AIBU or are my parents expectations?

[Chicci1]

My parents are in their late 60s and in good health. They do a massive amount of caring for my mums parents - bring them meals most days of the week, stay overnight with them a couple of times a week and spend a lot of time running errands etc for them. Anytime I have suggested getting more help for my grandparents so my parents don't have to do as much, my mum gets quite upset and gives me a lecture on how it is a child's duty to do these things for their parents and she fully expects me to do the same for her if and when she needs it. She also makes comments like she would never forgive me if I put her in a nursing home etc. Now I fully appreciate that this is all very speculative and a long way down the road but it is really starting to make me anxious. I don't want to give up my life in the way I've seen my parents do for their parents. Has anyone else's parents put them on a guilt trip like this and how do you respond?
There's probably also some resentment on my part - I have two very young children and don't get any help from my parents because they're so busy all the time with their own parents!

Your parents are adults and as long as they're cognitively intact, you can't dictate what they do. It also isn't their job to provide childcare for your children.

As far as the future, your mum needs to recognize that it's quite conceivable that her care needs will exceed your ability to provide care. If she becomes disabled to a point where she requires a mechanical lift, that's a 2-person job. If she develops dementia she'll likely require 24-hour care.

My maternal GM recently moved to a facility. She has Alzheimer's. My aunt was living with her and caring for her for a year, along with my cousin. Originally my aunt had said she thought she and my cousin could continue to care for Grandma until the end of life. After a year she realized that this wouldn't be possible. They found a facility where Grandma lives now.

There's a considerable difference between putting someone in a nursing home and leaving them there to rot, and putting someone in a very nice facility after doing considerable research, and visiting them regularly. I've worked in nursing homes as a care aide and as a nurse. I've seen both types of situations. I've seen scenarios where wives had to put their husbands in facilities because they couldn't care for them at home anymore. I've seen scenarios where people came and took their loved ones on outings regularly. One lady had several children and they endured that every day at least one of them came to see her. Mum visits Grandma every week and she and her siblings have a rota for taking Grandma to church every week.

Putting someone in care isn't abandoning that person.

I think you need to let them do what they want to in caring. It is a good thing, It doesn't mean you are expected to do as much when they have needs. Cross that bridh=ge when you get there but dont criticise them.

Your parents are not obligated to help you with childcare. They brought you up

I think you need to be very straight with them that there is no such duty, as though you will of course help them with shopping etc when they are infirm you will most definitely not be doing any personal care or nursing.

Your parents are not obligated to care for your kids. However, neither are you obligated to care for them.

I think you need to continue to say that they need to get help with their own parents and follow that up with lowering their expectations of your own involvement. Then they can see it isn't personal but that you just think it's unreasonable full stop, to be sacrificing your life for elderly parents.

Yes, OP's parents are not obliged to help OP with childcare but equally they can't expect OP to be their carer in their old age. I doubt they would expect it if OP was a man. (And I speak as someone who provides alot of care to my mum).

Anytime I have suggested getting more help for my grandparents so my parents don't have to do as much, my mum gets quite upset and gives me a lecture on how it is a child's duty to do these things for their parents and she fully expects me to do the same for her if and when she needs it.

OP, it does sound as if your parents are providing care to your GP out of a sense of duty. That's a fine motivation, but it does not mean that you have to do the same.

I would suggest trying to manage their expectations now; emphasis how much you admire their sacrifice and how you do not know if you could be so selfless - it may upset them, but perhaps better that than a rift when a crisis occurs in their own old age and you refuse to fulfil their expectations then?

I would also try and highlight to them the risk to your GP of being entirely dependent on your parents - a nasty dose of flu in one or both of your parents could leave your GP without care for days or even a week or more. Knowing what community services are available in the event that your parents are incapacitated even for a short period will be reassurance to all.

" Anytime I have suggested getting more help for my grandparents so my parents don't have to do as much, my mum gets quite upset and gives me a lecture on how it is a child's duty to do these things for their parents and she fully expects me to do the same for her if and when she needs it."
I'd be asking her WHY she thought that was the case - did her parents drill this 'duty' idea into her? And pointing out that you don't agree that it will be your duty to sacrifice your life to her the way she is sacrificing herself to your grandparents. But I'd be concentrating on why she thought she had to do this, where it came from. Age-wise she's between my generation and my parents, and I think both my parents and grandparents would have been horrified by this 'duty'.

My parents wrecked our lives as children by bringing our deeply unpleasant grandmother to live with us, in an overcrowded tiny house that already included my father’s elderly father. It involved me and my siblings taking it in turns to share a bed with my incontinent grandmother, my father sleeping on the sofa for months at a time, no privacy, huge stress for all concerned. All because my mother in particular felt people would ‘talk’ if she put her mother in a home, I am absollutely determined not to replicate that.

I am just a bit younger than your parents. First of all, running errands is not comparable to full time care of a person with complex health needs. My DM was looking after her Mil, whilst raising 5 DC. It was such a stressful time, and it nearly destroyed our family.
After that DM always said do not destroy your family, put me in a home.
I did look after mine, but I was much younger.
I have told mine to put me in a home.
They cannot dictate what you must do to support them

I don't want to give up my life in the way I've seen my parents do for their parents. Has anyone else's parents put them on a guilt trip like this and how do you respond?

