To think my parents really should move..

[Another360]

Hi,

So a bit of background, my parents are both in their early-mid 70's. They have lived in their current house for 35 years. It's detached, it has a lovely garden, which they take great pride in and is in a good area.

My sister and I now live in a similar area to each other, around 2 hours drive away and have done for almost 10 years. Currently, it's doable, as currently they're in OK health. By "OK", I mean nothing awful, but they've slowed down a lot in the past few years. My mums eyesight is pretty bad and she doesn't drive at all anymore and is often in unexplained pain. If my dad lost his license for whatever reason, they'd be screwed! My dad also has poor mental health and has had a couple of breakdowns (although they don't like to admit this) and during those times, it was very hard, as we obviously wanted to help more than we could.

They were all for moving closer to us a couple of years ago, as they could see it made the most sense, but recently they seem to have given up on the idea and have made lots of home and garden improvements and not with the idea of selling.

They will not really compromise on anything, mostly a large garden, which seems ridiculous to me, as they're not going to be manage it like they can now in the not too distant future and they already struggle.

They have no other family or friends in the are. We are their family and we both have dcs too, who they're very close to.

If they had other people around them - anyone, I wouldn't encourage this so much, but the thought of one of them becoming very ill and not being closer really worries me. My dad relies on my mum for everything so if she became very ill, or worse, I can't imagine how he'd cope - he wouldn't.

They really are just staying for the garden, which seems ludicrous to me. I do understand that it means a lot to them, but surely not more than being close to your family and having them near you when you really need them. It's not really a case of if, but when.

We were even looking at moving closer that way, as they really seemed to have dug their heels recently, but we just can't make it work with my dc and our work.

I see so many of these property programmes, where there's a couple making their final retirement move to be close to their kids and grandkids and they often need to make sacrifices and I wonder why my parents won't do the same.

It's not like I would expect them to live in a shoe box and just sick it up, but they don't seem to want to make any compromises now.

Anyone else in a similar situation?

Same except they're 5 hours away (at best)

Mid 70's really isn't that old though. Could have another good 20-25 years!

Why should they move? You've just said there's reasons why you can't move, well they have their reasons too. Yours don't trump theres. And given they've been there 35 years, it was clearly you that moved away?

There's a contingent on MN who often pop up on threads like this to argue that people should start packing themselves away at about 55- move to a bungalow and await the grave.

Party of the natural aging process is slowing brain function. So it becomes more difficult to process complex problems and hold multiple ideas in your head at the same time so they often just get scared and hide it with belligerance and intransigance.

If you are working with people who are struggling with this, it is helpful to approach them as you would a 4 yr old. Break the problem down into small chunks

So Mum and Dad, lets pretend we could just pick your house up and move it to my town…would you like that? If you get a yes to that you know that they do actually want to live closer to you.

So Mum and Dad, lets pretend we could just pick your garden up and attach it to a house where you could walk to the shops everyday and the GP was just up the road, would you like that? Yes..you know they arent that attached to their actual house and are worried about needing to drive in the future

Keep going in a light hearted way. Repeat the things they have told you back to them every-time you introduce a new concept, so they don’t have to remember what they have agreed with before (that whole struggle with holding two things in their working memory at the same time problem)

When you have isolated the key things that they can and cant compromise on, you can start on removing the barriers to the mountain that is selling packing and moving

So Mum and Dad. If you could go on holiday and come back and all your stuff was magically transported into your new house in my town, would that be ok?

etc etc.

How nice. That would cost at least twice the value of my family house.
"Downsizing" is sometimes just too bloody expensive

I wouldn't be giving power of attorney to anyone who had already shown themselves unable to respect my wishes.

it is helpful to approach them as you would a 4 yr old

Bloody hell.

Oh bog off. I'm in my early sixties and regularly walk miles a day. DH in 70s,.walks much further and faster. Moving into sheltered accommodation ages you.

Bloody hell, do you realise how patronising this sounds?

They may be getting older but they don't need to be treated like pre-schoolers, ffs.

Bloody hell

When we came back from abroad just over a decade ago we made the decision to opt for a modest bungalow in walking distance of the town centre so relatively future proofed as we didn't want to be forced into moving again. Some older relatives have tried to sell up twice without success because they can no longer manage their house and garden. They now feel too old and frail to contemplate the upheaval.

I can see both sides.

DM moved at 93 from where she had lived since she was 26; she moved to be closer to me for support. But she never settled or felt at home, and despite her very best efforts to socialise and make friends it's hard to find your crowd when you can't drive and most of your peers are dead or have dementia. She became very dependent on us, which she hated, even though she was an absolute blast and loved by all her wider family.

I also think she moved because she felt she should make it easier for us - we were 3 ½ and 6 hours away - she had a well baked in WW2 martyr/needs of the many point of view. With the benefit of hindsight she may well have been happier staying down there.

And we never for one minute considered giving up our own community, jobs, friends etc to move down to her even though it would have been more than doable on paper and would probably have been quite good fun. Why not? Did we think her happiness and stability was worth less than ours?

Unfortunately OP, if they leave it too late it might exclude the possibility of a smaller home and would involve them going straight into nursing care.

