To think my dad could be more generous with his money

[Thewholeshackshimmy]

Firstly, I love and care for my parents greatly.
I am 48, my dad 80 and mum 78. I have always been close to them and live just around the corner from them.
Although dad is in good health and still active my mum is not. She has a few health issues, the main one being that she suffers from Alzheimer’s. My dad has not coped very well with her diagnosis, he is angry with it and regularly picks her up on everything she forgets about and the things she does. He cooks for her but not much else, he seems to think if he keeps reminding her then she will do the thinks she is forgetting to do.
I check in on them almost every day. My dsis pops in twice a week and helps with cleaning (she runs her own cleaning company).
I organise everything else, all of my mums appointments, I arranged Attendance Allowance for her and I got dad a reduction in his council tax. I arranged for mum to go to a day centre once a week to give dad a break (I take her there and collect her), I organise and order mums meds (which are delivered once a month, I wash and blow dry her hair (sometimes my dsis does this too), I cut and paint her nails to make her feel better.
I don’t think she is showering as much as she should and dad doesn’t supervise her with this.
TBH as much as I adore my mum I don’t want to do any personal care, that just isn’t me I am not good with those sort of things. I feel guilty about this, I really do.
I will ask dad things like ‘is there any washing to be done?’ and I get a ‘How would I know??’ 🤷‍♀️ Yet I look in the dirty linen basket, which is always half full with his bloody clothes and I feel like saying ‘well you must have bloody put the stuff in there!’ So I do their washing too.
If I (or my sister) suggest that he needs to step up a little and do more around the house and for mum he gets all irritated and says he’s 80, he’s old, he shouldn’t have to do all these things!!
I have suggested a carer but they refuse and mum gets upset saying she is useless and wants to die and she doesn’t want a stranger in caring for her.
I don’t get any money for helping out and haven’t and would never ask. I haven’t ever asked my parents for any money and they have never given me any, even after my grandparents passed and they inherited money from them. I left home 23+ years ago.
Dad will give me £10 or £20 here and there as a thank you or offer me fuel, I ey occasionally if I use my car to drive mum somewhere.
I usually receive £30 for Christmas and for my birthday.
Now my my dilemma/AIBU.
When we were sorting out Power of Attorney and their wills I was quite taken aback at just how much money they have. I always knew they were not hard up as they inherited quite a bit from my grandparents will (mum’s parents) when they passed. They have a lot, enough to buy a 4 bed house and at least £10k each in their current accounts alone.
They spend little on themselves apart from food, bills etc.
Mum also has the extra £90 per wk Attendance Allowance which I got for her so they could buy things like ready meals to help dad or even pay for a carer a few times a week but it’s been sitting in her bank account accumulating since a year ago, untouched.
I have some on going health issues which are frankly ruining my life and making my day to day life quite hard and after endless NHS tests and visits to consultants and GPs etc I am getting nowhere fast and still suffering. I would love to see someone privately but just can not afford the fees. My dad is fully aware of my health issues but takes no interest and never offers any help, he just tells me that private consultants are just after my money and they can’t help me. I know Mum would have helped but as she has a five minute memory she would not remember anything I tell her.
I only work very part time, mainly because of my health issues and because I need to be about for my parents, dad facetimes me most mornings for something or other!
It does get me down that most of my friends parents are very generous with their money, even though most are no where near as financially comfortable as my parents. I know that if I had the money when I’m older I will definitely help my kids out, without a doubt.
So my AIBU is should my dad be a bit more generous with his money especially he knows I am struggling financially and health wise?
Obviously he is not going to be more generous with it but am I BU to think he should?

This sounds very similar to my mums position apart from we lost my Nan 2 years ago. My mum claims carers allowance as she is my grandads primary carer

@Thewholeshackshimmy

My dad refused to move closer to us and now I wished I had just put my foot down .my mum would have had a better quality of life .

Now he has done it at least he knows if she falls there is someone on site or we are 10 mins away . Better than her lying on the floor for an hour as he would refuse to call anyone .

