To try to persuade my mum not nurse her mother at home

[Somethingsosimple]

My grandmother is in her late 90’s and has been unwell in hospital. Before being admitted she was living independently with a lot of contact and help from my mum. She can now be discharged but is much more frail and is now unable to control her bowels. The nurse said that this may improve. My mum has agreed to have her come to stay with her until can get stronger. I’m concerned that if she doesn’t improve she will not go home and will end up living with my mum. I think this is too much for mum to cope with. My grandmother is a wonderful lady but she has become very bossy in her old age and thinks of my mum as her little girl. Aibu?

It will be incredibly tough for your mum. To help her you need to support her abs find everything you can in order for her to get help and support. My mum cared for my grandad in his home at end of life. She is a nurse and specialises in palliative care and she found it incredibly hard as the emotional impact is different to caring for the general public if you see what I mean. If your grandmother can’t get out of bed you will need carers coming in to do bed lifts to be able to change bedding and toileting. Just getting out of bed for toilet could be hard and need two people to be safe. It depends how Poorly your grandmother is I suppose.

I know how much it hurt my mother everyday to see my grandad passing slowly away. However and this is a big however my mum insists that if she had her Time again she would do it again. She saw it as the last gift she could give to him to make him as happy and comfortable in his own home as much as he could be. Also the biggest factor for her was allowing my grandparents to still live together as my Nan is still alive and they had not been separated for 65 years!!

Depending on how poorly your grandmother is the hospital May push for her to go to a home but if your mother truly wants to care for her you can fight it and have care at home.

Both her brothers can eff off with their opinion on the matter frankly unless they're going to step up and do their fair share. This ALWAYS happens to daughters with brothers. Happened to my mum. The men do bugger all but bitch from the sidelines about how the daughters manage things. It's masked as concern but ime it's all about wanting 'their inheritance' unimpeded by care home fees.

My mum has agreed

This is not the same as my mum wants. Can you sit her down, away from family and ask her honestly what she wants and feels able to do and that you will support her (including standing up to her brothers, who presumably don't want to be doing personal hygiene care for their mum) in whatever she decides to do.

You do need to point out that she would have more quality time caring for her mum if her mum is somewhere nearby where she can visit daily but the physical work is done by professionals.

An idea. You say she was living independently. So if care was in place, she could potentially go home. Get your mum to draw up a rota e.g.
900-2100 Mum
2100-0900 Brother 1
0900 - 2100 Brother 2
2100 - 0900 Mum
etc and present it to her brothers as the way to keep DGM safe at home.

It's easier to look after someone when you live with them, rather than going backwards and forwards. I know this from experience.

OP, if your mum wants to do this nothing will stop her. For my generation and certainly my mother's, it's entirely normal to care for elderly relatives at home. It was an incredibly tough decision for me to give up and arrange a care home for my parents when they were 96 and 99. An awful lot of caring happened before we reached that point.

It's hard work, it's stressful but it's also very rewarding especially if you want to do it and lots of people do and regard a care home as failure. The comfort it gave me when my parents died that I'd done everything humanly possible is immeasurable.

I do accept that my and OP's mum's generation is probably the last who will want to do this but we were brought up expecting to do it, many of us having watched our mum's care for our grandparents.

I think it is fair and helpful to encourage your mum to talk and think about the parameters around the care she feels able to give her mum.
Also to talk about whether this is something she wants to do, and feels is the best thing for her mum, or whether she is being guilted and pressured into it.
Do her brothers live close by? What is the working situation of all the siblings?
Perhaps grandma would prefer to be in her own home, many, many older people prefer this, and a rota of visiting paid carers and her children could work. Those working could cover on their non-working days.
If your mum brings grandma home, she will be her 24/7 carer. It’s a lot, physically and mentally exhausting. Her siblings need to chip in either financially or physically themselves, unless grandma can find her own care.
Your mum needs to turn the question around and ask her brothers what they are going to do about “Mum”

Yes, what are the brothers going to do to help?
One day each during the week to give your mum a break?
Finance a cleaner for your mum?
What about when your mum wants to go on holiday?
What happens if your mum is ill?

What are the brothers going to do?
Is there a way there could be a rota of, say, 2 months per family member.
Does you mother have a partner, do your brothers have partners. 1 person, working 24/7 x 7 days can't do it. They, themselves will become ill.

Help her say no, if she wants to say no.

My mil was 1 of 4 siblings. Her mother moved in with her but after a while it became too much (dementia). My mil got quite a lot of grief from her sister and brothers for daring to put their mum in a home. Yet they weren't prepared to look after her.