Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Protection built in.

Meet the Other Phone.
Protection built in.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU to make my mother clean up her own accident?

715 replies

LaLaCascada · 29/03/2017 21:06

For many years my Mum has had a bit of a problem with sudden urge to wee. She's 70 and has given birth twice. She hates going to the doctor and has always suffered a variety of ailments about which there is much moaning and zero action.

During a recent visit to my parents I was driving my mum home from Sainsbury's in a rather nice rented car. It's only about a mile but there was a bit of school traffic so we had to sit a few minutes - about 1 song on the radio so definitely less than 5 mins- and she started panicking and saying get me home I really need the loo. I said hang on, it's only two more turns, keep calm and look the traffic is moving now, she snapped it's too late, I've wet meself. and then went silent.

Back at her house she went straight to the bathroom and sorted herself out while I unpacked the shopping and put the kettle on. When she came out I said have a coffee and where's some stuff to clean the car.

Then I said come on and she made a big show with getting her walking stick and hobbling to the car parked on the drive - 20 steps?- as I followed with the kitchen roll and keys. I unlocked the car and waited a moment and when she didn't respond I said clean the seat please which she did do but with a lot of huff and puff. My dad and husband and daughter were there and noticed us going out to the car but I just said we had to get something. Then we carried on the evening like normal. DH noticed things were a bit off but just assumed a little disagreement had happened.

At no point was I rude or shouty or anything. I was a bit cheesed off because we had a long journey the next day which meant I would sit there when DH was driving but it wasn't like she puked or poohed.

I spent the night researching because I care and don't want my mum to live like this and did encourage Mum to make a doctor's appointment and she is now getting some help that made her worse at first but she now is improving a bit. I haven't said anything about it until now so as not to embarrass my mum. HOWEVER there has been a certain chill since it happened. It hasn't been mentioned except to say the doctor knows about it and the making of various follow up appointments.

So, was I being unreasonable to expect her to clean up her own urine?

OP posts:
tiptoeingpixie · 29/03/2017 22:31

If you don't want to clear up someone else's bodily functions then you shouldn't.

Except it's not 'someone' is it - it's her mother. I'd be horrified if my family thought that way.

This thread has really made me thankful for my family, I couldn't ever imagine treating a relative this way.

I'd be pretty disgusted by any adult who wanted someone else to clean up their bodily fluids while they just sat around, perfectly able to do it themselves. Again, it's not like she was ill and you pulled her out of her sick bed, she just didn't want to clean up after herself for some reason.

Well she is elderly, can't control her bladder, wears pads and nowhere in the OP does it say she didn't want to clean up after herself Hmm what the OP does say is that the mum desperately needed the loo and because she can't control her bladder wet herself - in her daughter's rather nice hired car. And apparenlty made a show of hobbling to the car to clean up.

She's her mother! cannot comprehend anyone who wouldn't do their very best to ease their mam's mind after that :(

AndnoneforGretchenWeinersBye · 29/03/2017 22:32

OP:

Are you fucking kidding me?

slyoldfoxystoat · 29/03/2017 22:32

Wow you are heartless AngryI would have cleaned up if she had shit herself!! Your poor mum.

Bleu2 · 29/03/2017 22:33

I'd get this thread deleted if I were you OP. The abuse you've received makes deeply unpleasant reading.

diddl · 29/03/2017 22:34

" If I made a resident in the home I work at clean up their own wee I would be fired. "

Wtaf has that got to do with anything?

Op's mum isn't resident in a care home & Op is not her carer!

evilharpy · 29/03/2017 22:34

Your mum was probably mortified.

If it was my mum (or dad), I'd have cleaned her wee or whatever other accident she had, and given her a hug. Once when I was 17 I got very drunk and puked on my favourite suede boots before going to bed and passing out. Next morning I discovered that my dad had, without any fuss, painstakenly cleaned my boots until they were like new and I have never ever forgotten it. I could never have made my mum clean up after herself.

I'd nag her to go to the GP though until she was sick of me.

SookiesSocks · 29/03/2017 22:35

Sorry but you cannot cancel out abusive behaviour because she takes her shopping Hmm

As I said earlier if a carer had treated this poor women this way it would be called abuse.

She has a right to dignity and being taken to the supermarket does not strip her of that right.

AYankinSpanx · 29/03/2017 22:36

Then I said come on and she made a big show with getting her walking stick and hobbling to the car parked on the drive - 20 steps?- as I followed with the kitchen roll and keys

Oh, your poor mother.