My parents had to care for my grandmother in recent years - hospital, convalescence, finding a suitable care home, sorting ever-increasing support for her, until she passed.

Before doing so, my DM had always told me that she didn't expect her children to care for her, she would prefer "professional care". But the above experience has changed her opinion, she is now started to come out with the guilt-trip comments of expecting us (i.e.me as men don't do that kind of thing) to care for her personally.

I've already sent a warning shot across that idea by reminding her of what she used to say, and then naming various care homes close to where we live (but not too close!) that I think would be suitable should the time come.

Each to their own. I don't feel obligated but would do it because I want to.

My mum always said to me 'put me in a home' if I get to a point I can't manage.
Now she is at the point where she can't manage and begs me not to put her in a home. I am managing for now but don't know how much longer. I told her it was not fair to me as I have young children. She understood but don't know what the future holds.
Not much help but you are not alone x

Most people don't need to go in a care home and manage ok with a bit of help from friends and family. Just to get a bit of perspective.

My mum has always made comments about how she expects me to look after her when she's old and how she'd be devestated if I got carers/nurses for her. Thing is she's always been poorly and i had to do a lot of caring for my brothers and housework etc in my early teens and it was tough and I felt a lot of resentment as I missed out on quite a lot as a teen. Anyway she's better now but I keep having to respond saying i won't be her carer, I'm just not that kind of person. I'd do anything for my kids and to an extent my husband but that's it. I spent a lot of time feeling suffocated by her and I won't do it again

Iook at "caring for elderly parents" thread. Noone should be in that position.
Also you reap what you sow in helping parents and/or children, inmy opinion. Distance yourself from the expectations.

Your parents ABU. Duty or not, no one untrained person can take on the 24-hour care of someone who, er, needs 24 hour care. Can't be done.

For many people, understanding that is a huge relief - whether parent or child.

The worst thing is that people try, collapse, their own health goes, and the oldster ends up in care barely a year on.

As far as diseases go, dementia triggers the most lack of function a human can possibly have and remain alive. Not only do they fail to function on any level, but they generate dangerous behaviours, often for several years. End stage - bedbound with barely any of the five senses and no cognition - lasts three years.

This is a new problem for our generation - no one in history has had to cope with this level of nonfunctioning in people who stayed alive for so long.

One of the ways we are starting to cope with it is to acknowledge that family care is not enough.

So many people say ‘put mum in a home’ as if you are sentencing mum to prison. A) if someone has capacity they can’t be ‘put’ in a home - they can choose to stay in their own home, and be dependent on whatever care they can get. Personally I feel this becomes nothing more than enabled isolation for an awful lot of people. B). If someone loses capacity and memory then frankly they may well be safer, happier and better cared for in an appropriate home. Certainly end of life care for someone dying of dementia is not a job for amateurs. C). Have you seen how fantastic many care homes are nowadays - especially private ones but not just those - more like being on a cruise! Hot and cold running food and entertainment, lots of activity, trips out, action and companionship. I’ve got mine picked out and will be off there as soon as I reckon Ive got enough money to see my days out there.

My Mum has begged me not to put her in a nursing home and I've always agreed. However she is in very ill-health now and the reality is, if she gets much worse then it will definitely have to be considered. It is breaking my heart but we can't see any other option as each of her children has valid reasons for not being able to care for her.

However she has always helped all of us with childcare so it feels like I am returning the favour to her now doing as much for her as I can.

Make it clear to them that looking after them as they have looked after their parents is not what you will be doing, and let them get on with it.

I've told my mother that she'll be put in a care home (in Shetland, preferably) at the earliest opportunity. She laughed. I wasn't joking. (for context, she sent me to boarding school when I was 11 and kept my siblings at home. She has subsequently treated me very badly when I needed support).

However, there is a relative of my husband's who asked if he could live with us recently and if I'd had enough space then I would have said yes (we are already a bit overcrowded and his condition would have been badly affected). Because we have that kind of relationship and he has always been supportive of us.

Caring for an elderly and inform relative is hard, and it's unbearable if you don't start out doing it willingly. I think it's wise to manage expectations and make it clear what you will be prepared to do when the time comes. I don't think you have a duty to do what your parents have done, and sometimes providing the best care means making sure that skilled and compassionate professionals are doing the caring.

What GhostSauce said. Every time she makes a comment like that I'd respond with, 'We're all entitled to our opinions but no one is obligated to perform caring duties'. Or, in response to 'She also makes comments like she would never forgive me if I put her in a nursing home etc' you say, 'That's a pity but I guess that's between you and God'.

Purple -
C). Have you seen how fantastic many care homes are nowadays - especially private ones but not just those - more like being on a cruise! Hot and cold running food and entertainment, lots of activity, trips out, action and companionship

That's what they may look like from the outside, but I can assure you that even the most impressive private ones are no fun when you are in the state that requires a care/nursing home. Your fellow residents are, let's be polite, often not quite with it and likely to mistake your room and possessions for theirs. Laundry gets lost, food is still institution food and not what you'd cook yourself. Baths/showers have to run cold, there aren't enough carers, your neighbour's television will be on full blast day and night, fellow residents will wake you at night crying out or help, carers make noise at night.

I used to think it would be a place to find company, friendship and relaxation in your later life, but having seen it close up in recent years, it really isn't where most people would choose to end their days

I hope euthanasia is legal and easy to access by the time I need to think about care homes