They may well be frightened of change, but all you can do is do some research on small manageable houses that might be an option AND some nursing homes too.

The bottom line is that you cannot force them to do anything, but you can spell out their options and accept that things may not work out as well for them as you hope.

We have the same situation in my family and the garden is the key too. Huge house with stunning huge garden that has been lovingly tended for 50+ years.

They can't cope, have mobility issues and are refusing to sell up.

Unfortunately for her daughter it may indeed end up as a straight to nursing home situation which is really sad.

I have friends in this situation. They moved 200 miles away and are now pressuring their parents to move to be closer so they can help. The issue is that they don't want to move to a new place that they didn't chose! I think the parents would be happy enough to downsize a bit, but it's the relocation that they're not so keen on.

And I think that's fair enough. The irony is, that we have a mutual friend that moved to NZ. And thinks it's the best place on the whole planet to live and are trying to outside their family to move over. Original friends cannot believe the cheek of it. When I pointed out its no different to what they're doing to their parents they couldn't see it: it's a trip down the motorway, not a long haul plane ride away. But to the original friends parents, it may as well be NZ!

What help will your parents actually be getting from you, OP?

I deliberately bought a house 5 minutes from my widowed mum, I wouldn’t expect her to move to me.

Had this same battle with my parents recently, OP. Once we'd got over the suspicion that I was after their equity (I half jest) they saw the sense in living somewhere more manageable, closer to shops and groups, etc). They've been in their town centre apartment for 3 years now and after a few recent health scares (all ok now) still say how happy they are they made the move when then did before it became too much

It is an issue that needs to be tackled. We're not 70 yet, but the house we bought in our 40s isn't suitable for geriatrics because the garden is too big etc. etc.

Both our parents moved to sensible homes in their late 60s/early 70s but even so, when DFIL died it was difficult to visit DMIL as often as she would have liked from 300 miles away. However, the house was practical and the garden a sensible size so she and we coped until two weeks before first Covid lockdown and advancing dementia made it necessary for her to go into respite while SIL had a knee operation. A few months on, it was clear she couldn't live alone, so her house was sold to pay for residental care. Clearing it out was still an enormous job.

In too many of these cases by the time the elderly people feel they can move it’s just all too much.
We encouraged my Mum to move closer but she loved her house, by the time she struggled with the stairs and various other things and did feel like moving was a good idea she just couldn’t cope with the thought of actually doing it

POA is vital!

@SeaToSki this is a really individual thing. My FIL is 83 and physically a little less mobile than he once was but mentally still sharp and if I spoke to him like that he would be having me tested for dementia. It reminds me of those TV adverts for insurance and holidays for over55s that seem to presume we all have dementia or need to be spoken to veeeeery slowly

Just to play devils advocate isn't the flip side true as well? Assuming they live in the area you were raised in, then you must have happily moved away from them, knowing that you wouldn't be able to provide any care for them when they were older.

I worry about this sometimes. We still have all 4 parents, late 60s, but they are 4 hours away (mine) and 3 hours away (DH's, and not the same direction). Both mums have lost driving confidence, having gone to one car per household. Unfortunately the ILs are fixated on the status of their detached home with large garden and mine, being on a steep valley-side, are fixated on not losing their view. DS is just starting school so we won't be moving in the next 14 or so years, and anyway - which set would we choose. I haven't had the conversation with mine yet but, obviously, I'm not going to be in a position to drive mum to appointments in her late 70s.

My df is 90 +, doesn’t live near any family and is lonely and struggling.
We try to make sure he gets a visitor once a fortnight for 2 days, he has a carer every morning to check on him.
However he refuses totally to compromise on the next step, he thinks one of his dc should take him in, we don’t want to because he’s literally a critical, grumpy fun sponge who makes every one miserable!

We had the conversation 10 years ago, my parent would not move or downsize. No, no, no !

However, after covid things changed, because we all felt that we lived too far away from each other.

We are now all 10 years older !

We work FT & have spent weeks driving up & down & decluttering their property

It has been very stressful !

The move has now been successful !

This. I was the one who moved back so I was closer to mine, it never occurred to me to ask them to move away from all their friends, my dad’s golf club and everything else that constituted their lives in a place where they’d lived for decades.

They downsized within the same town when he was 82 and she was 79 and they had 17 years in that house before it became completely untenable. They made the garden smaller by paving and gravelling various bits of it.

My parents are around 80 and currently in better health than yours, OP, but it's a similar situation. My other younger siblings moved 200-300+ hundred miles away to the countryside and now are busy with small kids, and they tried to persuade my parents to move down there too but they didn't want to. They are comfortable where they are and know they have good public transport links and a decent GP.

At my suggestion they are having adaptations done to make their home more accessible and made us power of attorney for health and welfare.
I am now the closest at under 100 miles away and with no kids at home. I know it's going to fall on me which is pretty unfair as although we have a good relationship now, they were really not very good to me at all earlier in life, my siblings had all the advantages.

Anyway I can see that the older that people get the harder it is for them to move, and the more attached they are to a familiar environment. While they have capacity to make their own decisions there is little you can do except encourage them to future plan and look at PoA for health and welfare etc