To think families are going to have to look after their own old people?

[ElderAve]

It's not a judgement, the idea fills me with dread but how else are we supposed to pay for it? In a world where:

• It's political suicide to suggest that people who have valuable homes, they are no longer living in should use that value to pay for care.
• Everyone should be paid a proper living wage.
• We have increasing numbers of people needing care.

For example, between DH and I we have 4 elderly parents, still very much fit and well, but realistically, that can't carry on forever. Those parents have 4 working offspring.

I don't know how many residents a care home worker can care for but let's say it's 12, which to provide 24hr care means 3 shifts, so the equivalent of 1 full person to care for our 4 parents. That means that the state needs to raise tax equivalent to 1 (living wage) salary from the four of us and that's before paying for schools, hospitals etc.

Obviously not everyone has elderly parents needing care but those will often be heavy users of the schools system and we still need to pay for all the other services.

I just can't see how the state can do it, if they keep promising not to take the elderly's homes, which is so emotive.

We were thatcher's children who moved away, but when my parents got older we moved back, with children it's the least you can do. I'm sure I impacted on their lives with shitty nappies and them raising me. It's just your turn to care for them.

You are hilarious! Move back? To places where there are no jobs besides zero hours, seasonal crap at best and rents and house prices are through the roof? And do what to live on? You leave your job and you don't even qualify for UC right away as you left voluntarily. Or if you spouse has a job they can't leave without losing pension or don't want to leave or kids in the same boat or you have a custody arrangement with an ex.

Sounds like another stupid, clueless Tory soundbite.

It's just your turn to care for them.

And what if you already have caring responsibilities? There seems to be a general assumption that people dealing with ailing parents are in late middle-age themselves, with their own children grown or at least teenagers. I was in my mid-30s when my dad was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and vascular dementia, and my children were preschoolers (one with SN). There’s no way I’d have been able to devote myself to caring for him AND them. It wouldn’t have been safe or satisfactory for anyone involved.

What does it even mean, that it's your turn ...
My parents didn't look after any of their parents. Three of them were selfless enough to drop down dead. One paid for their own care.
Boomers are a narcissistic lot. Not many of them will have done much for their own parents.

The shitty nappies comparison between children and adults with dementia is laughable - for most NT children this ends in the first few years of life and with the knowledge that at some point they will progress and be able to do it for themselves. Someone with dementia can live anywhere between 5 and 20 years and require this level of care, with none of the co-operative faculties one can cultivate and nurture in a toddler. Hats off to those whose children are sadly also in that position - I sincerely do not mean to be insensitive - and also I am aware that there are people in this position with both SEN children and their aging parents. It's grim all round.

The difference with raising children is that you choose to have them with a fair amount of foreknowledge of the enormity of the task at hand and speaking very generally a timeframe of milestones where your responsibility for their physical care needs reduces reasonably predictably. Aged parents with dementia are nothing like this and are also emotionally and cognitively disabled making communication extremely difficult and you can't very well put a distressed adult into time out or on the naughty steps. Please can we get away from this idea that care for aged parents with dementia is anything like paying in kind for them raising you - it is not, in my opinion and experience remotely comparable.

I just saw it as my turn, the whole family did. it wasn't easy starting again, moving schools and jobs, but I couldn't have lived with myself if I hadn't. but we'd been gone for 12 years, mortgage, house to sell, but we did it. No impossible about it, if you want to do it you do.
it was important to us, my parents mattered and 11/12 years after their death we are so glad we did.
We are in the same area as dh parents and will do the same for them.
If they have dementia we'll manage up to the point where they need other carers.
You do what you have to, duty comes first.
If you don't feel the same well that's fine we are all different, and some have good reason not to even want to provide care, such as those who were abused.

Same as mind project although my mum was a good patent , she had enough money to pay for it herself ! I'm not doing it!!

It's an uncomfortable truth that today's working population prioritises things other than top-notch elder care, given that we have the painful population correction to deal with. Those who have gone before us didn't have an urgent overpopulation crisis to deal with (or they ignored it) and their parents might have lived to 70 at a push.

No one should apologise for questioning the value of life post-dementia.

I think I will take up cocaine in my old age
it seems to work for Trump:o

2 years of living hell
as more and more stories like this emerge people will quietly make steps to ensure that they are not in the line of fire when their parents start becoming strange and overly demanding

The trouble is, with the best will in the world and even if you have good relationship with your parents it counts for very little when you are dealing with someone who has zero recognition of you or their environment but can make it quite clear that they are aware and confused and terrified by the situation they are in. It impacts every basic task - baths and dressing and meals can take hours because you are driven by their needs first and it is TERRIFYING. You can't fail to emotional about it on many levels - this is a precursor of ones own mortality, the thought of losing ones functions and autonomy is extremely scary and you are seeing it played out in real time while holding back the natural emotional response of fear in order to make the person you are caring for feel more secure and less distressed. I can recall hiding for half an hour shaking in the toilet after a three hour bath and dressing adventure with dear MIL feeling utterly helpless and out of control and knowing that I had to pull myself together for round two - dinner and bed. Care homes have more than one person around the clock to facilitate a relay system - we did not have that - it was me or bust. And it's different sort of responsibility to child care entirely. It has been suggested kindly that I over-think, well sue me for having a particular type of personality then - but one that was able to do it for 18 months fairly successfully and putting MIL first and foremost regardless of my feelings which I kept tightly under control.

But I couldn't do it again. With the best will in the world, I really couldn't.

Even teens and young adults need support from their parents, emotional not physical (assuming NT).

I can tell you all now that involving my young adult DDs in DM's decline was distressing for all of us. This wasnt about physical care, this was about them watching someone they adored turning into someone they didnt know.

