Where are the men caring for elderly relatives

[FattyIDingAsThinny]

Almost daily there are threads started by wonderful daughters who go above and beyond to care for their elderly parents and are exhausted. They're not sure what to do for the best, parents don't want outside help, but the daughters are at breaking point.

I'm not one btw but a dear friend has been in exactly the same situation.

I'm guessing that forums populated mainly by men don't have these quandaries?

AIBU to think that if all these Mumsnetters are taking care of elderly relatives, then the DPs of all these mumsnetters (assuming they are in relationship and with a man) are also the sons not taking care of their own parents?

What makes it ok for this to fall to - primarily - women?

I come across a lot of carers in my job and yes a lot of them are men caring for elderly parents or partners. with middle aged couples it often does fall to the women because they are often the ones doing part time work or not working. I expect this will change in the future as more women nowadays work full time.

My uncle does the vast majority of the caring for my grandmother. I wouldn't say it necessarily falls to the woman. I think it's worth considering that far more women don't work or work part time and so have the availability and flexibility to care for elderly relatives. Equally, more women go into care based professions and so have greater expertise in that area.

I'm seeing a guy (early days) who is caring for his mum - his sisters live quite a way away, so he's doing the weekly shop and twice weekly facetimes with his mum and his kids. He's doing that along with working full time, and home schooling his kids, which he has 50/50.

One of the chaps I work for moved down to Devon at the start of lockdown to help look after his elderly mum. She has breast Ca. And two weeks ago she was diagnosed with brain secondaries. He is holding down a senior job and holding a sick bowl when she needs it. He works around her appointments and his team work with and around him to support him.

My h cares for his elderly father who has alzheimers, I have nothing at all to do with his father's care, just the fun and social side of things (when they were happening). My parents are dead, but any caring that needed doing was done solely by me. I also cared for my terminally ill brother. I really hope I never have to do any caring again, so I hope my other half stays healthy.

My DH does. There are a lot of them out there

I am on only child, so it will fall to me. We are also lucky in the MIL is in good health at the moment. However, I think a lot of men do step up to do the caring of elderly relatives, perhaps they just post about it less!

My husband looks after his mother - shopping, visiting, mending things, numerous hospital appointments in normal times. My uncle looked after my grandmother although that was a long time ago. The brother of a friend of my daughter looks after their mother.

My Brother is the full time carer for both our parents, they both have dementia but don't want to go in a home yet, the rest of us (siblings) try to support him because none of us could do it.

I am always shocked at all the women who rush out to claim NAMALT.
Yes, there are some wonderful men performing these duties. But statistically it is women. One poster said because they tend to work part time or not at all, so they can.
But why do women tend to work part time or not at all? Lack of support, childcare costs, chores, sleep, caring roles.

Just look at the lockdown figures. Women wfh doing 70% of chores and childcare, men doing 30% and claiming they're doing more than half.

It is biased towards women, and things won't change until people stop defending it, yes your neighbours best friends cousin might be a working from home dad with full custody who cares for his elderly infirm parents and never needs any help, but that does not mean the bias towards women doesn't exist,

My uncle looks after his Mum and my stepdad looked after his nan. I reckon it's likely women currently do more of the care due to part time working or staying at home whilst kids are young, but this may change as more women work going forward as pp's have said.

My husband cares for his elderly father.

He’s just not on Mumsnet.

@wowbutter I was just answering the question. In my experience it's usually it's the person who doesn't work full time/ lives nearer/ isn't caring for their own children.

I worked full time but lived much nearer to my parents than my sister so I ended up doing most of it. We didn't have a brother.

In the past it would have fallen to women because fewer worked outside the home but there is no reason for this to continue now. Which is presumably the point of the thread.

