Having children to take care of you in old age

[ThatsNotMyCherry]

I want to know how to articulate why this is is wrong.

In recent years as her kids have flown the nest my mum has started going on about this a lot. She’s always saying how parents do so much for their children when they’re young so it’s their children’s duty to do the same when they’re old. I think she believes that in every relationship you should get back as much as you put in. She’s been a housewife her whole life and in recent years does a fair bit of care for her own mother. She tells me about people she knows who are unwell but their kids are busy working and raising their own families. Obviously neglecting your parents when they’re old isn’t right but people have their own lives and are entitled to live them. I think part of the problem may be that she’s never had a life outside of caring. When I tell her I don’t expect this from my children and want them to have their own happy, fulfilled lives she says I will only understand when they grow up, leave and then need them.

I don’t think my mum would want us to do personal care like most people. For her own mother she doesn’t do it, but she does do cooking, laundry, shopping, appointments, admin, and visits her daily because she’s lonely. I think she would maybe want us to do the same. If I’m working full time (which is likely) I don’t see how daily visits will be possible. I would try to visit weekly and do whatever I can for her in that time.

I’ve tried to broach the subject of downsizing In the next few years with her and she doesn’t seem interested although she acknowledged that the house will be too large for them to maintain eventually.

I do wonder like a previous poster said whether there is some nativity in saying I will just pop off to dignitas or I don’t care if my kids move all the way over to the other side of the world and just Skype with me once in a while. I think it’s difficult to judge what will be possible, what the support available to you will be like and how you will feel when you’re old, unwell and alone.

What you're starting to see is that this younger generation isn't young. All this expectation on people who are in their late 50s and 60s and often still working FT, unable to downsize or have elderly move in with them as the rents are so high their adult children are still living at home.

This entire expectation is completely reliant on cheap or unpaid labour (usually almost entirely done by women) and cheap cost of living to enable to that unpaid caring and also hire cheap ad hoc domestic help. All this twaddle about 'in other cultures the family (women) look after the elderly' well, we don't live in a place where you can buy a 4-bed house for £50k and hire a live-out maid for £100/month so how does all that supposed to work here?

Of course, Priti Patel has a plan! The retired, disabled, students and people who already have caring responsibilities are going to step to it.

Carer's allowance, mentioned by a PP upthread, is not available unless you earn under (I think) £100 a week.

If you're earning £100 a week you are hardly rolling in it.

The best words I can ever suggest someone uses if their old person is in hospital and wants to come home "because the DC will look after me" are UNSAFE DISCHARGE.

This is the only way to get SS to step in and do what they should, and you have to be really hard-nosed and say that actually you cant visit 3 times a day for breakfast lunch and dinner, and that you work full time and have small children.

The parent may not like it, but BTDTGTS. It is not sustainable.

think children should be expected to help care for their parents as they get older . If we don’t , who will ? Do children who won’t look after their elderly want the tax payers to fund social care for their parents

That's ok if you had nice parents. Neither I nor my sister would have cared for our mother as she was horrible to us both. We can't even bring ourselves to call her mum as that sounds too nice.

My OH always said that neither of his parents would go into a home. However, none of the siblings live anywhere nearby, don't have big enough houses to accommodate them and will be working until they are at least 67, so there probably wouldn't be any alternative.

DM is in her 80s and has had a tough month in hospital and recovering at DB/ SiL's home which is local to her. They have busy lives and a young child. Fortunately there is some flexibility with work, but that runs thin quickly.

I'm about an hour away. SAHM due to DS having SNs and struglling with childcare settings. Add in 2 hours of travel plus contingency and that's over 33% of the school day wiped out. I support in school running interventions a few days a week because otherwise there is no support for DS and his peers with that specific difficulty. DM doesn't do anything with mornings, they're focused on mobilising her arthritis in a long bath, so that means very little useful time is avaliable before I'd have to turn around to make sure I'm safely back to care for my own DCs.
I can't afford the premium prices of DM's home town, DH would have to travel for his specialised job instead of being local. I'd have to pull the DCs out of a school that they are thriving in- no small deal in the face of ASD for DS1.

An interesting point was raised about preparing for old age. MIL is in her mid 80s and needs a little input, but fortunately has always lived in a bungalow. A few relatively minor adaptions mean it is relatively easy for her to continue self caring.
DM knew from experience with her own DM that a large, old (listed), multi-storey house was far from ideal for advanced old age, but never took action. She never dealt with the hoard in the years when she was able to, and it's not something that can be dealt with without her consent. She's had a bit of a wake-up call recently, but is in a very tricky position where a full scale clear out is necessary to be able to move to somewhere appropriate for someone with compromised mobility; a hoarder's worst fear as she will have to relinquish control of decades of possessions to family to handle and dispose of. Structurally the house would be very difficult to adapt.

Based on her DM, she could have another decade like this. My priority has to be daily care of my DCs. DM has to fit around what is left to spare.

My mother used to say this to me throughout my childhood. I ran like the wind at 18yo. Recently I've come across the idea of the parentified child and it feels very close to home. I am determined not to do the same to my own children.
I do see that people with more functional mother/ daughter relationships see this issue very differently.