I know, I have a ( male) colleague who announced proudly that his grandmother is frail, and is moving in with his parents and his mum is happy to care for her “ she enjoys looking after other people “ and “ life comes full circle “ . He’s of South Indian heritage. I smiled wanly, remembering my father’s 5 years of dementia and the hell of managing him which had me in counselling for 2 years. Even amongst south Asians increasingly the reality of long term .elderly care in the absence of cheap female labour, as girls get educated and have careers, is becoming apparent.

@yolofish

Yup, on one hand teens do have to learn that life has many twists and turns and some have more difficult ends than other but it is a very harsh lesson to learn up close and personal. Not quite the same but as my Mum has terminal cancer and my DS is 25 and technically an adult he is involved with loooking out for her - his choice as they are close - but I'm still on tenterhooks for his well-being. He also lived with us when MIL was there but obviously didn't have the same relationship with her - it still impacted him, also seeing the toll it took on me and my DH. It's so multi layered.

@whataboutbob

Just wanted to say I hear you and I hope you are doing as well as possible x

Oh the women who "enjoy looking after other people" - do they? Do they all, really? Or are they just living up to the expectations imposed by society and their families and masking their own needs to keep the peace and because they know full well the alternative and fallout from them gently refusing will be much worse and for more people than just soldiering on? I know which I think it is ....... I like being a human being who engages with reciprocally supportive and caring relationships. I don't like having to feel obligated and responsible for someone's complex needs because I am a woman and therefore magically more caring. We should by now have moved on from any application of gender stereotypes when it comes to caring for those in need. And I know there are some fabulous caring men who do as much as they can do, but there aren't nearly as many of them as there are women assuming society's default position.

Devlesko you can claim that "duty comes first" but the fact that inheritance comes first was strikingly obvious in your first post, you were practically rubbing your hands together and your determination that you would have provided care (never having actually done so) rather than loose the fat pay check you were entitled to wasn't even disguised, yet you were trying to claim moral righteousness for what you think you would have done to avoid anyone else getting your parents' money.

I used to know a lady with Downs syndrome who's parents, whom she lived with, died in quick succession when she was in her early 30s, leaving their very considerable estate equally between her and her brother. She was quite independent at that point and her brother helped her move into an assisted living facility, where he visited her once per month. She sadly started showing signs of dementia at 40. Her brother asked at his next visit whether he could put a do not resuscitate and no antibiotics on her file. She still had a fantastic quality of life at that point, was in the early stages. He could just see the last of her half of their parents' money draining away as she self funded and needed to move to a care home rather than just an assisted living facility only staffed in the evenings and at weekends.

@Devlesko God forbid the Government should take responsibility for their polices eh.

No impossible about it, if you want to do it you do.

Of course it's impossible for some people. People who are ill themselves, who have young children, children with special needs, or a spouse who is ill and needs care. People who can't find a job back in the area where their parents live, so can't move back there. And I'm sure there are many more examples too.

People can't physically be in two places at once. And saying that they could be if they were really determined to be is magical thinking.

No impossible about it, if you want to do it you do

lol this statement is so ignorant I hardly know where to start.

How does a person with young kids also look after elderly parents? How about if the parents moved a long way away from them (my friend's parents did this- moved 200 miles away then moaned she hardly ever went to see them), how about if theyre working shifts because its the only thing they can manage with school pick ups? what if they have health issues themselves, or are caring for a partner with health issues?
What if their parents were abusive? what if your parent has aggressive/challenging behaviour due to dementia and needs to be watched 24/7 all through the night and day? what if the parent lashes out physically?

But sure, its really not "impossible". The people above I refer to just need to try harder I guess I mean- who really needs sleep eh?

A friend a nurse, shot up and down the motorways 800 mile round trip on her days off. She had a stroke, then a further stroke, she is now in a home whilst demanding mother is still at home.

No worries impossible about it??
So the hoist that my father needed which required 2 people to operate is irrelevant? The fact that someone had to be alert 24 hours a day - particularly as he had night & day the wrong way round? And that's not to mention the double incontinence, the feeding, bathing & changing (for a start the hoist wouldn't fit in our bathroom). Oh, and the fact that we didn't have a spare bedroom, and had children doing GCSEs & A levels at the time who needed a life free of heating their dear grandad calling out loud moaning noises day & night.
This just makes me angry. I loved my dad, but the vision of a sweet old person just sitting in the corner and needing no specialist help is just ignorant.

@Mustbetimeforachange that is the vision of people who have never had to do one day of real elderly care. Ironically, it was my dad’s vision. He’d never even changed a baby’s nappy, let alone an adult’s. He ended up needing the hardcore care in his last years. No one prepared me for the reality of it.

Sometimes you have no choice but to accept your relative is safer in a care home. When I was a teenager my grandad had dementia, my Nan had a stroke and could barely look after herself, all three of their children were still working full time with their own families to look after. It was impossible to look after him, eventually he was a danger to himself, walking out the house and wandering the streets at 3am in winter in pyjamas confused, trying to cook things and forgetting about them almost burning the house down etc,.

He went into a home for the last few years of his life that was paid for by their savings and his half of the house they owned, my mum still got a decent inheritance (100k split between three kids) due to my nan’s half when she passed away shortly before he died, I believe the stress and pressure to look after him drove her to an early grave. I also believe if people have the funds to pay for their own care they should, they don’t need the money, inheritance is not a god given right, paying for your own care also gives you choice that non paying patients do not have. The first care home he was in was horrible so he moved to a much nicer one, the patients who don’t pay don’t have that choice and often end up stuck in really bad homes.

@whataboutbob yes my dad was the same. Had an idea that he might pay some kind of companion living with him to help him out. He needed the most care you could possibly imagine, poor man.

oldqueen so sorry about your mum.

Thank you yolofish xxx