My other half and his twin brother are both carers for their elderly and Ill parents. My other half lives with me part time (before Covid) and with them part time and his twin looks after them for the other half of the time. They both have good full time jobs and work hard to balance all the family needs

My pap cared for his mother. But then his son ended up being a lazy fucking loser... Still is... So his daughter (my aunt who became my mom) and I cared for him. (I didn't even live in the same house...but my uncle did... Yet I was stopping up every morning before work (because my mom went to work way earlier than me... And before my pap got up) with my young son to help him get ready for the day. I didn't mind doing it... But still think it's pathetic that his own son who was RIGHT THERE couldn't be arsed, as you guys say!

I think it's true that often men don't step up and do the caring.

I also think it's true that sometimes they are willing to do the caring but for one reason or another the parent feels more comfortable with their daughters doing intimate care.

My brother is willing to help but my elderly mother has long standing incontinence problems related to multiple traumatic births and those births occuring in an era when it was just brushed aside. She finds it humiliating but knows that as women and mothers ourselves, my sisters and I understand how it came to this.

When my father was dying we had to do all manner of intimate care and he didn't want my brother doing it either because I suppose it was some deep seated feelings of being emasculated by his frailty or whatever.

My parents BOTH look after my grandmother. They both do her shopping, dad fixes things in her house, he puts her shopping away, helped her out of the house and in and out of the car before she was housebound. Mum does all the banking and phonecalls regarding her utility bills, medical needs, appointments etc. Up until March they visited her together, regularly. She has carers 4 x a day and it would be too risky for my parents to be visiting on top of this because if she got covid-19 she would not survive. So they've not seen her since march but when they are able to, they both do everything for her. My DH also does a lot for her in the way of fixing things, technical help etc and helping her move from a to B in the house.

My dad cared for his parents and my mum’s brother (my uncle) cared for his mum

My FIL looks after his mother in her late 90s. He’s always there, taking her shopping, gardening. Everyday.

She’s still able to look after herself though, so no washing/dressing/cooking. I can’t imagine he would do any of that as he’s a misogynistic tosser who would regard it as woman’s work.

She would end up in a home at that point though as she’s a horrible old cow and MIL has nothing to do with her so wouldn’t do it.

DH does plenty for his parents. They're not at the stage of needing any real care but he still pops in on them several times a week and sees if they need anything from the shops etc.

However, women more commonly work part-time or stay at home, so it will natural fall to them as they have more time.

Of course there are men doing this but the facts are that it mostly seems to fall to women, this is often true regardless if they are working or not.

That said women do have a choice, too often I think women just end up being the default person leading it and taking on the load. Many men are very good at standing back, look at all the lockdown threads where men aren't doing their share with children etc. Saying that women are the ones who often work part time or don't work so it falls to them means that it will be very very slow to change, we see the same argument with women losing ground when they go on maternity leave and then seem to be always the default person to do everything because they earn less. Women have to make the change, earning less should not mean you have to do more caring neither should not working or working part time. I have a brother, I won't be taking on full caring of may parents if it comes to that, I will assume he is doing his share, if he doesn't it does not mean it falls to me.

It's 60% of carers that are women. It's probably higher, but that's the official figure. When I did home care plans, we were always propped up by female neighbours of the client. It's the likes of them that won't be counted in the official figures. It was always female parishioners who'd organise the lifts for Church, grave visits etc.

All social changes were brought about by women. It wasn't just because they had time, they were, passionate about caring.

I'd say that Women often end up working part time because they can't fit everything in that's still expected.

My dad did, my DH does but other than that I don't see it as much as women caring for elderly parents. My dad was quite disappointed last year that my brother, the spoilt golden favourite, did not help or visit in any such way when he was very, very ill for 6 months. I wasn't surprised at all, funny that.

Disclaimer: I actually like my brother very much, but he is a spoilt and useless man, made so by his upbringing (we were treated very differently).

and whilst women continue to be the drivers of this and doing it all for free, they will be continue to be taking advantage of. Perhaps if women just stopped for a short time then society and the government would see the amount of unpaid work that this done.

My dad, uncle, FIL and now his son have all taken on caring roles. My ex was main cared for his gran and he had 2 sisters locally.

Lots of men do when it comes to elderly relatives, as do lots of women.

Childcare is a bigger issue