so it's very much in their minds. Their one regret is they live in a house, inc steps to the front door, in the arse end of nowhere which is regularly snowed in of a winter and they're struggling to maintain. They both say they should have moved into a bungalow or ground floor flat with on street access about 10 years ago! My siblings and I did suggest it to them at this time (dad had just started needed to use a wheelchair) and we were dismissed but they admit it was foolish and they should have moved.

I'm single and live alone, my daughter is away studying, I'm nc with my sister, my brother lives hundreds of miles away, my parents are older and not in great health themselves, I'm not especially close to other relatives and I'm disabled myself. This thread has got me thinking. I'm managing for now but what about when I'm not? I don't have anyone I really have faith in to manage things for me. Dd is still young and has the optimism and exuberance of youth and won't even let me discuss funeral plans with her! Everyone else has their own stuff going on... worrying

You are a bit narrow minded unfair in your generalisations and assumptions.

Defined roles without crossover can work really well until one part of the team no longer there.

Marriages, work teams whatever.

I am quite clear that without DH I would not in future years bother with TV as that’s been his department for 10 years and it’s all so different now! I’m 48 lol (and have a senior professional role etc)

Gwen, but presumably you don’t cook a roast because you don’t want one. If you did and you live alone, you probably have got on and learned to make one for yourself.

If you live alone, I assume you’re perfectly competent and manage your finances, and if you don’t do any DIY have worked out other ways to get jobs that need doing done...friend or paying someone? When you live alone, my point quite simply was, that you have to manage everything is some form and that makes you both capable or know ways to make things happen you can’t do yourself, and it gives you confidence to tackle things when they come up. I think this applies to both men and women.

Those who went or go from a home where a parent does much if the stuff to a home with a partner who does lots of the stuff, often dont have to learn all of it, and then don’t and then lose confidence to learn new stuff.

I’m sure you are very capable in the areas you need to be.

“ As late as the 1970s, working women were routinely refused mortgages in their own right, or were granted them only if they could secure the signature of a male guarantor, according to a Mintel report Women and Finance”

www.theguardian.com/money/2004/apr/18/womenandmoney.observercashsection

You’re right though, if all of those women had just looked a bit more confident, all of that would have gone away.

I think different places and communities experience these things differently.

There are areas of the country, and communities within them, where relationships and gender roles might not be very different to those of 40-50 years ago and those where things are extremely different.

Just because an individual hasn’t experienced what is described as gender roles or attitudes or sexism doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen anywhere or it happens everywhere.

In some communities, men have felt under attack in their traditional roles. The male breadwinner carrying out manual work, and with high standing in the family and community, but who didn’t get involved in household decisions have felt their role is being eroded. Loss of work in traditional industries and the rise of women working and becoming more independent has felt threatening to some. Some areas have reacted with a digging into traditional roles and men still spend each night in the pub or club while women clear up after the evening meal and look after the kids. And some women like all this and feed into it too. It’s a clinging to traditional culture too, in a world where lots of things feel uncertain a nod under attack.

But this picture isn’t something people in many areas and communities would recognise, where boys and girls expect to have careers and to be equals in terms of bringing in money and the roles they perform in the famiky.

The UK has many different communities living vastly different lives that people just a few miles down the road would be surprised by.

Just as another personal example as to how my ‘baseline’ of older women is the assumption of full independence is my American aunt on my DM’s side. She posts regularly on Facebook, usually memes involving penises, swears and her hatred of the Republican party. The family had to actively talk her out of her regular plane trips between New York and St Louis to visit family during the pandemic, but she put up a hell of a fight. She’s 96.

"Gwen, but presumably you don’t cook a roast because you don’t want one."

Correct. I'm not bothered about fancy cooking.

If you live alone, I assume you’re perfectly competent and manage your finances,"

Yes, after a few difficulties in the early years!

" and if you don’t do any DIY have worked out other ways to get jobs that need doing done...friend or paying someone? "

I rent so no need for DIY. I've had friends put up furniture in the past, but I've also had some just lying disassembled for a while because I didn't have any volunteers and I didn't get around to paying someone. Obviously, if it had been an essential piece of furniture I would have done.

"When you live alone, my point quite simply was, that you have to manage everything is some form and that makes you both capable or know ways to make things happen you can’t do yourself, and it gives you confidence to tackle things when they come up. I think this applies to both men and women."

Yes, I suppose, but being online or not changes things as well. If you're online you can google things, ask questions in local Facebook groups, etc. You don't need to know anything much yourself.

The thing with DM and the Audi was in a market town in Sussex, in the mid-90s. The argument I had where the garage owner told me he wasn’t explaining what was wrong with my car or what they had done to fix it, because I wouldn’t understand him anyway, so just pay the bill love, was in Barnet, in 2015. This is not localised to poor northern working class areas, or whatever you are trying to insinuate.

Sorry, wombat, you aren’t the poster saying sexism never happens and women just need to change how they look, so I have taken your post the wrong way.

@ElphabaTheGreen, I’m not sure if it’s something to do with women.

My FIL wouldn’t know how to switch on a computer. He was given a radio but is still unable to change stations because it doesn’t have the ‘usual big button’ to turn (Yep he is still living in the 1980s).
All his business accounts are done by hand etc....

