to not move to care for elderly parent

[JusteanBiscuits]

My Mum is aging, and the last few months have shown that, while she doesn't need actual care, her needs are increasing and she needs a lot more support in her life. She is in her late eighties, and the issues are both physical and her mind. My Dad died 20 years ago so she is alone.

I live 2 hours away. I have a sister that also lives 2 hours away in opposite direction to me, and a brother who lives locally. My brother helps out, but isn't able to be particularly supportive, and constantly complains about the support he does offer.

I am closest of them all to Mum, and Mum is very strongly hinting that she wants me to move locally so I can help her out more.

My husband works from home, but rule is he has to live within 2 hours of his office in central London as he has to provide in person fixes a couple of times a month. He wouldn't be able to get to central London within 2 hours so his only option would be to leave a job he really loves and bee in for ten years. His skills are quite specialised, so he wouldn't be able to really find a job that pays similar or offers the same work/life balance as he currently has. He is in his late 50's, he really doesn't want to move jobs and really really doesn't want to retrain.
I also work from home, but can work from anywhere. I have to be in London once every 2 months is all. I do have a small voluntary role that I love but would have to leave as it's not a remote sort of thing. I would also be leaving some lovely, close friends behind.

We have teenagers at high school. They're currently at an excellent school they love. Moving would mean attending a frankly shockingly awful school which is currently in special measures (and has been for 3 years). There is only one high school in the area. Only other option is to somehow find the money to send them to private school.

So, the only option that is worth considering is me moving alone and leaving husband and boys behind. I would have to rent somewhere to live, and while property is much cheaper than where we are now, it would still be very difficult to run two households.

It seems an easy "no, I can't do that". But I am getting increasing pressure from family to step up and do my thing. And it is my fault I moved 2 hours away.

Has anyone done something similar and have it work out?

You can't uproot your DCs. It wouldn't be fair. We had similar conversations during Covid because my mum was elderly. We were fortunate that we had extra space so I did invite DM to stay with us but she didn't want to leave her home. In the end, I compromised by going to stay with her and visiting her more regularly. My DM died last year and tbh I wish I had spent more time visiting and staying with her.
You mention nieces, relatives and friends who are nearby your DM. Could one of them take responsibility for going to appointments with your DM? We found that wider family support was very helpful and that people were keen to be involved.
It's a difficult time but try not to reduce your relationship with your DM to practicalities and don't let your DB try to guilt you.

I think all the siblings need to have a zoom call about this.

Your DB is - perhaps rightly - aggrieved that he is taking on the bulk of the day to day caring.
DM has chosen to fritter away her funds on other DSis so hasn't got a lot to spend.

You moving is a ridiculous option and you should state that it will never be happening.

Work through your DMs needs ( not wants) and try to agree who is doing what and what should be addressed by a paid service.

You always find in these situations that emotional blackmail comes in to the equation. Don’t move nearer, there’s your career , your husbands career and your kids schooling! Your siblings are panicking in case they have to step up more, I have experienced all the demands here. You must stand your ground look at sheltered accommodation a reasonable distance away and explain to mum that’s how it is. Otherwise you will run yourself ragged. Take care and good luck.

If she sells her flat - can you build a granny annex?

If not, she will have to work out moving somehow

Exactly this.
Can't believe you'd even consider it!

You can’t move teenagers unless its an emergency, they have important exams on the horizon. Bluntly out, you cannot prioritise the needs of one elderly person over the needs of several young people.

My mum sold her house and moved nearer her mum. Gran died a year later. Mum is now stuck in a remote village far from friends / rest of family, but can’t afford to move back. Don’t be like my mum.

If your mum is fortunate enough to be very long-lived, then moving in with you might one day become a possibility after your teeangers have grown up and left home. In the meantime make it clear that moving your family’s home is not up for discussion.

Having watched many family members age and die, I was sad to see how much more selfish, confused and unreasonable the very elderly become as they age. Watch out for that.

