Do you believe adult children should be their parents carers?

[Cornishpastyskinned]

I’m asking to see the general consensus on the subject, do you care for a parent or you will when the time comes?

MIL is disabled and relies heavily on her children to care for her. 2 of them no longer live local to her anymore after years of looking after her, and now have their own lives and families, yet she will contact one of them in a panic because she needs help with her cupboard door or play on symptoms so they will rush to her house thinking it’s serious. If the son she has contacted doesn’t ‘obey’ she will move on to the next one and add some fake tears to guilt trip them into helping her. If they go, she will ask for a tea and want to sit down and chat. If they show any annoyance that she lied and wasted their time and therefore a days wage she will start the guilt tripping.

Now don’t get me wrong, we visit her as much as we can which is usually every Sunday morning and offer to do any jobs she needs. Face to face she’ll refuse and say she can manage. She has a window cleaner, gardener and cleaner/shopping help. She’s rarely alone and rarely has to do anything for herself so she isn’t abandoned and left to fend for herself. She doesn’t give any of her grandchildren attention, it always has to be about her.

I have told DH it sounds like loneliness and she wants her sons around her, but she isn’t considering their lives or mental health. BIL is really struggling with the guilt tripping because he can’t rush to her side 2 hours away as he has a newborn and works nights. DH has had enough after she would constantly call him at work claiming an emergency, he’d rush to her but there would be nothing wrong she’d just want company. Other BIL does as she demands but it’s taking it’s toll on him too, he’s only young and has given up his social life as he doesn’t want to upset her by not being available. She bosses him around telling him jobs he HAS to do.

We’ve discussed a carer and that we’re all happy to chip in and pay as it’s not a responsibility any of us can realistically manage, but she refuses on the basis she will lose her independence (?). She said she’d prefer her children come whenever she asks instead as it doesn’t feel like caring!

Last night she told DH he needs to take the rest of the week off work because she needs him to stay with her to do her washing and help her practise using a walking stick, after she called for an ambulance because her knees were hurting. She was taken to A&E but they sent her home as nothing was wrong. This was at 12.30am and she wanted him to go there at that time - a 1hr 30 min trip, after he’d been at work from 6am to 6pm and we have 3 young children. She didn’t ask, she expected it. It’s becoming far too common for her to expect everyone to drop their responsibilities to help her. If she is refuseing a carer what else can we do? If her sons don’t want to be carers surely that’s their choice and they shouldn’t be guilt into it? Has anyone got experience of this and could share their resolution please?

(sorry it’s such a long post I needed to vent as it’s getting on top of all of us)

I agree she sounds lonely. Maybe a befriending service rather than a carer or some sort of social group is what’s really needed. It might also make a difference if her sons were able to do a midweek evening visit as well as Sundays, though I think often elderly people get quite lonely during working hours and there is no easy way around that.

I wish you could have grown up with some of us " boomer lot " to see what hardships lots of us had.
We had a work ethic and wanted to improve the world and without many of us you would not have what you have now.

No, within reason. Your MIL is being selfish and unfair.

Every adult should do their best to maintain their ability to look after themselves. So for example, not being overweight, not using excessive alcohol, drugs etc. Taking plenty of appropriate exercise and maintaining fitness. Eating healthily.

My dm was on her own for 15 years, She was still helping 3 days a week in a charity shop until 12 months before her death at 89. During her last year, we were there to help her with whatever she needed but she chose to remain in her own home.

Now in my 60s, I run, swim and practice martial arts every week. I drink very little, have never smoked, and hope I can avoid being a burden to my ds for as long as possible.

Having said that, we none of us know what awaits us.

It is the greatest honour to care for those that once cared for us. I cater for my DM when I was very young and I will care for my DF if needed in his old age. MIL are different though and in my experience a bloody nightmare!

Yes and it will be the women in the middle doing everything no doubt. The majority of time when it comes to any unpaid caring it's women who end up juggling everything and put themselves last.

though I think often elderly people get quite lonely during working hours and there is no easy way around that.

There really is a way round it. The person who is lonely can take up one of the myriad of activities and lunch clubs and volunteering opportunities, and fellowship groups, and craft groups, and hobby groups, and free concerts, and coffee mornings, and warm welcome places that are out there.
There are millions of elderly people who aren't lonely in the slightest, as they talk to people at different things they attend, day after day.

How old is your MIL? It's a different situation if she is in her late 60s to someone in their 80s and sounds as if its unlikely to improve.
Also if people have already been caring for several years, it's perfectly reasonable now that they have moved away and have young families for them to do less.

Not unless they want to. I'm an only child and do want to. But I'm not physically capable of doing anything that meaningful in terms of care so once she becomes more disabled she'd get home carers. With me supervising and giving moral support etc. I hope.
I think also if the parents were unkind or abusive then I can't imagine why the kid would want to care for them.

No I don’t, but it’s also why I don’t believe in extending life at all costs. Lots of people desperate to live into their 80s and 90s, I’m not one of them. I don’t want to be a burden to my children. If I ever got to the point where my health might be a burden to anybody I would end my life, it’s also why I’m for assisted dying (I have chronic health issues which makes this more relevant to me). To be clear, that doesn’t mean I think everybody should think like me, it’s just personally what I would want for myself.

