Supporting elderly parents who were insistent on 'enjoying retirement'

[Keeg]

NC in case I get slaughtered...

When my kids were young we could have really done with GP help, but there were very much (as is most of mumsnet!) of the school off thinking ‘we’re done raising kids’. I coped, I raised children and I knew it was my responsibility... but I’ll admit I had some
Unvoiced resentment. DH and I had similar jobs to them, but a higher level, but we never had been able to access the housing etc they had due to the much higher childcare and housing costs. They’ve lived nearby in great affluence whilst their grandchildren were wearing second hand, a bit overcrowded etc. Obviously not their problem, but on the flip side they had great capacity to help and didn’t chose to exercise it. They probably spent 6k-12k on holidays a year, whereas 1k for us would have meant for example being able to run a car.

They didn’t offer childcare bar very very occasional inconvenient seeings, for example 1-2pm on Saturday, wanting them dropped off and at a time of day with heavy traffic (turning an 8min drive into a 40min) and meaning there was no time to do anything else. I remember an occasion my son had a last minute amazing opportunity and they couldn’t help by watching his sister (I later found out it was because she wanted to go and see a film at the cinema, 15 min walk away and on for months multiple times a day). They retired pre 60 with big lump sums and pensions, very active and able. No issue with health.

I left them to it, never commented, it’s their life. But I’ll admit I was underneath jealous of every friend who seemed to have GP helping. BUT they are now older, they are needing support and I’m not feeling at all warm in rearranging my life to give it. For example dad can’t drive right now, temporary due to an OP, and he wants hospital lifts. I feel like saying ‘get a cab’ because of all the times I wished for help. It’s hugely local, and I being petty? Or have others felt like this. In the long run, although I get on with them, I don’t feel like every offering to let them move in. They didn’t help their parents (who did offer childcare). I guess I feel a bit heartless but a bit ‘you made your bed, now lie in it’. Being nice I think, we’ll they obviously raised me as a child, but then on the other hand I think their expectations were that links stopped at 18. I don’t dislike them, but I don’t feel hugely bonded to them either and more like people not related that get on

I realise that lots of parents are genuinely happy to have their adult children still living with them, this is entirely reasonable, we all know that housing costs make it difficult to afford a decent lifestyle for many young people.

This state of affairs is framed as the parents making a sacrifice for their adult children, but there are upsides for the parents too, they must be aware consciously or unconsciously that their adult children are potentially positioned as live in carers, and that their adult children will feel a greater than average sense of obligation to repay the favour that has been extended to them.

You have children you bring them up but you keep them closely by your side so that as you age you can consume their life force

Japonica, just saying no, or feign illness, anything, let them pay for their own help

OP, it is like you are describing my parents to a tee!
No judgement from me.

I even had to give birth alone because they wouldn't even look after one of my children for a couple of hours (during the day, when they were at home doing nothing). I understand that lots of people have to give birth alone, but they were in a position to help and chose not to.

I'm at the stage now where they are constantly asking me to do things for them and so far I've been doing it, because I don't have it in me to ever not help them....but I resent it so much and I'm seething.

YANBU

I even had to give birth alone because they wouldn't even look after one of my children for a couple of hours (during the day, when they were at home doing nothing

@DharmaInitiativeLady

This is absolutely appalling. Poor you. Stop doing things for them, they treated you disgustingly imo. I'm totally appreciative of grandparents who don't want to commit to full time childcare but not to help you in this situation is unforgivable.

And make sure you tell them why you're not helping them..."remember the time I was in Labour...."

That's really awful dhama

Please step back and stop doing it.

it's really hard psychologically to be in this position where you are forced to help people who chose not to help you when you were in need
I'm not saying we should necessarily abandon out parents I'm just saying this is a really difficult and damaging situation for everyone
There must be a better way to organise things, a way that is kinder to everyone

It seems to me that unconditional loyalty to one's parents was much more of a 'thing' in the previous generation, it didn't occur to them that if they treated their children badly their children might break their conditioning and overthrow their feelings of loyalty
I think this is a factor which contributes to the increase in parent-child estrangement, lots of parents instinctively felt that whatever they did their children would always and forever bow down to them

I'm not saying that respect for the elders is a bad thing but we should not give people unconditional licence to treat people as they please, power corrupts and all that....

Would you want your children to help you when you are old and infirm?

No.

This is not a quid pro quo, “I did for you in your childhood so now you have to do for me when I’m in my second childhood” kind of thing. I don’t want to encroach on my adult children’s lives when they have children, spouses, jobs, mortgages, bills, retirement and other stresses to worry about. If they're married, would I become the responsibility of my daughters-in-law? Umm, no thank you.

I work and save and am keeping healthy so that I don’t become a burden to my sons and their families. And when the time comes that I need care, I want an outside caregiver to do all the dirty work, thanks. I will only ask that my sons and their families visit once in a while. And please bring chocolate.

