My brother rang me to ask me when l am going to move back home?!

[WhatKatyDidNxt]

My mum had an accident earlier today, she tripped at home and split her head open. She went to hospital and got some stitches. Now back at home and went to bed early. One of her closest friends is staying with her temporarily, she collected her and is keeping at eyes on her tonight. Friend will be moving out early next year, this has always been the plan. Her friend got an excellent offer for her house and in a tricky market didn’t want to delay so is staying with my mum as a stop gap.

My brother rang me this evening which naively l thought was a phew / joint reassurance type call. But no. He asked in a fairly direct way when l was moving back to our home town to support our mum. I was like errr never?! I live about 300 miles away, have a full time permanent job, as does my partner and we own a property here. My partner is from here and neither of us wish to move -apart from to a bigger property in the vicinity. I made this clear and asked my brother what his plans were about moving back? He said it’s not really possible or a “good time”, brother seemed aggrieved by me saying no and then me questioning him (but surely you can’t expect this to only be a 1 way street?!).

Not that l think my mum needs any further support for clarity. It was an accident and these things happen. I’m blown away by my brothers question and the double standard when l dared ask the same question of him! There is no drip feed of physical illness, dementia etc. If it hadn’t been for the pandemic then my mum would have gone on holiday 3-4 times this year, been out and about throughout. Like the rest of us then she’s annoyed her plans have been cancelled or postponed.

My brother is the golden child and lm the scapegoat. He lives abroad and has done for years, used to be appalling about keeping in touch with any of us e.g. drop off the radar for weeks or a month at a time. He has got slightly better in the last year or so, since then has taken it upon himself to “instruct” me about how to interact with our mother. It’s super odd, back in the summer l got a random text one day saying “be nice to mum” I find his suggestions laughable and l make this clear to him.

I’m not putting this in elderly parents as she isn’t elderly. Well, late 60’s wasn’t the last time l checked anyway! My dad isn’t on the scene; they divorced a long time ago and he died about 5 years ago.

Ponoka

Living in Aus is an extreme example. One of my siblings lives 10 mins from my Dad who needs some help, I live 300 miles away and my other sibling lives in Europe.

I do the stuff like calling up doctors, online research to get him things, walk him through his food deliveries etc. My nearby sibling gives him company. My overseas brother buys him things he needs to make his life easier e.g. pays for his Sky, bought him a phone, iPad.

We all contribute to improving his quality of life. We've divided it up into what we have the resources to do. It's not dumped on one person.

@AcrossthePond55 and @5zeds yeah it is a bit WhatKatyDidNxt has breasts so she can sort it

I too have a similar tail, we were treated reasonably equally growing up. But dad got cancer and we moved nearby to help until he passed away.

Since then mum seems to have got two golden sons (who do the total of f all) and scapegoat me. I really don't remember this from growing up.

So I have been doing everything for mum including taking her on holiday with us. My brothers just complain to her about what I do but neither stepped up to help. I got diagnosed with MS and told my brothers they both would need to step up but neither did until I refused to do something.

Last Christmas day my brother ho lives in Europe berated me for not checking mums emails that I didn't know she was getting. And this week mum has said its sad European brother wont be able to come home for Christmas as he cooks the dinner. Despite the fact all he does is stick the turkey in, we go around and my husband does the rest whilst my brother sits on his arse telling me off.

I too have gone LC with my brothers :(

@custardbear

He's a dick!

Can your mum move closer to you or your brother?

When my dad was terminally ill his neighbour (a part time care assistant with two kids) told me I needed to move down with my dad and care for him, even though I lived 3 hours drive away, had a young child, both me and DH worked full time, owned our home and would basically lose my career (scientist) and house if I left my job, She just didn't comprehend why I wouldn't and made me feel absolutely terrible!
My brother was single, consultant, but oh no, he couldn't possibly do it according to her 🙄

My brother suggested our dad move closer to us, which he didn't end up doing abd died about a year later - and that cow of a neighbour blamed me - literally dad just died and she was berating me - it was awful

That is terrible. I would have given her short shrift but you were probably too shocked to say anything. 12 years ago my mum was very ill in hospital and she was the main carer for my dad and he had to go into a home as an emergency. Very stressful time. I was in my local chemist and got talking to a woman I knew. She thought I should give up work to look after my parents. Not something I could afford to do.