We are a lot tougher on him at the moment because mum always put him first in the marriage and now it’s her turn .

Use your words ! They're not mind-readers are they? Tell them your situation and suggest a monetary amount if your father refuses then you'll know

I don't think your dparents have any obligation to support you when it sounds like they will need their money for care fees.

That said, if you want to be paid to provide care that isn't unreasonable either, but you need to talk about it.

No one loves doing personal care btw. People do it because they love the person who needs help and they don't want them to be uncomfortable.

@BlueMongoose

Yes we managed to get special beds ( OT ) helped with this and my mum gets 4 visits per day . Plus they said they will go to double handed visits if necessary to try and keep her at home .

We got special chairs and toilet aids as well .

I think it is more troubling that he won’t pay for proper care for your mother and to an extent himself, that should be a priority over your private health appointments.

I also think you do too much and maybe if you step back it will force his hand into getting in the proper care.

@Stompythedinosaur

Yes but some people are better at personal care than others . That’s just life . And some people literally may have other family commitments as well .

If people accept help and they have the money it could we’ll delay going into a home so it’s a win win .

It suits your DF very much to brush off your objections and assume your DH is very wealthy. It gets him what he wants, excellent care with no bills.

I'm afraid that there comes a time in our lives when the parents / children relationship is reversed. Where your parents need the help. Older people are very often not very hood at accepting that they need help and prefer informal help from their children.

Working part time because they take up so much of your time is working for them but not for you. I'm afraid it's time to pull up your big girl pants and start to make changes. It's important for you to get your sister on board and to agree what you will offer to do from now on. Managing carers to visit them will still take up some of your time. It's only fair that they pay.

As for inheritance tax, between two, the allowance including passing on property to direct family, is just under £1Million. Are they likely to be over that threshold ?

https://www.gov.uk/inheritance-tax

Your poor Mum-bullied & neglected by her husband.

If you have financial POA, surely you are entitled to take the Attendance Allowance from their bank account? Not a lot, but it would help you.

Having watched my mother do this to her detriment 20/25 years ago, I wouldn't.

You need to prioritise your job and I don't understand how you can undertake so much for your parents taking into account your health but your health prevents you from working more. If you and your dh need more money for things like private health then I think you need to work more to pay for it. This would break the control your father has over you and would force your parents to use the attendance allowance/their own money to purchase care to make their lives easier: personal care for your mother, cleaning/laundry, shopping, cooking. I wonder if your father would do more if the choice were do it or pay for it. I also wonder if he would expect sons to render the level of caring you provide - but that's a whole other thread.

What they should have done, and what we intend to do is to trade down to a small bungalow, give the money to our children and live off our pensions before we are 70. Either of our occupational pensions would go at least half way to care home fees and the balance could be paid upon the eventual sale of our final residence.

People just don't plan enough. However, having seen my grandmother progress through every stage of alzheimers I hope I shall be able to make a living will whilst I still have capacity and that dignitas will help me.

Your dad is not being fair - and denying your mum the care she should be having by not paying. No one is saying that at 80, he should be doing it; but he should at least be using the attendance allowance for helping with care - at least personal care (where there currently is a bit of a gap - and likely to grow). He should also be reducing the load on you and your sister by paying for at least once weekly cleaning/laundry (either by your sister or someone else). This enables both of you to do other things with your mum - like take her out, chat to her; which will improve everyone’s quality of life.

Also have good boundaries for looking after your health too. If you need to spend more time working or saving up for a private appointment; then do so. Better than burning out early - which will make things a lot harder for you and everyone in the family.

