to think that my mum should have sounded a bit more willing to come home?

[Arrowfanatic]

My grandad (mums dad) is very unwell. This last couple of weeks he's taken a turn for the worse and is pretty much in bed most days (he has cancer, and is 85). My nan understandably is finding this hard to deal with, she's the kind of person who doesn't stop and expects everyone to be up, dressed and showered every day no matter what by early morning. My grandad is too weak, due to the nature of his cancer he can barely eat and he wants to stay in bed or just sit in his PJ's all day.

My mum is abroad to help my sister who is heavily pregnant with her third and plans to stay after her c-sec to help (my sister does have a husband btw).

I called my mum explained everything and suggested she may want to consider citing her trip short as grandad is due a scan soon and I expect it to say the cancer has spread. In which case I know that my nan is likely to get very upset and my already depressed grandad is likely to get even more down. I just feel I can't cope with this on my own. I have several young children myself and although a sahm and a few streets away from my grandparents I'm pretty busy as can be expected with a mother. However when I suggested this to her she just said she has an open ticket and if she feels it necessary she will come but I got the sense that she literally just means should he die.

Maybe I'm bu, and I need to act like a grown up but this man is pretty much my dad and I simply don't feel like if things get much worse that I could cope. Since mum has been gone I've had to arrange extra doctors appts to their home, nurse visits, try to persuade them to have home help, and generally be there.

I suppose on one hand I'm scared about the future, and want my mum here to take the lead over HER parents. But she is so blasé about it all, truthfully I think she's just having a blast abroad and doesn't want to deal with her elderly parents as she's not that kind of daughter iyswim.

thank god your grandparents have you op

It sounds as if your mum has had enough TBH and has decided that she won't be manipulated and blackmailed or forced into doing things out of guilt.
She has adult children, most of whom don't seem to want any additional responsibilities involving GPs, parents that she has a poor relationship with and who are unwilling to accept professional help even though it would alleviate some of the problems...and a daughter who disapproves of her boyfriend.
So I think she's putting two fingers up and making her own choices now, at 60.

I don't recall the OP saying she expected her mum to do everything without help. And I disagree that the OP has much of a choice wrt helping the gps. When you love people you don't just opt out when they need you, even if they are difficult to help.

Well, the OP has been fairly open that the option she favours is her DM coming back and taking over and not on the condition of outside help being available.

And why does the helping people you love not extend to her DM? The OP wants DM to come back so she doesn't have to do it. Why does DM have to be the one who must martyr herself to this? Why is nobody else helping out?

And yes she does have a choice. There is an alternative and that is outside help. The problem is that GM always has someone who won't stand up to her and say 'This has to stop, you need to take the available help rather than trying to make people who are unwilling do things for you'.

Sometimes even people you love have to be told no when their expectations are unreasonable.

'When you love people you don't just opt out when they need you, even if they are difficult to help.'

I have two children with additional needs, had a stressful job, health issues and crumbly parents.
It's easy to say 'You don't just opt out' if you haven't been meeting everyone else's needs for decades. Sometimes people get to the point where they say 'Fuck it' I never got to that point, but I know others who have, and I wouldn't judge them for it.
OP, you are an adult. Managing shit without help is sometimes what happens. You want your mum here to take the lead? Because you are as the line goes 'Looking for an adult, realising you are an adult, then looking for an adultier adult. Someone who is better at adulting than you are'?
But you are an adult.

I don't disagree that the gps have to accept outside help and that the other relatives ought to be contributing more. But they are not and the OP is getting left trying to manage and is struggling. I really do think her mum owes it to her to come home and help. If only to have the conversation with her siblings tht they need to step up and with her parents that they are being unfair in expecting the female relatives to do everything without outside assistance.

People have the impression that the mum is some put upon victim, but who repeatedly says to their dd, who loves her gps, that she wishes they would hurry up and die so she can have her inheritance? That is a very cruel thing to say to her. I believe that I will be more responsible for my parents in their old age than my own dc and cannot imagine buggering off on holiday and letting my own dc just get on with things.

As you said, you can't imagine it.
Let's hope your future works out better than the OP's family.

When you love people you don't just opt out when they need you, even if they are difficult to help.

