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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:
LouKout · 30/03/2017 07:36

The fact she asked and posted here?

Sirzy · 30/03/2017 07:38

I thought she said she lived a distance from her mum? Does that really classify her as a "carer" in the normal sense of having to deal with the day to day life side of helping?

malibuandlemonade · 30/03/2017 07:39

You made your toddler clean up her own poo?Hmm

Your poor daughter and your poor mother.

LouKout · 30/03/2017 07:40

Sounds like she does her best at a distance.

flapjackfairy · 30/03/2017 07:40

I agree totally out of order.
I wouldve sorted the car out whilst she cleaned herself up and not said a word about it.
You treated her like a naughty child!
I wouldve talked to her about getting it sorted tho .

Miserylovescompany2 · 30/03/2017 07:44

Your poor mother already had an accident, she couldn't hold on any longer. So, rather than showing compassion you insisted she clean her own piss up. Then continued to stand over her and humiliate her further. This is not ok on any level. You shamed this woman.

Yes, I get that you are frustrated with the fact she hasn't sort help for this on going issue. Have you ever considered that she might be embarrassed to discuss this even with a GP? Or afraid it's something serious...

HoldBackTheRain · 30/03/2017 07:44

I am my sons carer. My mum is my nans unpaid carer. And I can tell you it is difficult, can be lonely, very upsetting and frustrating. And yes none of us perfect and sometimes we snap.

OP's subsequent responses to her intial thread are fucked up. To says she used to rub her cats noses in wee and poo but she didn't do it to her mum says a lot. Are we supposed to say oh well you don't rub your mums nose in her own wee so that's okay then, you should have said?

Very, very sad. Nobody should 'have' to do anything for anyone. But in that situation you don't humiliate the person any more than they already have been.

My mum & I go and clean for my nan once a week. She regularly poos on the floor by the toilet, on the seat, I've sometimes had to clean it off the walls. I have never said anything to her. She can be difficult, tactless, quite frankly bloody rude at times. I still couldn't march her into the pan and give her the bleach and make her clean it up herself though. I know if she could clean it up, she would.

LouKout · 30/03/2017 07:46

She said her mum used to do it to the cats. I took it as her saying her mum wasnt a saint.

Sirzy · 30/03/2017 07:49

Comparing cats to humans though? Nothing like the same.

Cinnamon12345 · 30/03/2017 07:51

She definitely needs to see her go, she's only 70.

LouKout · 30/03/2017 07:51

I dont know i guess it might fuck your thinking up a bit if your parent abused animals i suppose

Meripenopause · 30/03/2017 08:00

PPs telling the OP that 'our mothers did it for us, we should do it for them...'. Exactly. We learn from our mothers. Showing kindness is learnt, how to humiliate is very much learnt when we are children.
Maybe the OP has been taught how to show duty, but not how to show love.
If these kindnesses and acts of love are missing from our childhood, it can take experience and maturity to learn them.
I think that the OP wants to understand. I feel for her - look at what has been modelled for her. No hugs and a mother who sounds like she was unkind to the OP's much-loved pets.

Marmalade85 · 30/03/2017 08:02

Sad YABU

aprilanne · 30/03/2017 08:04

shame on you embarrasing your poor mother .you should have cleaned up the mess then had a private chat and said you would take her to see the well woman nurse .not treat her like that .i would,nt even have done that to my MIL and i cant stand the woman

PollyPerky · 30/03/2017 08:05

Probably far too late for this and doubt the OP is reading, but it sounds as if her mum has urge incontinence / overactive bladder. This is nothing to do with giving birth. Young women who have not had children can have this. Kegels don't help much. It's overactivity of the bladder muscle. Some drs use Botox to treat it, but the usual treatment is medication which usually helps.

I hope her mum is getting help, poor woman.

FrenchLavender · 30/03/2017 08:09

If she walks with a stick I think I would have done it for her, but I would be exasperated and annoyed that she knows she has this problem yet doesn't wear a pad. There is no excuse for it really, is there?

I'd tell her that.

Twatxit · 30/03/2017 08:14

She should have been wearing something in case she had an accident. She knew it was likely.

I don't get all the martyrs saying you should do it. Who makes someone else clean their wee?

LouKout · 30/03/2017 08:15

Im.also sure its possible that although OPs mother walks with a stick she may have still exaggerated it a bit in a fit of pique. For all the people claiming OP is just abusing a woman for her disability.

Tanith · 30/03/2017 08:16

My elderly neighbour did this on my sofa one day when she'd locked herself out and was waiting for her daughter.

She was too embarrassed to ask for the toilet - she'd have needed help using it without her aids - and I'm sure she was mortified to have wet herself.

She never told me and I pretended it hadn't happened, just cleaned up after she'd gone.

Loss of continence is excruciatingly embarrassing, especially to someone who values their independence. Why make it worse?

Sirzy · 30/03/2017 08:19

She was wearing protection but leaked through it.

treaclesoda · 30/03/2017 08:20

She should have been wearing something in case she had an accident.

The OP said she was wearing something. Hmm

Foxysoxy01 · 30/03/2017 08:20

Is there something different with you mentally? It's just you seem so very uncaring and cold.

It's like you don't even give a shit now. Almost like it's an amusing story to tell.

It doesn't matter how old she is and it doesn't even matter she is your mother (although it makes your lack of empathy much much worse) I wouldn't cruelly belittle anyone the way you did.

There are so many things you did wrong in this scenario I don't even know where to start!

I would be taking a long, hard look at myself if I was you.

It might also be worth seeing if you could be a borderline psychopath maybe a narcissist as your lack of empathy and your Inability to understand how your lack of empathy and understanding could upset your mother doesn't seem at all normal.

Wando1986 · 30/03/2017 08:22

Why didn't you just take it to a car wash that does seat valeting? One by ours does poo, wee, puke etc, you name it, all for £20. Your mother is in her 70s. Jesus.

KayTee87 · 30/03/2017 08:25

Your poor mums pelvic floor is probably ruined by carrying you (and your sibling) and giving birth to you, she then spent years cleaning up your posh, shit, vomit and snot - you couldn't have done this one thing for her?

LouKout · 30/03/2017 08:25

Borderline psychopath?

Overreaction much?

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