There is no great solution for end of life care, only a series of bad options. Don’t exhaust yourself looking for a good solution that doesn’t exist. And remember that even though she is old and your mum and you love her, she made choices that resulted in her current situation and you are not responsible for fixing those choices. If eg she spent a long time as a housewife or spent house-sale proceeds being generous to other family members, that was her choice.

I wish you the best of luck.

The trouble with that is you need the funds to build the extension first before mum can sell her flat and move in.

Pharmacy to put meds in box, they do a month at a time, Tesco delivery once a week, cleaner once a week

Hi OP, I would not relocate on your own to help with your DM. Your mother is being very unreasonable and selfish not to think of your needs and you have a family to consider. She should move closer to you if you she wants your help otherwise you many become resentful. It is hard work caring for an elderly relative and can be isolating especially when they need more care around the clock. Cooking, cleaning, personal care, picking up prescriptions etc plus working.

I know as I am my MIL carer. She has dementia and other health problems. These things happened gradually but now lives with us full time as she can't live independently. My FIL died many years ago. I came onto this forum a few days ago asking for advice as I am finding it hard and lonely. Looking into a carer two days a weeks so I can go back to my job that I love. I am finding the incontinence hard going and frustrated that my DH has a DSis and DB. They don't seem to care, they have no DC's and we have 3 DC's.
Don't feel guilty and make sure what ever you decide it works for you.

Can your nieces and cousins help or trade off with you to help? Maybe you can agree to put a plan in place to see both your mum and her sister (every Wednesday you visit, every Sunday they visit, or something). Can you possibly pay for a helper to do one day a week or fortnight of cleaning /cooking /driving?

I feel exactly the same.

I would absolutely hate my children to feel obligated to look after me.

I would sooner euthanise myself.

Honestly this is very similar to my situation. I don’t know if it is as simple as don’t move - our feelings about our parents are also valid and strong. I wouldn’t want to spend my last years away from family. And yet, like you OP, my kids needs come first and my stability for them. I am in a different position in that I could move, because I am a single parent, but I have a sibling who is pushing for that who lives very near our mother and who is ‘too busy’ to do any care at all themselves. Mother is also refusing a home, and in a way, who can blame her. I feel absolutely caught. I am caring for a child with disabilities and feel like I’m looked at as the ‘carer’ of the family and as if I have loads of time. I don’t want to live in my mother’s house, it’s quite messy and needs loads of maintenance, and living near would be out of my price range.

Like you I don’t want to let my mother down, but there has to be some compromise here. If I were you I’d say move in with us, near us, in a home near us, but that is the limit.

I have a friend, who does this sort of thing for elderly people, who want to stay in their homes. She doesn’t do physical care but goes and talks to them, gets bits of shopping, helps them with their meds Eric. Maybe you could find someone local for your mum like this. She doesn’t clean either btw but you could also get your mum a cleaner.

Don't do it. It's a terrible idea and will impact negatively on you and your entire family. Moving teenagers from a good high school that they're settled at to a really bad school in a new area - that alone is a powerful reason not to do it. It's not fair on your children, it's not fair on your husband, it's not fair on you. It's not in any way a logical or sensible suggestion.
Is there another possibility? Equity release on your mum's house to fund live-in care for example? (this is what my MIL did and it worked for her - it meant that she was able to remain in her home for the rest of her life). Your mum may not wish to compromise, but she may need to - Move nearer to you? Sheltered accommodation? It's not up to you to sort it out alone or to trash the life you have built with your family.

Just reread your posts and I can see that she doesn't actually need live in care yet - great. But as other people have mentioned there are organisations and volunteer networks that offer the kind of support with day to day tasks that your mum needs.