@TerribleZebra

OP I'm in a similar situation with a family member. All those people saying just tell them you've got someone to do their washing etc have obviously never experienced this situation. You cannot force adults to accept help. In my situation my relative is also well off but will not spend a penny on any form of help (garden, washing, cleaning, shopping). Her reasoning is that she will be well enough to do it herself again at some point. This has been going on for 2 years now. We cut down what we were doing for her to try and force the point that she wasn't coping. Her house is disgusting her clothes dirty and the garden like a jungle. I feel shit about all of this and still she won't accept any help. I also have POA but it's no good me paying for a cleaner if she sacks them (happened twice now) or refuses to let them in. My DH and I both work full time and we are at our wits end as to how this is going to play out. My guess is a fall followed by forced move to a home. None of this needs to be like this but unless a person will accept the situation they are in or the help they need there is nothing you can do.

I was in the situation but I didn't accept the fact my father just didn't want someone coming into the house. We organised carers, cleaner and meals on wheels whether he liked it or not - all had a key. As I said, he soon got used to it as he wasn't given much of a choice. It was either suck up the help or starve and live in squalor.

Up until about a year ago I probably would have said yabu, it's their money. But no, you are working part time to care for them, and taking a financial hit that way. Why the heck shouldn't they help you out if they can afford to??

@Stressybetty

OP, my DM was diagnosed with Alzheimer's at 55, DF was same age. I had moved back into their home a year or so earlier with baby DD after splitting from exDH. DF was WFH own business. I was there 8 years in total and ended up working for him as his secretary, at his beck and call 24/7, gradually ending up doing all the housework, meals, shopping, ironing, caring for DM, washing her and trying to raise DD. DS and DB living their own lives miles away left me to it apart from the occasional visit. I was very isolated, had no friends in the area and if I had wanted to go out DF wouldn't have wanted anyone in the house to babysit. DF was in complete denial until DM had a mild stroke at home and SS got involved. After that we were offered help, carers and occasional daycare at a centre all of which he turned down as he felt we were coping and he didn't want strangers in the house. His life had hardly changed apart from a few small in-conveniences. DM was very aware what was happening to her and very angry at it for years. It wasn't until I started seeing exDH when he visited DD and decided to reconcile and move out that it spurred him into action. I moved back to exDH several hours away, he begged me not to go and leave him alone with her. After I left he went back to GP and asked for help, arranged occasional respite care, daycare a few days a week and started cleaning etc and coped very well until DM died 8 years later. The guilt then and now years later was incredible but I eventually had to leave for my own sanity and to have my own life. I was in my 20's and could see myself still there with no life for years to come.

Oh my gosh that must have been so very hard on you, how on earth did you cope at such a young age. The guilt is the biggest thing for me, it really is.

Your poor mother and poor you.

Your father sounds like a very mean, selfish man.

You are being used by him as a skivvy, taken away from your children.

An utterly thankless job.

You are a woman so he expects it done.

If he is capable of working in the garden and shed, he is well capable of laundry.

Stop doing it.
Stop being a skivvy.
Stop being used.

He has a huge amount of money and knowingly uses you as a skivvy despite your health issues that could be helped.

I certainly wouldn't be used like that.

Pull back and tell him you have health issues.

So common amoung some elderly to feel entitled to their daughter endless time while they refuse to pay for anything, despite being well able to.

Your poor mother.

Stop doing it.

@BlueMongoose

To all those saying that savings are for care home fees, I'd like to point out that wise spending of savings and AA can prevent people going into care homes until much later in their illness, sometimes even at all. And can make the sufferer and those living with/caring for them a lot less stressful, and in the case of some matters like stairlifts etc, much safer too. Which is surely better all round?

This is what we are hoping for especially as my parents have so much money invested. We hope that we may be able to get carers in until it is absolutely essential mum goes into care. My neighbour had carers in every day for his wife who had dementia, she never went into a care home. However, he was much more into caring for his wife than my dad.

Is your sister in agreement with you about the situation? If so, I think you need to increase your hours at work and refuse to do everything for them. It clearly isn’t a case of your DF not being able to - if he can FaceTime he can make a doctors appointment, and if he can practice his golf and garden he can do laundry & housework. He needs to do it himself or pay someone, the same as the rest of us.