They sounds like my parents, who did a bit more but very grudgingly, and then just stopped. I wouldn't help such selfish people out personally, I would keep a supervisory eye on the standard of the care they had bought in for themselves, if they were very frail and elderly, but that would be it.

lots of parents instinctively felt that whatever they did their children would always and forever bow down to them
My mother felt like she could speak to us in any way she pleased and we should just take it from her because she was owed respect, I suppose I didn't say anything because I was worried she'd die.
She blasted me last year and I finally said I'd prefer if she didn't speak to me like that - her response was awful, she mocked and laughed at me for asking to be spoken to with more respect, then she shouted and finally used pity about all the awful things she'd been through and how I was so ungrateful that she'd done so much for me and this was the thanks she got - I didn't waver I just kept saying that I did not wish to be spoken to in a disrespectful way. I let her be for a few weeks before I picked up the phone to her - I don't care what age she is anymore or how close she is to death, I will not feel guilty about expecting her to behave herself when she speaks to me - I am a punchbag no more.

Chapter and Verse on the hardships in your life with Zero gratitude for the good stuff combined with anger and resentment that anyone might think young families have it hard today

Except the poster is not saying that young families don't have it hard today, nor are they showing zero gratitude. They are arguing against the idea that life was a bed of roses for an entire generation.

There are very different pressure points now compared to the 1950s. Then, the first world was still much closer to a peasant subsistence economy, and the Victorian era even more so. The uptick in technology that brings us all here to rant about unfairnesses is a privilege in itself. Once there was no old age pension, and when it was introduced, most people only collected it for a couple of years after a life of backbreaking labour from 12, or 14 or 15. Before 1947, if you needed a doctor, you paid. Or drugs, the same, and there were fewer for almost any condition one can think of. Education wasn't always free or universal, and still isn't in most of the developing world. But now we have technology, and smartphones and everyone from everywhere knows what the good life looks like, and thinks they should share it. And inter-generational give and take has suffered. If you were an 'ordinary' woman in the 50s, you stopped working when you had children, so you looked after them, and thereafter your parents and parents-in-law but now everyone is expected to have an exciting fulfilling career, and relationships have been crowded out.

BTW, I don't think life was better then.........

Before 1947, if you needed a doctor, you paid
Only the middle classes paid really. There was more free healthcare than we think pre NHS.

If you want to compare lives it makes no sense to just talk about childhood.
How easy was it to get a job/ buy a house? That's far more important than an outside toilet.

(Although I love an outside toilet. They are what toilets should be.)

Most working class people of my generation have been working full time since 16.

@BackInTimeForBeer your mother sounds like a real operator, well done for calling her out. As a very rough generalisation, I think previous generations had little psychological insight and less awareness of children’s emotional and psychological needs, basically kids came along for the ride but their particular ended weren’t often thought about much. I wonder whether your mother was raised that way and learnt manipulative ways of getting her needs met.

“ their particular needs”

Okay, that's lovely. It's not 1947 now.

@whataboutbob my mother was raised by a canny business woman who didn't enjoy parenting and did very little of it - her father was her hero but she tells me that she was always envious of my dad - his mum was always involved and interested - it didn't change my mum but I am happy to report that as far as I know all my siblings are loving parents - my mum did not have the emotional capacity or warmth but she is very deluded in this respect.
She's twisted and angry but I also get the sense that she is damaged and scarred...I believe not just from her upbringing but from what she says about boarding school. To the outside world she is amazing.

All the posters targeting baby boomers are forgetting their was no such thing as having your rent paid by housing benefit, or the interest on your mortgage paid if you could not work. No income support, tax credits or other benefits and no help with disabled children. No PIP payments or mobility cars.

Until the mid 70s women could not get a mortgage on a home without a man. You really have no idea.

If you were an 'ordinary' woman in the 50s, you stopped working when you had children

This is a myth, many working class women had to work. My grandmother did. My mum is more the baby boomer generation. These are women having kids in the 70s and 80s. Washing machines, indoor bathrooms with hot water, vacuum cleaners, cars, fridges, irons, ready meals/frozen foods. These women’s lives weren’t that different to mums today. Compared to my poor grandmother with seven kids born in the 40s/50s with a tin bath, outside loo and a mangle.

And both sets of grandparents had us overnight to give my parents time off. Although my parents would help if not for geography. My in-laws on the other hand were far more selfish but had far more privileged upbringings. My husband put it down to them being middle class, making them more reserved and less loving/giving. MiL is now very poorly but I’m NC and DH is not much help. I feel he should spend time with them and make sure they are ok, but ultimately they have a huge amount of cash and need to pay for professional help.

In the end, the OP has posted payback reasons for not supporting her parents. They sound loaded so can cope. I still think she owes them an explanation for stepping back, though.

For all those who say they would step up and support as a natural thing, what would you think when your children don't support you, as is evident from the OP's OP that her parents didn't support theirs. Would you cut them off? Say meh?