It's an inconvenient truth, but people weren't meant to live so long and expect to enjoy good health. For every anecdote about 90-somethings who sail round the world and run marathons there are legions more requiring full time care

This is a very, very good point. Whilst we all want a long life, the chances of being in our 90s and still being independent and healthy are pretty damn slim. Yes, it happens, but more often than not people in that age group have a multitude of health problems and are often in care homes.

It makes you wonder if the goal of living until age 100 is actually a good one. Obviously, noone wants to die prematurely, but there does come a point where quality of life suffers so much that it makes you wonder whom old age at any cost actually benefits...

Through my work I see a lot of Asian families who care for their elderly at home. It looks horrendous. It is always the poor DIL who has to deal with the demanding/incontinent PIL 24/7. Often when you get them talking, they will tell you that the MIL was horrible to them when they were more able too.
Cultures where this is the expectation are Very Bad News for women.

This is the only way to get SS to step in and do what they should, and you have to be really hard-nosed and say that actually you cant visit 3 times a day for breakfast lunch and dinner, and that you work full time and have small children

You can say that but if the old person in question has more than £23.5k, social services will politely tell you to fuck off and sort it out yourself. Been there.

I think the ability of modern medicine to keep people alive and well for longer has also partially created this problem. Of course there were frail and disabled people who needed family care in the past but they didn’t have the same life expectancy and there wasn’t the same volume of 80+ year old people incapable of being fully independent.
We are, naturally, so afraid of dying that we vaccinate elderly people from the flu, treat their infections with antibiotics and prescribe medications to prevent heart attacks and strokes. It gives some people a longer, healthier life but the trade off is that lots of people live long enough to need a lot of care.

I chose to have my children and I would never demand anything back from them in 'payment'. Perhaps if I raise them right and I earn their trust and respect then they might want to help me if I struggle in later life but it will never be demanded

Some of you who are mothers, sound like great people. That you woukd be happy for your children to go abroad.

My single mother cried for three weeks hysterically, the first time that I to another country for a summer with my boyfriend. She ruined the whole experience for me.

I have been livig abroad temporarily, and anytime that I visit her, I get the "I don't visit her enough, I don't contact her enough, she did alot for me, I should be looking after her, her friend sees her daughter every day, when am I moving home, I am a bad daughter etc"

I have just been granted a permanent visa for a country far away, and I am back in my home country picking up a few bits. I won't tell my mother until the very last minute that I am moving as it will be waterworks, how could I leave her, I am being a terrible daughter by leaving. I am mid thirties! She would never consider once that I should have my own life.

She is selfish to the hilt. I love, love, love seeing the mothers on here saying that they would be happy if their children live abroad.

Call me old fashioned, but I think families should look out for one another.

One of my children lives abroad, angell. Of course it's with my blessing, his standard of living is far, far better than it can be here, there's more social mobility, better quality and cheaper housing, more job opportunities for him and he's happy. I didn't have kids to make demands on them. I had them because I wanted to. They don't owe me a thing and I hope they live their best lives and are true to themselves. Tbh, I see the UK as a place in decline, I might be able to follow one of them one day .

Call me old fashioned, but I think families should look out for one another.

I don't think that's old-fashioned, I think it's woefully out-dated and in increasing numbers of families, entirely unworkable when it comes to social and physical care of elderly relatives.

I wouldn’t behave like your mum angell but I cried quite a lot in private when my son contemplated moving to Australia. I suspect most mums do.

I cried that this place has gone so far down the swanny in so many ways it really was the best move for my child. I felt like a failure but hey, we did the best we could? I can't say I blame him.

As soon as I'm old enough to feel a burden I will take my own life.

My own mother says the same.

This is after her taking 10 years of her life looking after her own bed bound mother. Watching her decline was soul destroying.

I won't put my kids through that.

Call me old fashioned, but I think families should look out for one another.

Which is a great idea in principal, but not in real life.

I've always told my son it's not his job to look after me in my old age and my love for him comes with no obligations.

As soon as I'm old enough to feel a burden I will take my own life.

I've long considered this, my life has had a great deal of tragedy and hardship in it. But because everyone's so afraid of death here, it's hard to actually find a method that's guaranteed without a huge mess. I'm thinking Mexico or Thailand and some pentobarbital - cheaper than Dignitas, and you could always combine it with heroin or fentanyl and make it look like an accidental drug overdose.

@Iggypoppie my mum cared for my grandmother as my aunt, her main career, was in hospital and then off sick for over three months.

My grandmother had several strokes, was complete bedridden, nearly unable to speak. For these three months, despite a career coming twice to help my mum with personal hygiene, it was such an impact on our family life that my mum immediate told my sister and me we would never be in this position, she would go into a carehime.

And my mum was working, I was already 8 and my sister a teen. But I still remember these months very vividly and how exhausted my mum was.

Today most parents work, how do you think people make up loss of income when someone is suddenly a full time career? Obviously the odd help with organising a shopping or taking someone to an appointment or helping with paperwork is one thing and I doubt anyone with normal family relation would not do this. But caring is very different.

Which is a great idea in principal, but not in real life

Some of us make it work in real life.

Some of us make it work in real life.

Good for you. It's still not possible for everyone else to do the same!

Of course it isn’t but it does happen.