No - you pull in help - outside and within the family and place reasonable boundaries in place - or your own health can end up suffering - certainly what happens even with help with my parents and yes it impacted on us their children and we were teenagers.

Another more distant family member in DH family ended up voluntary giving up work for what was supposed to be a short while in a crisis - 8 year later no holiday no break they are still providing the care full time and everyone in DH family is happy with that but there is no pension being paid into and they living in rented sheltered accommodation so when the elderly person dies they'll have to move.

Of course you want too help - but if your not careful the cost to person providing the help can be extreme and long term.

OP sees the solution as her Mum coming home and doing the care, she could come back and distance herself, - a better bet would be to get GP to accept outside help and ask rest of family for support. Then if Mum come back and pitches in great - if not the OP can still cope going forward.

People have the impression that the mum is some put upon victim

I don't know what the Mum is - except she isn't there to take over from OP and doesn't look like she is planning it any time soon.

So thinking or wishing Mum back isn't really going to help OP.

sugar, it's not a male/female thing. You're ignoring that the OP is female and is also trying to offload the caring onto her mother. She is not coping, but she doesn't seem to consider that she's asking her mother to come home and take on the same difficult to cope with situation. I don't know why you think that DM can come home and wave a magic wand and get them to accept outside care. She hasn't been able to do this before. And from everything we've heard, her going home would make them less likely to accept help as everybody, including the OP, think that when she returns she'll start doing the caring that will make it unecessary.

What the DM said about GP was not nice. But you also have to wonder what sort of parent ends up with a child who would say that. From what OP has said, we know that GM won't accept help to ease the burden on DM, she's manipulative about getting DM to do what she wants, she doesn't like DM spending time away from her - and when she does she starts putting the burden on OP, transfers the emotional blackmail to her, and encourages her to join in with pressuring her DM to come back on the basis of 'might bes'. We know when DM goes away, she can't enjoy what she's doing too much because she's going to be facing a barrage of phone calls telling her what an awful mother/daughter she Is because she's dared to go away for a few weeks. We know that DMs family at home resent and complain about her helping her other daughter or spending time with a partner/friend because they think she should permanently be available for her parents/OP. It doesn't really sound like a bed of roses relationship does it? It was a nasty thing to say. But sometimes people do say nasty things when they're at the end of their tether.

It's sounds like you have a complicated family dynamic.

You say DGF was like a father to you- where was your DF? Was your mum a single mum? We're her parents supportive of her then?

Incidentally sugar, you seem to be very concerned with not placing an unecessary burden on your children. Does it not occur to you that this is exactly the sort of motherly consideration that GM seems to be short on?

Sometimes people say nasty things because they are just nasty. Even if it is the case that she is at the end of her tether with them there is no excusable reason to say that to her dd, who loves her gp.

Personally, I think that if you dislike your parents so much that you wish they were dead, then you have no entitlement to their money after the fact.

I don't believe the mum ought to be permanently available but I wouldn't choose to take a few months holiday at a time when my dad was terminally ill and knowing that my own child was struggling under the weight of the gps needs/demands.

Ultimately I do believe a son/ daughter has more of a responsibility to their parents than their grandchildren do. If the OP is expecting her mum to come home and do everything then that is wrong, as is her mum for expecting her own dd to just deal with it. Not disputing for a minute that the gps are difficult but as a mum I would always choose to protect my own dc from it.

Yes the gps are lacking this concern. That doesn't make the mum's behaviour towards her own dd any better. The gps are ill and stressed which can result in people being self absobed .

The OP doesn't sound as though she loves or even likes her mum much. She only wants her to come home so she can look after the grandparents instead of her. I agree that the mum doesn't sound as though she'd be that great at it any way. Setting boundaries and insisting on extra help is the way foreword. I agree old people are often reluctant to have outside help and seem not to care about wearing down younger relatives. They can't make you do stuff though and sometimes the only way to get them to accept help is to refuse to do it all. People with no relatives manage.

Mmm, I think it's important this family acknowledge that the way forward isn't the GPs continuing to decline professional care and some (female) family member doing it instead. It's getting a proper arrangement in place. That matters a lot more than whether the mother is or isn't a grabby cow, whether the nan's behaviour is due to stress or innate personality, and whether OP is or isn't being snotty and judgy about the boyfriend.

