How much responsibility do you feel to look after parents in old age?

[myusernamed]

As the title says.

Do your parents talk about when they are old and what they might expect from you in terms of looking after them?

Do you feel a sense of responsibility for looking after them in old age?

There is only me and my sister and she now lives a few hours away. I automatically feel as though I will be responsible for sorting stuff out.

Father often says he will never go into a home - like it's up to me to make sure that doesn't happen.

Does anyone else feel this expectation?

I hadn't seen your post when I posted even though we used a similar last sentence

I have helped to care for in-laws who had cancer and Alzheimer's, and was glad to play my part. They would have done anything for me, and I felt the same about them.

My own parents can rot, frankly. A lifetime of being reminded of my many failures, and favouritism towards my sibling, mean that we just do not have that kind of relationship. They can use all their hoarded cash to pay for care. I expect nothing from them, and I owe nothing to them.

I'll look after my dad, the only parent left. I helped care for my mother-in-law after FiL died. She's now passed and had advanced Alzheimer's so I know the basics of caring for someone and I hope to never need those skills for with Dad or by husband.

I've known people who said exactly the same, that they would never let their much-loved mum go into a home. Sadly, despite their very best efforts, it became unavoidable in the end. They made as many adaptations as possible to their home, and tried their very best, but her dementia reached a point where she was a danger to both herself and them. They really had no choice other than to find a home for her.

The trouble is, I think that a lot of people, especially younger adults, unless they have seen it happen to someone else, picture someone with dementia sitting quietly in a chair all day and just needing 'nursing'. That might be the case for some sufferers, but sadly many become very violent, and certainly don't confine themselves to a chair. They can be awake all night, trying to escape, or doing goodness knows what, and even if locked securely in a bedroom for their own safety while the family try to sleep, they can still be creating havoc and depriving everyone of sleep anyway.
I think that most people would find it both physically and mentally impossible to look after someone at that stage of dementia, no matter how much they love them. 🙁

None.

My sister moved to the side of the world. My step dad is not in good health and his kids are fucking useless. I know the expectation will be on him and my mum. It worries me.

This is something I’ve thought about a lot recently. Currently we live very close to both my parents & MIL, we left London two years ago and now live near them in Scotland, but we hate it here and we’re planning to move back to London as soon as I can find a job. At the moment none of our parents need any care, mine are late 60s, MIL is mid-70s but she also lives near my SIL so will be looked after regardless of where we live. I worry about leaving my parents as they get older and what it might mean if me & my sibling both live 500 miles away from them, but also me & DH can’t keep living somewhere that makes us actively unhappy. I think we’ll just have to cross that bridge when we come to it and hope they’ve got another 10+ years before it’s an issue. I love them & will want to look after them as best I can when that time comes, whether that means moving them in with us or finding a well run care home or something in between.

I am torn on this one. I'm considering moving closer to them at the end of the year after being quite shocked at my mother's deterioration when I saw them at christmas, but I suspect now that she was stacking on a bit of show (which she has lifelong form for) and isn't as frail and doddery as she appeared.

On the one hand they can be great when they are behaving themselves but on the other my mother in particular can be extremely difficult.

She always said, 'I don't think I'm going to be very good at getting older' and so far she's certainly living up to that promise.

Having said that, if I don't move closer it will all fall to my sibling and she is already at breaking point with constant phone calls, interfering and comments on how she's living her life.

Part of me thinks helping them in their old age is my job and might be something I'd regret not doing. Part of me knows that too much time with my mother is extremely hard on my mental state. It's tricky.

For me, personally, I live with my parents and have made peace with the fact i will be their de facto carer. I have said to them both that the only way I will put them in a home is if it's safer or more pleasant for them than me looking after them. I have a very good relationship with them both, I'm not married (nor am ever likely to be), not bothered about having children, and my brother works away a lot, has a partner, etc. I realise this isn't the same for everyone, and that some people might hate the idea of caring for their parents. I don't think it will be easy but they are lovely people who have always cared for me, I will do my best for them.

To be honest, I do wonder what the response would be if this was a group of mostly men. Because when we talk about "family care" for elders, what we mean is "woman care".

And I worry that people would blame themselves, think that they didn’t love them enough or didn’t do enough.

Lovely mums and dads disappear and are replaced by strangers who act nothing like the person you have known all your life. With my father, it’s like he’s been body snatched. There is hardly anything of him left. He’s a completely different person.

Life can be cruel. Some diseases make it impossible to have care at home. 24 hour supervision is needed and that’s impossible for a family to do, no matter how wonderful a parent is or how much they have loved you.

I love my children. Which is why I wouldn’t want them to go through the hell of caring for me. The toll on the mental health of families is indescribable.

I don’t think my mum expects anything other than for us to continue to have a close relationship when she gets older. I do feel responsible though, she has supported me all my life, why wouldn’t I want to help her if/when she needs it?

Please don’t make that commitment. I did and meant it. I had zero idea what I was signing up to. Unlike a pp I don’t think all care homes are the same. The one we found was genuinely fantastic and my mum blossomed when she went in there. My only regret was not doing it sooner, my delay made life harder for her and me than it needed to be. It was bloody lovely going to see her nearly every day and being just a daughter again.

@Oldnproud I do agree with what you are saying. I work in a care home, and although the residents are very well cared for, and the staff are fantastic, there just isn't enough staff to spend the time with them as we would like. I just wouldn't want that for my Mum. However, I know that it can become impossible to care for a loved one with dementia at home, and the toll it can take on a family.

Well, yes. And in the care of older children and younger adults too. It’s almost always women.