@Jaguar77

Use your words ! They're not mind-readers are they? Tell them your situation and suggest a monetary amount if your father refuses then you'll know

I have used the words. I tell him all the time how unwell I feel and that I have no money to pay privately but he ignores me or says that private health care is a waste of money. Oh even better tells me that my health issues are all stress related and the stress is from my teen dc (my kids give me minimal stress) I feel like screaming at him ‘my high stress levels are caused by you you selfish fucker!’

If you and your sister have POA contact DWP and arrange to have the AA paid to one of you instead.

Claim the carer's allowance if you qualify - your Dad might never even know you claim it.

If you have the AA could you at least use it to pay for a laundry service? You could take the laundry home and say you were doing it at your own house but just farm it out to a service?

I know it's not much but it's a start.

I agree with other posters that the money can be really helpful to make sure you stay at home as long as possible - I work with people with brain injuries and I have never seen anybody's state of mind improve when they are moved from familiar surroundings to a care home.

I know it's easy to type it out and not so easy to sort it out though - your Dad's being a stubborn bugger - I agree to just cook and clean and wash clothes for your Mum only if that's what it takes!

@FinallyHere

It suits your DF very much to brush off your objections and assume your DH is very wealthy. It gets him what he wants, excellent care with no bills.

I'm afraid that there comes a time in our lives when the parents / children relationship is reversed. Where your parents need the help. Older people are very often not very hood at accepting that they need help and prefer informal help from their children.

Working part time because they take up so much of your time is working for them but not for you. I'm afraid it's time to pull up your big girl pants and start to make changes. It's important for you to get your sister on board and to agree what you will offer to do from now on. Managing carers to visit them will still take up some of your time. It's only fair that they pay.

As for inheritance tax, between two, the allowance including passing on property to direct family, is just under £1Million. Are they likely to be over that threshold ?

[[https://www.gov.uk/inheritance-tax]]

Yes they are over the inheritance tax threshold.

@Thewholeshackshimmy

CoronaPeroni I changed her gp surgery as the previous one wasn’t much help, this gp is not much help either. I rang the other day and explained that I am concerned that mum is losing weight, she eats very little and when she does eat it’s mainly muffins or biscuits, the gp came back with ‘well at least she’s eating something!’ I had to get really shirty with her and say that wasn’t good enough and mum could be malnourished. She agreed to have her weighed last week, she has gone down from 9.5 stone a year ago to now 7.5 stone. And they still aren’t concerned!

You need adult social services, they’ll home visit with you and your mum there and they’re fully trained in building a relationship, trust, they are very persuasive. She will ultimately need a care package and she may be able to stay in her home longer as a result, rather than going into a care home. A carer will encourage her to eat, ensure any medication is taken, ensure she’s clean and comfortable. I went through this process with my aunt, who we were very close to. She was obstinate at first, but once everything was in place she was much happier. It also frees your time to do nice things with your mum, instead of housework and personal care.

@PostMenWithACat

Having watched my mother do this to her detriment 20/25 years ago, I wouldn't.

You need to prioritise your job and I don't understand how you can undertake so much for your parents taking into account your health but your health prevents you from working more. If you and your dh need more money for things like private health then I think you need to work more to pay for it. This would break the control your father has over you and would force your parents to use the attendance allowance/their own money to purchase care to make their lives easier: personal care for your mother, cleaning/laundry, shopping, cooking. I wonder if your father would do more if the choice were do it or pay for it. I also wonder if he would expect sons to render the level of caring you provide - but that's a whole other thread.

What they should have done, and what we intend to do is to trade down to a small bungalow, give the money to our children and live off our pensions before we are 70. Either of our occupational pensions would go at least half way to care home fees and the balance could be paid upon the eventual sale of our final residence.

People just don't plan enough. However, having seen my grandmother progress through every stage of alzheimers I hope I shall be able to make a living will whilst I still have capacity and that dignitas will help me.

Working ft would just about break me atm. It’s my long term plan but would be difficult atm due to my health issues.