I do think that we need to move more towards a system of multi-generational living. Unfortunately in a few years time there will be insufficient carers to go round so the costs of care are likely to escalate to a point where care is unaffordable for all but the very wealthy.

Multi-generational living can have plenty of benefits in terms of shared costs, shared childcare etc so it is not just a one-way street. In cases like the OPs , there would be less loneliness, less fear of being abandoned and someone around to change a lightbulb etc.

Unlike most people on here, I do think we have some responsibility to look afer our parents, especially if they have supported us in our adult lives as well as when we were children.

I don't think any adult should have a child thinking it's job is to care for them in old age.

Whether you have children or not every adult should prepare for their old age, including putting things in place for when their independence falters.

Some people choose to provide a level of care for older members of their family, but the choice of whether they do it, what they do and how long they choose to do it for is entirely theirs.

I know it's not popular but for me it's transactional - were they a good parent? Did they provide the basics or more as a child/young adult? Did they help with their parent's care or grandchildren's care? Will they be appreciative or demanding? Have they made good decisions about their older age and where they will live?

I think the OP describes someone who has not made good provision for themselves and is demanding more than people want to give, creating ongoing resentment, which may eventually lead to care being totally withdrawn.

Completely depends on the circumstances.

Personally I find it a bit sad that, if you have a good relationship and the availability, people see their only caring duty as the bare legal minimum ie nothing because ‘I don’t have to do anything’ (that applies to sons as well as daughters).

Personally if I was able to provide some care to a relative that had been nice to me over the years, I would. What you feel you can provide (or hopefully your DH as he is their child) is up to you.

The boomer group, as a whole, had their whole 40 year adult life and child rearing, in peace with opportunity within the EU, the boomer lot, as a whole voted for the next generations not to have that.

They are the most pampered in history, they are also as a group the most ungrateful. So they can look after themselves.

thanks everyone, lots to take in from all of your comments.
we already help her every Sunday and phone her daily, but it’s not good enough she wants 24/7 care but not from a professional.
she’s mid 60s but she has been disabled since her late 30s. She didn’t care for her parents due to this.
I just don’t like seeing DH so stressed and upset by the situation. If she lived nearby it would be easier but she won’t move home or stay with us, plus I know the caring will fall on SIL and I as she needs help using the loo and showering and her son’s won’t want to do that.

No. My parents have said they don’t want me and my brother having to care for them and i wouldn’t want my daughter having to look after me.

It sounds awful and she is expecting far too much

Is she widowed?

I am pretty ancient with long grown up dds. We enjoy a very good relationship but I absolutely do not want them ever to have to care for me, or to feel they ought to. If dh or I need care, we will pay for it. Dds have their own busy lives to lead.

I had both a parent and an in law with dementia, and I especially would not want dds to suffer the stress and exhaustion I experienced while trying to do my best for them.

The cries of "losing my independence" are a ridiculous. They are not independent. They are pretending that they are while running their family ragged while they attempt to preserve the illusion that they can manage and don't need carers or more appropriate housing.

I have made it quite clear to my offspring that they are never to feel even slightly obliged if I get old and infirm. I have every intention of living very dangerously in the hope that I won't hang around too long after my sell-by date.

Seems like I'm in the minority but I do think children should provide care and support for their elderly parents within reason. This does not mean giving up your whole life to be and their beck and call. Loneliness , isolation caused by failing health are biggest problems in old age .

Given the top heavy population pyramid that we are hurtling into, then I think this is the inevitable outcome.

She sounds remarkably selfish and self-centred, and doesn't seem able to bear the thought that she isn't being put first by her dc, above their own partners and dc. She is also prone to over-dramatising and inventing 'emergencies' so that her dc rush to her side, all because she wants the company. And she knows how to get what she wants.

A certain amount of refusing to play ball is required here, I reckon.

No. I think caring for elderly family members destroys families and has a severe negative impact on the carer's (usually a woman's) mental health. I would hate my DC to feel obliged to care for me. Put me in a home. Screw the money, it's not worth the pain.

My mum's said the same to me BTW.

It would be nice if we did. We cared for my MIL, she was great, years ago when I worked long hours she would often make up a stew for me to pick up on the way home, I could drop my kids there at the drop of a hat and when my housework got on top of me she would turn up and roll her sleeves up. My mum's a different story, never done a thing except drain me mentally, physically and financially. Crazy but as I'm all she has I can't abandon her. I like that my kids see the way we care for our elders and hope they will care for us if we need it. It's a very English thing to not want to care for elders, DH is Irish, they seem a lot more into family, I see it in Asian & Indian cultures too that the elders are cared for.

No absolutely not..I wouldn't want any of my kids wiping my arse or feeding me , washing me or whatever.
However I think it would be nice if they WANTED to , to maybe do the grocery shopping or help with housework etc.

I'm sorry to say. I don't think I could do personal care for my parents either

Me neither