He just refused to step into the 21st century. He doesn’t see the point BECAUSE MIL is dealing with all that.
If MIL was dying before him, he would struggle just as much than your MIL.

Gwen, yes, having access to the internet gives you the ability to find out all kinds of things. That’s if it’s automatic for you to think to look there.

It is for me.
It isn’t for my Mum. She often wonders about things and I ask her if she’s looked it up and she’s surprised and says she hadn’t thought of that. Her search skills are not well developed, just because she’s not used to really regular internet use. She’s used to wondering things and never knowing the answer, whereas younger people or more regular internet users think if Qs through the day and are constantly looking little things and sometimes big useful things up.

It’s a sign of self-sufficiency as well to look things up when you need to know something, rather than just asking someone else or even more extreme, not even asking because you know that someone else is the person who always sorts that out and you don’t even need to think about it.

"It is for me.
It isn’t for my Mum. "

Neither of my parents can do it well. Neither can use a mobile phone, let alone a smart phone. They manage their life though so tech use is only a small part of being independent.
Obviously, it wil become harder and harder for people who are not tech savy to manage their lives as more and more things go online and the pandemic will have sped up the process.

My 80 yr old mother runs an internet business from her home. She has every Apple product on the market and manages them them herself. She and my father were both closely involved in their banking business. She may have become extremely self reliant as her mother died when she was just 16. She became the care taker for her three younger siblings..

A thread such as this is just one opportunity to take a swipe at older women.

I worry for my parents re internet. Neither has a smart phone and are very worried about internet crime and having their bank details hacked etc. They don’t like to buy online and consequently miss out on lots of good deals. They also don’t like paying by direct debit which is becoming a growing problem.

I’ve done online shopping for them during lockdown.

Things like test and trace or vaccine passports worry them. They don’t like people having any info about them. I know alternatives will be made available, but not having a smartphone and only using the j telnet for very limited purposes or not having it will increasingly become a barrier to engagement with every day life.

In the 70s those without a phone became more isolated and the internet is a bigger deal still.

Yes, of course lots of 80s and 90s are fully au fair with technology and probably much better at many aspects of it than I am. But as we go up the ages, of course 80s and 90s especially have large is groups who aren’t big users or confident in its use.

I don't have a smartphone either, (chunky fragile power hungry nuisance) and only do online shopping and banking on a good secure laptop. No smartphone isn't a barrier, but sadly no internet access is. And people do need to learn to trust direct debit!

@SecretWitch

My 80 yr old mother runs an internet business from her home. She has every Apple product on the market and manages them them herself. She and my father were both closely involved in their banking business. She may have become extremely self reliant as her mother died when she was just 16. She became the care taker for her three younger siblings..

A thread such as this is just one opportunity to take a swipe at older women.

It’s not.

Some older people are keen on technology and others despise it.
Some people are happy to carry on doing things the same way than before. Others embrace change

I haven’t yet read all the thread but don’t underestimate the effects of grief. My very capable dm was widowed about 5 years ago at the age of 74. She is very capable, knowledgeable etc . However she described being widowed as almost like concussion, it was as if her head was so full of grief and shock ( she nursed her husband at home for the whole of a short but devastating illness ) that there was just no room in her brain for anything else . She wasn’t weeping or wailing but her cognitive function and general awareness were definitely impaired and there were certainly times when I thought ‘well you could do this last week’ what’s going on . For example she was a retired senior debt counsellor with CAB but she couldn’t cope with registering the death and forms etc at all.

The good news is that it came back. She does lack confidence with technology largely because she is profoundly deaf and Zoom for example is a nightmare and indistinct voices on the phone are difficult but largely her problems with technology are because she is completely uninterested in it. She lives independently , drives although only locally , organises MOT , sorts out financial stuff etc all fine . I would just give your MIL time

@WombatChocolate, I remember having a conversation with a friend back in 1990 about the growing divide between those who adapt to smart technology (even as it was back then) and those who are left behind by it.

My mum is in your parents' camp and though fit and healthy in her late 80s, continuing to drive, and actively involved as an officer of a social club for older adults in her area until covid arrived, has a neurosis (it's the only word for it, I fear) about smart phones and indeed gadgets of all kinds.

A thread such as this is just one opportunity to take a swipe at older women.
@SecretWitch
It's not. It's really not.
The pandemic has revealed to many of us with tech-averse parents or grandparents how isolated older women can become, literally overnight. Older women tend to outlive their husbands and therefore become a concern for their children as time goes on if they are not able to get on top of things for whatever reason. Concern is the motivation in many cases here. Those of us with an interest in history can also be saddened by the effects of historical misogyny on our mothers.

My mum has gone for a week without TV when she has accidentally pressed the wrong button on the remote and got an unexpected dialogue box on her screen. She had to be talked into getting a debit card and setting up direct debit - and stopping heading into town with a handbag full of cash to pay her utility bills at the city offices of the different companies. She relies on me (on another continent) and Dsis to find electricians, plumbers, painters, lawn mower repair shops, etc online and to do many personal admin tasks - house insurance, phone/TV package, home alarm, access to info on LA grants for elderly homeowners - for insulation, electrical upgrades, etc. She believes she could not wield a power tool, despite being a dab hand at the sewing machine.