I would be suggesting to her and your brother that if she is wanting care either she moves near him or you. Start looking into emigration to where he lives for her. Suggest to her that as your brother seems really concerned about her maybe she would like to move to where he lives so he can help her (which is presumably somewhere warmer but not too far away ?Europe).

It doesn't really sound as if you have a relationship that would benefit from her living close to you, but you could always start sending links to your brother of houses with annexes and suggestions about how much she could invest in your new house so she can live near you and pop the rest away somewhere safe in case she needs care in the day while you are working. My guess is that his eyes are more on the inheritance than your mother's care.

That should keep them both quiet, at least to your face!

If you have a bad relationship with your mother and your brother has a good relationship with her, then the person who should take the lead in caring isn't the one who is going to end up in huge shouting matches or disagreements. It just won't work, and eventually an alternative solution will need to be sort anyway. So for that reason alone I would give up my social life, my job and spend a fortune on moving costs to a place I don't want to be.

Ultimately, her choices will end up paying for care at home (if she is not entitled to it free) - which may force her to downsize, move to sheltered accommodation with onsite support (rather than a full on care home), moving to a care home, or moving closer to where you or your brother have an established life. And I stress this is her choice not your responsibility to move home.

FWIW, although its difficult living a long way away doesn't mean you don't end up actively involved in caring for parents anyway. My mum was helping resolve issues for her mother until recently even though its a 6 hour drive (she's the closest out of her siblings) and I have a friend who has been driving to care for his mother every other weekend (its a 7 hour round trip).

@timeisnotaline tempting oh so tempting. Plus a demand he does it ASAP and sends me the receipt afterwards. Maximum instructions and micro management

@HedgehogPJs

Ohh this is a sad read. I totally get the whole feminist attitude of ‘why should it be left to me just cause I’m a woman’ but it is very sad that no one (female or not) has the inclination to look after their parents as they get older. We have just moved with our children back to my home town, one of the reasons being that eventually my parents will need a bit of help and I want to be close by. My siblings all live further away and so presumably all the care will fall to me but I wouldn’t want my parents to go without help because my siblings and I were in a stalemate over who should have to do it

This makes me so furious. My mother is a cantankerous, mean woman with difficult mental health issues. My dad is kind but did absolutely fuck all to protect me from my mother when she was in full 'evil woman' mode. I moved out at 15 and moved out of the country altogether five years later and have lived 500 miles from them now for 20 years. We visit yearly, we manage a phone call every month or so except for the times when my mum isn't speaking to me for some spurious reason. They were both ill last year and I did go up for a visit but the practical stuff was mostly done by my brother because he still lives nearby. If he hadn't done it I definitely wouldn't have - I'm not leaving my happy life and uprooting my family to a shit city that I grew up hating to look after people who barely managed to look after me when I was a child. How dare you lay on the guilt? Good for you that you were lucky enough to have a family that you like enough to want to look after. Not everyone is so lucky and people like you with your sanctimonious 'ohhhh this makes me so saaaad' just make it all so much worse.

@AlizarinRed funnily enough my mother was not the favoured child, that was her younger sister.

I think this is a golden child/scapegoat thing more than it is a man/woman thing (although the two overlap as, in families with a boy and a girl, it often seems to be the boy who becomes the golden child and the girl who becomes the scapegoat). The golden child, having been encouraged from childhood to believe they are perfection personified, rarely lifts a finger to help because, well, they’re too busy to climb down off their pedestal.

Haha Haha! Fuck that! Well done OP.

Pig brother. Has anyone asked your mother what she wants?

