Hi all, I haven’t posted much on here before. Sorry it's a bit long.
Context: Currently 7 months pregnant with my second child, also have a 4 year old DS. Parents are in their mid-70's, and live about 100 miles away. Dad has a rare type of ataxia which over the years has affected his mobility, and can also make him quite tired on some days. He refuses to use a mobility scooter so he can get out and about more, but is clearly depressed. He can still drive at the moment though. Mum is healthy, but more and more has to care for Dad as his illness gets worse, but overall he can still manage day to day. She often gets frustrated at him not leaving the house unless they're going in the car, and understandably feels trapped. However, also does nothing to take (what I see as) the pressure off him e.g. when driving down to visit me and my family. She complains that his awareness when driving is getting worse, but she never offers to share the load, as she hates motorway driving, but makes the excuse that Dad won't 'let' her, which I think is rubbish.
So with second child on the way, we have moved our DS into our second larger bedroom and his original room will be the nursery. It's too small even for a single bed, so parents have booked a hotel 10 min away whilst they visit for a few days this week. They've stayed at a hotel a couple of times previously, on the same road as the one where they're staying this time, so have driven the route to ours from that location loads of times. They have an old Garmin sat nav which they use sometimes, but for some bizarre reason, not when they get lost. It also doesn't have real time updates on routes.
About 18 months ago they visited and stayed in a hotel, same location as this time. On their way back one evening, the usual route was closed. It's a small town so the alternative route would have been easy to find if they'd used their sat nav. They didn't. Instead, they called me at about 11pm after driving around in circles and asked me to come out in my car so I could show them where to go and they could follow me to the hotel in their car. Which I did. About a year before, they had insisted that me or my partner do the same thing, 'because it was dark and they didn't know where they were going. ' we had just had our first DS and were shattered new parents. It is pretty much a straight road from ours to the hotel, but they refused to use their sat nav.
So this time, before booking the hotel, my mum asked for suggestions of others that are nearer, as she was anxious about something similar happening with roads being closed at night. I gave her a link to a B&B recommended by a friend which is 5 mins away, which they booked. She then announced last week that they had cancelled that and were going back to the original hotel location as they 'didn't like the sound of that B&B and didn't know where they would park.' My dad has a blue badge so can park pretty much anywhere. I visited them about a week ago and my mum was still flapping about finding their way to the hotel. I said she just needed to use google maps, and she scowled and said 'why?'
So they arrived on Wednesday, stopped at ours for a few hours, and sure enough when it was time to go to the hotel, they asked my DP to get in his car and show them how to get there, with them following in their car. I wasn't in the room at the time, and was livid when DP told me. Tbf, he said he offered, but expected them to say no, as they have been there so many times.
Yesterday, they were with us most of the day, and left early evening. During the afternoon, I sat in their car with my mum and set up her phone via the Android app so they could get google maps on screen. Walked her through how to access it. Sent her the same basic instructions to her phone. As I've set it up, it will automatically connect when she's in the car, so just need to select the maps function. She said 'oh great, this is good, we can practice using it when when we get back home next week.' I said, 'well you could use it this evening on the way back to the hotel, as you already know where you're going.' She didn't reply.
Time for them to leave in the evening, DP mentioned that the previous evening they clearly knew where they were going, as my dad was signalling for turns even before DP did. They literally told us what the route was, and said yeah yeah we know where we're going. They left before dinner as dad was very tired. Mum had mentioned to me that her night vision is not great, but dad's is worse.
10 mins after they left, my mum rang the doorbell. Said they got lost. Missed a turning. DP had answered the door. He said but you've got the sat nav, you could have just used it. Mum apparently turned her nose up and said 'I'm not using that.' DP explained the directions again and they went. He is 1000x more patient than me, but even he was flabbergasted. Also, my dad was driving. Why not mum if he was that tired and his night vision is even worse than hers?
When DP told me what happened, my heart sank. I do not understand the refusal to do something so basic, and instead constantly expect us to mollycoddle them. I have a difficult relationship with them as it is, I'm always stressed when they visit as we rarely go anywhere unless it's in the car because of dad's mobility, and they rarely listen to anything I say to try and help them, or suggest I'm being disrespectful if I get frustrated with them. But it's tiring, and I feel it's unreasonable to have this palava every time they visit. Baby is due early March, they will always need to stay in a hotel from now on as we don't have the room. Will they expect us to keep 'showing them the way' every time they visit? The ridiculous thing is they use the internet loads and both have smart phones, so it's not like they are totally in the dark ages! AIBU?