In my experience (with my parents and now my PILs), one of the challenges is that an elderly person's needs change, sometimes rapidly. I've got a cousin who built a granny annexe but by the time they got planning permission and got it built her Mum only lived in it for a few months before having to move into residential care. My PILs are in a similar situation to your Mum, and 2 hours drive from all family. They wanted to stay where they were to be near their friends / activities etc. The was OK 5 years ago, but now most of their friends have died and they are deperately lonely and bored. They need increasing amounts of care and support. Once they got over the initial hurdle of speaking to a social worker (poor SW was told to rip up her paperwork and get out because she dared to ask about toiletting!) social service have been great, arranging different kinds of help.

It would now be so much easier for us all, if PILs had moved closer to family, but it is too late for them to make that move. FIL needs to be in familiar surroundings and MIL is very frail and wouldn't cope with the stress. It's very sad and we're sorting of waiting for the inevitable crisis which will result in some kind of major change.

It's a hard no from me. You have your life and your family. Parents don't have a right to expect that level of support from their children (I don't have children btw - if I ever need support I'll buy it).

No, there wouldn't - other than the fact that you have a warden onsite, I can't really see the advantage of sheltered accommodation if she is already in a small, easy to maintain flat. She might as well stay where she is unless and until she needs to go into a care home.

Even sheltered accommodation doesn't have a warden onsite all the time as they need time off too!

I'd not move into a care home until I absolutely had to due to the cost.

This is outrageous.
Of course you can't relocate. You DH and children come first.
You mum has other options.
Could you arrange to meet at her home, with your relatives and have a planning meeting with her.

Well she needs to rethink the idea of sheltered accommodation.

Honestly, to expect you to uproot your whole family and move back to look after her? She is being incredibly selfish.

We got a nice middle aged lady from
my dad’s village who would pop
in every day for an hour during the week to make him a cup of tea and sort out anything that needed doing after my mum died.

he could still dress himself and everything but she helped the pills in a big box with days of the week on, also helped with an online shop because she knew what was running out like milk or eggs and sorted out a plumber when his hot water went and changed the bed linen and did a bit of cleaning. £13 an hour 5 days a week which was worth it for us - me and my brother shared the cost of it as we couldn’t move nearer.

He didn’t need personal care so it wasn’t hard to find someone to do 9.30 to 10.30 with him and it helped us out a lot.

Don't move her either. I have watched a friend do this and her mum only had her locally, not a single friend. My friend had hoped her mum would make new friends, but she didn't. She relied totally on her daughter for any companionship.

IMHO, all three of you need to be involved. Let your DB and DS know in no uncertain terms that you will NOT be moving and that the three of you need to 'divvy up' the care duties. It's not right for one sibling to do it all, even if they live locally.

Chances are your siblings are 'bigging up' the idea to her and how 'easy' it will be for you to relocate and how wonderful and perfect it will be for her to have you 'so close', so it also needs to be made clear to DM that you cannot move. Not will not, cannot.

In my case, my DB and I both lived local. He took over her finances and bill paying and I took over her medical care. We both drove Mum around, he to do her shopping and I did the medical appointments and picking up from the pharmacy. But even if we had lived out of town it would have been doable with a couple of overnight visits a month.

If your mum has dismissed the idea of sheltered accommodation, I'm sorry but that's on her. But I'm sure she's been told that she should expect you to move. Perhaps when she realizes that you will not be moving, she'll begin to view it in a different light.

A conversation along the lines of "I can't move due to DH's job and the children's schooling, not to mention my own career and to be honest I do not want to move, either on my own or with the family, we are very happy where we are. I understand that you do not want to go into a nursing home so what do you suggest?"

If all she can suggest is you giving up your life (effectively) for her then yes, she is being selfish and it would not be unreasonably to point this out to her. There needs to be a solution that you are both happy with.

This ^

Of course you don't move away from your DCs schools an area you love and split up your family !! You owe your parents only to live a good life , you don't owe mum a sacrifice of yours and your DCs happiness education and lives!!! Goodness I would be very unhappy if you did that if I was your Mum!!!

Your mum can move nearer you into sheltered housing if she wishes. There is so much you can help with online and virtually and so visits every couple months for a day. That's what a lot of supportive families so that live away from their ageing parents and you know what? It's good enough