Oh OP that is really awful. I'm similar with living almost 300 miles away from family, settled with a partner, and would be livid if one of my siblings started talking to me like this. However as the only girl amongst my siblings I do feel like there's a bit of pressure on me, which really irritates me as I hate everything to do with gender norms/ expectations!

I think it's a really good suggestion from another poster to open up a conversation with your brother about how you will deal with things like this in the future as your mum gets older so there aren't any blurred/ unwritten expectations. A lot of arguments around these things start from a lack of clarity and communication.

@BahbaraHumbug but she doesn’t need anything, she might want things doing but that’s because she can’t be bothered doing them herself. Heavy hints (pre-lockdown!) were dropped about me going to her house and cooking Christmas dinner. The odds of me working until 8pm on Christmas Eve, driving 300 miles, getting up early to peel veg and cook turkey etc are pretty much nonexistent! Like l said l have a busy year coming up with IVF, getting married, trying to love house etc. So lm especially keen to set my stall out about what l will be doing / not doing

Just ignore him, he obviously is a idiot.

@donquixotedelamancha people often think she’s early 60’s so yeah far from old or frail. Tempting as that will wind him up

@Ponoka7 my mum has always said she doesn’t want a cleaner. She’s fine to do her cleaning and shopping

[quote WhatKatyDidNxt]@BahbaraHumbug but she doesn’t need anything, she might want things doing but that’s because she can’t be bothered doing them herself. Heavy hints (pre-lockdown!) were dropped about me going to her house and cooking Christmas dinner. The odds of me working until 8pm on Christmas Eve, driving 300 miles, getting up early to peel veg and cook turkey etc are pretty much nonexistent! Like l said l have a busy year coming up with IVF, getting married, trying to love house etc. So lm especially keen to set my stall out about what l will be doing / not doing[/quote]
Haha that's so ridiculous. Gosh your family sound so similar to mine! This is exactly the kind of thing my mum would suggest too.
I think some people who live their entire lives 10 miles from where they were born just don't "get" family members who move away, struggle to relate to it and expect that the family home is still "really" home to you, even if you haven't lived there in 20 years or more!
Very annoying!

I'm the sibling that lives abroad, my DB lives 1 hour drive from our mum. Our mum has dementia and is in her 80s.
Yes, your DB is obviously making sexist assumptions and is out of order.
But like other posters, I would urge you to talk about future possible situations. Likelihood is that your mum will need more care.
I disagree with my brother in a lot of things (for instance his refusal to invite our mum for Christmas, which means that ever since our dad died, she had travelled to spend Christmas with me - even though travel involves somebody flying with her, as she is too confused to manage by herself. Obviously this is not possible this year), but what I want to avoid at all costs is that we should fall out totally and stop speaking to each other.
It does take some burden off me, knowing that my DB can do some things for my mum (often I need to tell him what to do, but nevertheless).
The pandemic has meant that I haven't been able to see my mum since February. Which has forced my brother to step up and do certain things that I would usually take care of.
Same as with you, my DB has always been the golden child, so it is partly my mum's "fault". However, my mum herself is a product of her times. And when she grew up, boys were simply seen as more important than girls.
I'm a mother of 3 sons, so I'm making sure that I teach them that caring for others (in the widest sense and in the literal sense) is not dependent on gender.
Best of luck - you sound like a great person.

@wildraisins yep. Plus there would be some random moans about the dinner not being early enough. Despite me having done a 16 hour or so day the previous day

I think you’re right about the distance as well. I didn’t deliberately set out to live that far away, jobs and relationships just led to it being that way

I could have written this a good while ago word for word and trust me it has only got worse. Soz.

Your mum sounds like my nan. My mum and aunt were at hers every other day, doing everything they could for her - only to get moaned at.
My uncles would turn up once every few months for a flying visit, they could do no wrong, and she wouldn't ask anything of them.

Luckily they didn't buy into her view, so were supportive of their sisters, even if nan did moan to them about how little the sisters did for her. It would have been so easy for them to take nan's side though, and get to feel like the superior siblings.

Have you asked when he’s going to return home and help his mum out?