BouncyFlouncy · 29/03/2017 22:36

You don't need to start responding here, you need to call or visit your mum ASAP and apologise. And hope beyond hope it never happens to you, and if it does whoever is with you is a damn sight kinder.

Wickedstepmum67 · 29/03/2017 22:36

Not sure this is really just about your mum having one 'accident' and your reaction', OP. Your original post and subsequent responses suggest you seem angry with her (maybe with both your parents) and frustrated. So I guess you feel partly that your actions were the only thing likely to force a change/get her to seek help? Also I'm wondering if you feel a bit of a sense your mum could control herself and therefore did something she knew would irk you out of choice. It does at face value seem a rather mean reaction on your part, but I suspect it's also not the entire picture.

Closedenv · 29/03/2017 22:37

You say you are ashamed of yourself OP I'm not surprised! I understand why you felt pushed to do it BUT that does not make it right in any way. Understanding and offering to help her get help with the problem would have been the way to go. I can imagine her breaking down in embarrassment explaining to the doctor what finally made her seek help.

BaldricksTrousers · 29/03/2017 22:37

"Wtaf has that got to do with anything?

Op's mum isn't resident in a care home & Op is not her carer!"

I understand this, but perhaps we should aspire to good care for our relatives even if we're not getting paid for it.

evilharpy · 29/03/2017 22:37

Although I suppose it depends on the relationship you have with your mum.

mirren3 · 29/03/2017 22:37

Seriously, you say you worry about your mother's welfare and then make her do that. I'd be ashamed to call you my daughter, incontinence is an illness, if she'd had a nose bleed would you have had more sympathy? I'm glad she's now getting help, and hopefully you'll look back at this and be as horrified as you should be at making her clean up. That's the sort of thing we do for family, she's not a naughty puppy or willful child, she's an elderly lady who presumably did a lot more than that for you as you were growing up.
I'm a long time lurker who is starting to post more lately, this just made me so angry though.

Original poster
LaLaCascada · 29/03/2017 22:39

There is a lot of vitriol but I won't ask for deletion partly because there is some really good advice here that there are solutions for people who are suffering similar problems. And I know I didn't make an evil plan to destroy a poor old lady. The opinions expressed certainly have me reviewing my entire life.

OP posts:
Butteredparsnip1ps · 29/03/2017 22:39

I hope this is a reverse. Your poor mother.

bigbuttons · 29/03/2017 22:40

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

BoomBoomsCousin · 29/03/2017 22:40

It sounds mean, and unkind, and a bit bullying. But the end result may be better for her since it did force her into facing the problem and seeing the doctor. I'm not sure where the right balance between non-judgmental love and enabling her denial by shielding her from the consequences lies. I think you over stepped, but I can see why your worry might make you think things need to be pushed a little instead of pandering. But I don't think it's right to try and do this when it has relatively little impact on you.

I don't think the comparison with all she did for you when you were a baby is necessarily apt, given she isn't helpless and it may be her choices that have driven this. But I hope now you've made your point you treat her less harshly in the future.

user128057 · 29/03/2017 22:40

Sorry I think you were really harsh.

Xmasbaby11 · 29/03/2017 22:41

Yabu. I think it was mean to react like that. I can only imagine that you were frustrated and angry but I hope now you've reflected you wouldn't do it again. It's basic compassion.

WayfaringStranger · 29/03/2017 22:41

cherish Did you not read the OP? The mum has a walking stick and clearly has mobility issues, so she is "infirm".

Bleu2 · 29/03/2017 22:42

As I said earlier if a carer had treated this poor women this way it would be called abuse.

False comparison.

OP's mother is not a patient. She is described as having full mental capacity and, apart from the walking stick, there is no mention of being registered disabled.

IadoreEfteling · 29/03/2017 22:42

only skimmed first page but yes I think thats really really cruel and mean I say this as someone who cleaned up far worse from parents.

Really awful

mumeeee · 29/03/2017 22:43

OP I'm another one saying YWBU. A lot of older ladies have the same problem.
I would have just cleaned it up quietly your Mother will have already been mortified.
Anyway I'm sure you realise that now and it's good she's going to the Doctor

HoldBackTheRain · 29/03/2017 22:43

OP that's why I said I don't want to make you feel bad, I really don't.

But I do think you were wrong and shouldn't have made her clean it up. I understand what it's like to care for an elderly relative and the frustration when they don't go to the doctors about a health problem. But I think there are other ways of dealing with situations like this rather than humiliating the person in question, especially when it's your mother who is the one person probably/most of the time who has done more for you than anyone else.