When my dad had an accident at my home and was taken to hospital and I said I wasn’t going to have him back, he was taken from hospital to respite care while I sorted his money out and looked for a permanent place, a shitty social worker said to me “oh, I assumed you were a man” (my name is a typically male one).

I said, “oh, because of my name?”

”No” she said, “because I have rarely seen a daughter give up so quickly on a parent. It’s usually the sons who put them in a home”.

So that made me feel even more like shit.

It's very hard to plan for the future when none of us has any idea what the future holds. 'Future-proofing' makes us feel better in the present: it doesn't give any guarantees about what the future will actually be like. All the parents on here saying that they would never want their children to give up their lives to care for them: how can you know what your future self will want? After your spouse has died unexpectedly and you are alone? Or you develop dementia or Parkinson's and are terrified living at home, seeing 'wee men' in the corner and unable to tell day from night. You might find that the 'don't you worry about me!' proclamations you made when younger don't hold much water 10 or 15 years down the line.

My granny used to say 'just put a pill in my tea!' meaning that she'd rather die than be demented and in a home. It's not realistic to say this at all. When it came to it, and she was demented and in a home, none of us was able to help her in this way. When she said it; she had capacity (and I don't think she was joking) but once she had become what she dreaded, she had no capacity to choose: that's why the 'smother me with a pillow' line is totally unrealistic.

To answer your question OP, it depends on a) how you define 'look after' and b) what kind of 'looking after' turns out to be needed.
a) I'm willing to advocate, organise, sort out possessions / house adaptations and be a source of social contact, support, listen to moans, complaints, memories and stories, encourage other family i.e. grandchildren to visit etc as best I can - but I'm not washing bums, doing cleaning or laundry on a regular basis etc. Carers can be paid to to that, so that I am available to be a daughter. b) my parents say just now that they have no expectations, they have money to pay for whatever they need. But it's clear that their expectation of ageing is basically 'as-we-are-now-but-a-little-bit-older / stiffer / slower' and that all they will need to do is move to a downstairs bedroom 🙄. They clearly expect to be caring for each other, not living alone. As I said above, is it reasonable for them to plan for this scenario? Or should they be planning for what happened to my MIL who went from pretty capable to completely disabled, osteoporosis, Parkinson's, dementia and psychosis within 18 months? Or some other scenario entirely?

My mum was abusive when I was a child. She has been totally uninvolved and rude health during the time it's taken my kids to grow up. Not there mentally or physically at all really ever. I have four kids with SEN and frankly that's been stressful and I often wonder what outcomes they would have had with invested family around. So, with that in mind, I'm not feeling overjoyed at caring for my disabled son then moving onto caring for my mum. So that's not going to happen. Advocate, check up on yes, nurse - no. like my in laws. Go and live your best life ever by distancing yourself sure, but don't then expect any kind of tight bond to suddenly appear in your frailty. Sadly that's also true for my kids. If I suggested they might want to care for their GP I think they would laugh when their dad's parents didn't go to a single show or invite them round for a single meal. That's not how it works. Not being their for them = zero bond

I personally feel very little. My parents both have tried to do the bare minimum for a super long time, even when my siblings and l were children. They were both super reluctant to put themselves out so l don’t feel why l should have to put myself out. Our adult lives are much busier than theirs were anyway e.g. l work full time, my mother did half that for years

Logistically it’s not that realistic as l live miles away -easily a 14 to 18 hour round trip. My husband and l both work full time, along with 2 young children that we need our annual leave for. Plus ironically they both weren’t a fan of taking annual leave for us and wanted to use it for themselves

Not helped by my mother refusing to future proof her life e.g. impractical house including no downstairs toilet, point blank refusal to ever go into a home,

There’s a hell of a difference between a genteel browse of M&S Classic Collection followed by cake with Mumsie and sole care of a violent lunatic who’s hitting you with a saucepan at 3am then shits herself.

And throws it at you.

Depends what the oldster has wrong with them, in short. Dementia, no way.

None, and I won't be expecting anyone to do it for me.

Hear Hear, @Supersimkin2. The reality of dementia is that however much you want to do it, or think you should be doing it, there comes a point where unless you're prepared to devote your entire life to caring for the patient, to the detriment of you, your kids, your job and your partner, that you just can't cope.

It is not failure to get to that point and say "I just can't do this".

My parents have always said that they'd rather go into a home than have my sister and I running round after them when we have our own children to think of. They've been careful to plan ahead - got wills in place, funerals paid for, and even did a general clear out of the house, paperwork etc so that 1) it's easier for them to deal with and 2) if my sister and I have to step in, we can find things and not have so much to deal with.

Of course we will look after them if they need it.

PILs have done nothing - house is a tip, far too big for them to clean and maintain, and expensive to heat etc. They don't like planning ahead or talking about death, so there's nothing in place. They will also refuse to go into a home and expect DH and his siblings to look after them. I expect it to be horrendous as they'll all argue about every decision.

Did you report that? I would

Absolutely agree. And it's no failure to put them in a home for any reason really.

Something else to keep in mind is whether or not kids looking after their parents is in their parents' best interest. BIL lives with PIL and looks after them. PIL are both elderly and have physical as well as mental problems. After six months of taking care of them - BIL is now permanently angry, sleep deprived and pissed off with them. I do not think that we're at safeguarding stage yet but almost. It's not his fault. Both PIL are refusing to go into a home but BIL is at the end of his tether. The house is now toxic with all of them shouting and physically pushing each other. But so long as PIL refuse moving into a home - there is not much that can be done. Utterly depressing and can go on for years.