7 coming to stay! Invited themselves ! To very elderly relatives !

[2beesornot2beesthatisthehoney]

So some younger relatives contacted my mum to announce that they were coming to stay with my parents. 7 of them including 2 children. To celebrate her 90th birthday! For 10 days!

She will have to get food in , contemplating a caravan in the garden, (because their quite large house is not really big enough for 7 extra) and do all sorts of stuff in preparation and whilst they are there. My parents go to bed relatively early these days , so their sleeping habits no doubt will be disturbed. When I heard , I suggested I would look at alternative accommodation Air B&B etc . Trouble is they live in a very rural area away from public transport but I did find one possibility.

Then another bomb shell . They are not intending to hire a car because they don’t like British roads . ( not from uk) . So the property I found is unsuitable as it’s a few miles away with no public transport links.

My parents now have 2 unreliable cars hardly go anywhere now and been shielding for the last 2 years anyhow because mum is CEV . (Explaining unreliable cars but that is another thread in itself) . So these relatives expect to be driven everywhere and collected from the airport too. And the 2 children are young enough to need car seats I think ( youngest at least , not sure of height of older one) .

It’s utter madness! Mum feels compelled to say yes because over the years they have stayed with that family though not them personally.

I think she should be saying no! Dad says “ they will muddle through” .

AIBU to somehow step in without it causing WW3 in the family?

Cheeky buggers! Continue to be firm with them. And maybe book your parents in to a nice holiday cottage somewhere for the week they’re due to be arriving in case they just turn up. Would be a shock for them to find an empty locked up house

Hopefully they will realise that things have changed since they last visited. I think the very young and the very old can go through rapid and extreme change and if you don't see them regularly then you won't realise it's happening. I know that I always used to be surprised when I visited DH's family in the far east and my nieces and nephews were very different from what they were in my mind, which was based on the last time that I saw them.

@BoredZelda do you have an 90 year old relatives . My previously very confident and assertive parents have really list confidence in the last couple of years, not just because of the pandemic but because physical frailty makes you feel more vulnerable. Plus frankly a 90 year old should be treated with more respect .

@BoredZelda

I thiklbk I said upthread my mum is passive and finds it hard to say no

If you are going to comment on this thread, please at least have the good grace to read my posts before jumping in with both feet

I did read that. Still doesn't change the fact that it is her or your father's responsibility to decline people who "invite themselves" to their home.

That’s your approach to family

We look out for each other in my family

@ultraviolet4753

I used the term first time around. It is used all the time in government letters I got about shielding and I think in the news conferences Apologies for not writing it out in full first time around . I thought people knew the abbreviation.

And regardless of what is said, someone who has been on this planet for 90 years should be quite capable of saying no.

@BoredZelda Not necessarily. It can work totally the opposite way round.

My parents were both pretty confident people when they were younger. A school headmaster and a teacher. As they aged after retirement and frailties and health issues began to surface they both lost their confidence. Neither wanted to admit to their problems though and hated being confronted by situations that made it necessary.

My Dad died last year so my now fairly immobile 86 year old mother is on her own. Whereas I would once have classed her as a confident person, she now definitely isn't. She is vulnerable and much more easily intimidated, although she wouldn't like to admit to that.

Just because someone might be 90 years old does not mean that they are always super assertive and confident, even those might once have been so.

Definitely try 'I'm sorry, you can't come, they're 90 years old and vulnerable to Covid, hosting family gatherings is far too much for them to cope with physically at their age'.

Call them yourself directly OP and ask them what the hell they are thinking.
Appalling behaviour on their behalf

My grandad was in relatively good health in his early 90s, but even he couldn't have coped with something like this. I think sometimes young people fail to understand quite how hard everything gets when you are over about 80.

I think before anything else there needs to be an alternative plan so you can go to people with a proposal. That way it's not 'No', but 'We can't do that, however, we can do this'

I'd phrase it as 'Mum and Dad are putting a brave face on it, but you need to appreciate they can't host a large number of people who need lifts and so on, and they'll overstrain themselves if everyone comes. Let's go to this nice hotel for tea/lunch/have a garden party at other relative's house [or whatever]'

It's your mum's birthday, she needs to be able to enjoy it.