Nothing OP has said suggests that there's a single person in the family who understands that suitable professional care is the only way forward. That's not a criticism either, it can be an easy knee jerk response to stress to want someone else to deal so you don't have to, and we've all been subject to societal expectations about women and caring roles. It's not always possible to undo that conditioning overnight.

Is your mum close to her parents?
If not, she couldn't be expected to prioritise her father over her own daughter.
I'm sorry if that sounds harsh OP, and I'm sorry about your grandfather too.

OP said the relationship is complex, and the nan spends a lot of time complaining because DM isn't a sufficiently dutiful and caring daughter. Doesn't appear to make the same demands of any of her other siblings.

For the record I want to make it clear, I'm not asking mum to come home and take over. Even when mum was in the country I still visited my grandparents every other day, as I'm local I pick up their prescriptions, I run them to appointments, up the hospital for scans. I'm there when they have the nurse come around as nan gets confused. My mum comes over once or twice a week and will sit with them for a short while, help nan order any shopping, help sort out their diary and take them to appts I can't do (if they clash with school runs or are when I have all the kids home). My uncle works full time in the city so is a couple of hours away. He will ring regularly too and visits every couple of weeks if he is able.

It's not that I want to handover and leave mum with all the responsibilty it's that I feel like I need some back up myself as I do alot when I also have a young family, and they are HER PARENTS. They won't be around much longer, I just think she should take the lions share of the stuff I don't do as out of everyone in the family only myself and her don't work. Sometimes she can handle my grandfather's temper better than I can, and when nan gets all upset and worked up she seems to know how to calm her down. I thought she would want to be around.

Instead she's off with the boyfriend who has cheated on her umpteen times, treated her like his cheap bit of stuff, and been so so mean. She's not even with my sister anymore, so much for helping her.

I know you all think she's hard done by with the situation and I'm sure it's a lot for her to deal with, it is for me too I guess if I'm honest I just want her here too so if he does die she'll be able to support me. Even just hold me as I cry at the loss. God I'm so scared of him going, my dad wasn't around. My mum, my grandad & my nan raised us amazingly well.

I get going away to help my sister, even a holiday but why does she have to be away for so long. She's planning on 6-8 weeks, give or take. Her dad is DYING! When he was diagnosed we were told he had 6-9 months, that was 3 nearly 4 years ago so maybe she just thinks he's defied the odds for that long he'll keep going (and I hope he does, he's a stubborn old goat ) but even with that in mind surely shorter holidays etc away are better than months? What if he dies and she's over the other side of Europe?

What if he dies and she's over the other side of Europe? Then so be it. That's her decision.

I can understand you being hurt she isn't helping you cope and doesn't seem to want to be around even if her Dad does die - but clearly that is her decision.

Wasting time and energy on her choices which you can't seem to get her to change isn't productive.

You may not be working but you do have have young children - don't you so you are not at home doing nothing. What you are doing is just as important as rest of working family. When our parents get to this stage hopefully off in the future - I expect we will all be working - and we are going to have to find ways to cope.

Having the mindset I'm not working so must be the one to deal with this - isn't a good one here.

Your mother has made it very clear she isn't coming back to help any time soon - YANBU to be upset by this but it is not changing so you need to look for other support.

It sounds as if caring for your grandfather has been a big commitment both for you and your DM. She visited twice a week, organised the shopping and did additional appointment visits when you couldn't.

That may not sound like a lot, but to me it feels like it is, particularly if that's been the pattern for the last 4 years.

Perhaps your DM went away and thought, I like this and I want to do a bit of travelling whilst I can still enjoy it. I don't know how long she'd been at your Dsis prior to this taking place.

Have you tried saying or emailing this to your DM I guess if I'm honest I just want her here too so if he does die she'll be able to support me. Even just hold me as I cry at the loss. because that's the crux of it.

Take away the bits about what you feel she should be doing for her parents, that's not the issue, you want her here to support you and perhaps if you sent that honest plea then she might understand your point of view and might come back. Most places in Europe are only a few hours away from an airport and she could be back within a day if absolutely needed.

In the meantime keep encouraging your grandparents to take up any professional support that is offered.

"My uncle works full time in the city so is a couple of hours away. He will ring regularly too and visits every couple of weeks if he is able."

Yeah, he could probably do more!