My mother doesn’t want us to use my parents’ empty flat to keep ourselves safe during this epidemic. So, the background is as follows: I’m an only child and my son is her only grandchild. I’m a senior clinician in a small specialist inpatient unit and we have already had one confirmed COVID case in the hospital. I must continue to look after patients. My husband is in a high risk category with a probable 10% mortality if he catches COVID. My son is very young, has ADHD and is very exuberant, tactile and therefore a high infection transmission risk. We have no close family and I can’t imagine anyone wanting to look after our child with the risk to them of catching COVID if both of us fall ill. We live in the epicentre of the epidemic in the UK. My parents are safely self isolating in a European country with better medical resources and they will not return to the UK until this epidemic is well over. My mother is very concerned about their health and was sending me media updates regularly, well before we approached lockdown, so she is not in denial with regards to the risks, certainly not when it comes to her own well being. We started a major house renovation project two months ago and she made it clear we could not use their flat, which is within walking distance of our house, during the project and should find temporary accommodation. We have been perfectly comfortable at home and I was happy with my decision to stay in the house and felt no need to move out. There’s less space due to boxes, risk from scaffolding etc but whilst my son was out all day when the workmen were in the house and the risk of COVID was low, we were all fine. Now, the risk of cross infection with a young tactile child at home 24/7 is high. When I told her we needed to use her flat as my husband and son now needed to self isolate together, to keep us safe as a family, her immediate response was “my flat will be wrecked, it’s an invasion of my privacy and I don’t want anyone sleeping in my bed”. I was so shocked by her response I put the phone down on her. Over the years and from a young age I have supported my parents through their respective mental health problems, serious physical illnesses and even supported them financially, when I was in my 20s and now they would be considered wealthy by almost anyone’s standards. I know if the tables were turned, my mother would absolutely demand to use our property and consider it her right to do so. Yet her response was also to say “what are other families doing?” When I told her that in Italy clinicians and members of their families were dying, which she well knows as she’s glued to the news, she chose to ignore what I said rather than being glad she could offer support to keep us safe.
So I haven’t spoken to her for a week and she text me today to say that on no account should I allow my cleaner to go to her flat as she’s got a lot of expensive jewellery. Clearly she’s more interested in her possessions than she is about how we are all coping as a family and whether we even have enough food to eat! I’m physically and emotionally exhausted by everything I’ve had to cope with over the last fortnight.
Am I being unreasonable to think this is not how a loving mother should react to this scenario? Does anyone else out there have a mother like mine?? I need some perspective!