Your folks are 90 - surely these people must be in their 60s downwards- real cheek , 10 days with 7 people in the house is not on and they expect food and beds?

I wouldn’t want to host 7 people for 10 days. Including children. And I’m in my 30s. We used to live abroad and have people come stay with us for that kind of length of time. It was fun but exhausting by the end! And we weren’t rural so they could get themselves around and no children were involved.

My grandad is 90. I like to think he’s in pretty good condition for his age. He lives alone, no carers or anything. Thankfully he gave up driving a few years ago. Absolutely no way could he host a family for more than a cup of tea. Maybe lunch if they brought the food and cooked and cleaned it all up. And he would probably need a nap after that. I can tell he is tired after a couple of hours seeing my kids at my house where he doesn’t have to lift a finger and then is driven home

hopping on to the thread to keep up with the gossip. have the rellies replied yet. Well done OP for standing up to them.

@anotherbloodyyearofcovid
Not yet but they have seen both messages .

Fair play to you OP for standing up for your parents. My American cousins sent their senile mother who was in her late 80s to stay with my grandmother who is in her 90s indefinitely in 2020. They didn't ask us and she went along with it because she obviously wanted to spend time with her sister and knew we would have put a stop to it had we known.

It ended with granny breaking her hip when attending to her senile sister (her family didn't let on how senile she was of course) and she ended up spending months by herself in hospital including Christmas 2020. She has never been the same since. Can't walk or do anything for herself now. The Americans still pretend that it wasn't a completely insane, unreasonable, dangerous thing to do because they just wanted their mother to be someone else's problem for a while.

Make sure your cousins don't talk to your parents behind your back and be prepared to be the bad guy. And there's no such thing as nuance here. You'll have to be blunt. Good luck!

I think you need it in writing (text!) from them that they understand and will respect your advice otherwise I imagine them planning how to circumvent your 'edict'. It will be "oh don't worry, we'll help out, we won't be any trouble, we'll hire a car..." They won't! Be crystal clear on what is acceptable.

Very rude person wanting a free holiday.

I think if you frame it as "great, I'll cancel the carers. You'll need to change their nappies every 2 hours. Sponge baths every day etc."

I don't think this can be done twatting about by text.

You should telephone them and give it to them straight.

I'm watching this OP, as I'm desperate for you to get the appropriate response from the relatives!

I'm really cross on your and your DPs behalf. This is the situation my DPs would get in to - don't want to be rude and say 'no', think they can manage, can't admit to being old, are easily manipulated etc.

Rooting for you!

My mum is 87 and very fit and active. Up to hosting 7 people (even if she had the room) absolutely no way. Don’t allow the unwanted guests to bully your parents as they sound the type to try. Totally thoughtless individuals. You are right to step in and if they keep pushing just be direct - “what about no don’t you understand”!

YANBU. The suggestion of a B&B plus hire car then meet in day would be much better. But would even that be too much?

@SiobhanSharpe

Well, plenty of British tourists manage just fine when driving in the US, or mainland Europe, and likewise loads of tourists to this country from abroad hire vehicles and somehow cope with our roads. They will just need to make sure the car/SUV/minibus they hire is an automatic.

While I agree with the sentiment that they’re going to just have to suck it up and rent a car, I can see why they are nervous.

Driving standards in the US are far, far lower than they are in the UK. They don’t think ahead when they drive and they expect everyone to let them in, even if they’ve just sailed past a huge queue. Roads in the uk are generally a lot narrower and other drivers (and traffic law enforcement) a lot less forgiving. They are probably nervous about it for very good reason.

This is outrageous, absolutely outrageous. I'm about half your granny's age and it would take me months to get over 7 people for 10 days.
Would you like me to call them and tell them to go away? I'm very firm and have a lot of experience managing waiting rooms full of people making outrageous demands. Friendly, polite but unyielding is the way to go.

[quote 2beesornot2beesthatisthehoney]@Figrollface no cousins and whatever the next generations are ( second and third cousins ?)[/quote]
Think that is first cousins and first cousins once removed and first cousins twice removed..... tell them to fuck off

I have to echo PPs and say phone them with an emphatic NO! My mum hates saying no to visitors but since she’s become ill and CEV she has had to. Some people have got arsey about it, most have been totally understanding.