Families are shit here?

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That's it really

Nobody helps each other, siblings view siblings as unimportant and "not part of their life" mothers watch their offspring struggle.

That's it really.

I finally understand why old people get put in a care home.

Also if a parent or sibling isn't a nice person, why should anyone be beholden to them and their bad behaviour?

I agree OP. The amount of posters who seem to have only toxic parents/siblings/friends etc or are related to narcists and psychopaths. Seems more likely that many are dramatic and selfish.

I'm not talking about posters who have suffered horrible abuse, but those who seem to have issues with everyone in their lives.

People are bound to post far more about problematical families than happy ones.
Who on earth ever posts to say all their family members are lovely, never a cross word? It just sounds smug and self satisfied and will very likely piss less fortunate people off. Or at least make them sad that they’re not so lucky.

Here where? Mumsnet? Britain?

I do think there's a weird cultural dichotomy and I said this on another thread the other day, where it seems to be frowned upon to offer financial help to your children when they are adults, but the thought of the tax man taking your money when you die is galling (even though this can often be avoided by, you know, giving financial help to your children). People seem to take pride in having a shitty struggle of a time because at least they didn't ask for help, when their parents are sitting on more money than they will ever spend. This is quite common with adults who have parents from the 'boomer' age, who are often quite well off and even bordering on rich, thanks to massive property gains, gold-plated pensions, etc.

There was a post on another thread where a poster said they were a single mum on the breadline and their dad was a millionaire and she'd never asked for or received help from him financially, which I think is incredibly sad and not my own experience of family or an ethos I want our family to have. If my kids are struggling at any point in their lives, I want them to tell me, and if I can help them then I will. I don't stop being their parent when they reach 18. My mum, who died recently, gave us some inheritance early (sadly not as early as it turned out, but at the time we didn't know that) and it allowed us to buy a much bigger house to start our family and also for me to work part-time with young DC. It's a gift I will never forget as it has made these years, and the rest of our lives, so much easier. I want to do that for my children, and am already planning how best to do that even though they are still at nursery age.

I don't want my children to feel obligated to help me or DH when I'm older and will hopefully have stuff in place to avoid that, but I would like to think I am bringing up children who are empathetic and are part of our family and who would probably want to be involved if there was no other choice (but as I say, I don't want them to be and will attempt to avoid this by leaving clear instructions and financial measures to allow my care to take place in a way that doesn't impact their day-to-day living).

I think it's sad when close family members who are in a comfortable position don't help out family members who are struggling, assuming the struggling isn't because of some sort of addiction or something where you are throwing money into a blah hole.

My grandmother is in a care home. She has mnd and needs specialist care. We do not have the skills and I work full time with 3 dc. We love granny dearly. She wants to stay near friends so I don’t visit much as it’s a 4 hour drive and will soon cost more due to ulez.

That aside, I don’t recognise the picture you paint as one I see around me. My dc and I are about to go on holiday with in laws then dc are spending a week with my parents while dh and I work, and my brother and his family just stayed with us over the weekend with dh’s brother staying with us in May.

my family is spread across the world but we make time for each other.

What about the people who unfortunately don't have any family?

I know it's to do with tourism, but in Barcelona at the moment some restaurants are refusing to serve single people. How to make a single person feel like a leper. Not sure that attitude is anything to aspire to either.

I think lots of families are close and help eachother out, you just won't see it as much on here because of course people are more inclined to post about things they're struggling with.

I mean, do you really want to hear about my life in a huge, mad, happy family of six siblings, twelve nieces and nephews, sixteen aunties and uncles, uncountable numbers of cousins, or what Christmas looks like with this many people crammed in one space? Probably not because it's quite boring! People love a Trainwreck so the posts about awful families gain far more traction than positive ones about big happy families.

My lovely dad is in a care home because
when we tried to have him live with us, he set fire
to our house and almost killed us all, tried to feed batteries to my baby, and tried to climb out of a first floor window. I was only sleeping for two hours a night which was how long sleeping pills knocked him out for to keep us all safe.

Ever tried to care for a loved one with dementia?

I’d guess not or you wouldn’t have written something so fucking offensive.

At least he can’t kill himself or anyone else in a care home.

People with attitudes like you are who make people like me very mentally unwell at an already horrific time.

I do disagree with the care home thing though, because caring at home for someone often becomes unfeasible and unhealthy for both the person being cared for and the carer. Also some family would find a son or daughter carrying out intimate care work to be very upsetting - I read an article recently caring for the elderly and it had a section about a daughter who had to change her father after he soiled himself and she said the look he gave her (he was non-verbal at this point) was one of the most haunting things, it was a look of utter despair and indignation. I can't imagine doing that for my own father, it would absolutely be one of the worst things he could imagine. He would prefer a stranger.

It's not always appropriate for care to be carried out at home; the issue is the poor quality of care in many homes, not the fact they exist.

Not remotely my experience, and not amongst my social circle.

tbh I've only seen that on MN, not true in my experience of real life. However I'm not English so perhaps it's a cultural thing.

you see on here all that time that you shouldn't expect help from gps etc but i'm used to families helping each other out.

Yeah, when their countries have been destroyed by the west, I guess you could say it's expected.

Where is here?

I see it both ways. On the one hand you're the master of your own life and owe nothing to nobody so it's entirely your decision to go 'NC' etc, and you shouldn't have to deal with toxic people if you don't want to. On the other hand I do think it's wild how British families seem to fall out over the tiniest things and never speak to each other again. I've been raised to see family as a safety net so without family I'd feel so exposed, but in many British families that's not the case as there isn't much financial help etc.
Idk, these are all generalisations I suppose but at any rate, it is so sad when families aren't close

Quite obvious it's UK they're talking about

I love my siblings and my mum, we're all very close. I've been NC with my toxic father for years

Siblings can get very jealous of each other, & the death of both parents can break a family up completely. It’s quite rare for families to get on.

British families seem to fall out over the tiniest things and never speak to each other again
But only British families on MN. I don't know any families that are estranged.

By "the west"? What, all of it collectively?

The truth is that these problems are due to wider social breakdown. I simply could not care for my parents in my own house because: my house is not big enough; I work full time; they don't know anyone where I live and would be lonely. A stronger society would be one where there are plenty of social opportunities for older people, where adults can forge a better work life balance to care for relatives and where people can afford housing that accommodates their whole family. Until these realities change, strong family units can't live together under the same roof in many cases.

Depends on the family. My family are close even though we don't live very near to each other but in the case of an emergency I know I could rely on them. My parents also helped out where they could even though they didn't have much themselves.

My late DP's family were the opposite. They hardly ever saw each other and when they did were always falling out or wanting something.

I do agree that in other societies is may seem that families are more caring but women usually bear the brunt of that caring, very often to their own detriment, but, as other pps have said, no-one posts on here to say that they have a close loving family.

I've been raised to see family as a safety net so without family I'd feel so exposed, but in many British families that's not the case as there isn't much financial help etc.

one of the weird things on MNs is that you should avoid inheritance tax, save deposits for your dc, pay uni etc but then adult dc should never expect inheritance or help 🤔

I agree that the UK has become all about the individual. Plus children, to be fair. The mother is expected to devote herself to the child's interests, and I think many almost identify as the child, taking personal pride in their achievements, and this continues well into adulthood, But the child isn't expected to help their parents out at any stage of their lives. I know a few Chinese families living in small flats with 3 or 4 generations, and it seems to work well. And it's not even as though we have a good elderly care system here.

generally there is a real coldness between families here

maybe you just know some shit families.

The thing about cars is obviously people can't always care for a parent nor should they have too but you can still visit the person in the care home.