are my now very elderly parents who are in poor health and I have been to help because it just isn't possible not to.
see i just really don't agree with this position at all.
i'm in a similar position - in fact this thread has reminded me of something said to me well over two decades ago by an estranged relative who died a few years ago, in frail health herself, and who didn't have much family/friend support due to the lack of care for others. not a parent, but a close family member.
she said "you've made your bed, you can lie in it", matter of factly.
this was in an emergency situation where i asked for a lift (which I'd never, ever, ever done before) to visit my partner in hospital after a workplace accident - he'd been taken to the nearest hospital to work (a city many miles away, and i don't drive). the buses had stopped running for the night, and I simply couldn't afford a taxi- i literally didn't have enough cash to cover the high taxi fare then get back home. it was in the era before mobiles were everywhere so i didn't even know how injured her was.
and she - a SAHM of kids who'd grown the nest - had no sympathy. she was so callous.
and she told me that night "i've made my bed" (living with a man in sin, despite the fact that we were committed, not having sex, and are still together 20+ years later!).
so she wouldn't drive me.
that's the only time i ever asked for practical help from her, ever, in my life, because i knew my sibling was her favourite.
and then she became frail and i chose, despite feeling guilty, to take no active role in her care when she developed physical and mental health deterioration.
just because someone's old doesn't make them a nice person.
you owe them nothing.
and i don't regret my choice to not care for her in later years; i feel it's too easy for women to get guilted into family care, even if it's undeserving.