To want my parents to move closer to me

[Whatsinaname1234]

The AIBU here is about how I deal with my parents who are ageing and I would really be interested to hear others’ experiences of the same thing as this must be something so many people deal with.

My parents are in their mid 70s. My mum has very bad health problems and my father is effectively her full time carer. They live in a big house in a smallish town in the North, my sister and I both live in London. We both have jobs which don’t exist out of london, young kids and zillions of other commitments.

Our parents are on their own with no family network (they were born abroad). Their house is big, over 3 floors with VERY steep stairs and a big garden.

The house is falling apart around them and they will not accept offers to help. They have money and savings, ok pensions etc so it’s not money. I think they just feel overwhelmed by my mother’s perpetual ill health and can’t lift their heads above the parapet to think how they can stay on top of maintenance of the house. It’s not just cosmetic, there are parts of the property with subsidence, cracks, kitchen doors hanging off, microwave that sparks.

I have tried offering to organise quotes and builders, my dad just turns it down. He doesn’t want to be patronised by his daughter thank you very much.

The bigger problem is I think they should just sell up and move to london. Weirdly my dad’s brother lives here too, so do me and my sister and our kids. They could swap their big falling apart house for a manageable flat, we could pop in and visit and help.

Recently a family friend of their age had a fall and was assessed as being unsafe to return home fir various reasons. She was put in a home and her house forcibly sold to pay the fees. I just feel if my parents do a move on their own terms they can avoid this, and if i was close, they may never need to go to a home as i could help them out.

Tried raising this with my dad and it was a blanket, flat, no. I think he’s hoping if he holds out we might move ‘back home’ to be closer? But i’ve explained it can’t happen. Both of us work in whole industries that literally don’t exist where they live. We have kids and lives and they should be the ones to move as they have fewer ties to their area than we have to ours.

Another issue is that he is quite a severe hoarder and moving would require him to deal with having to dispose of things when he has a big house packed to the rafters with at least 30 years worth of just… stuff. So much stuff.

AIBU to want them to be closer in their twilight years?

Has anyone else experienced this and talked their parents round?

Yes I’ve had similar discussions with my parents for similar reasons.
they won’t move.
even though they struggle with the garden they say they couldn’t bear to live in a flat with no garden or a smaller house with a tiny garden. Even though they have empty rooms in their house they say they need too much space to downsize.
i am gutted but also understand it’s too much for them to consider moving from their family home at their age -
especially as my mum will only drive short local routes so moving to our southern City will mean she won’t drive at all. At least she can drive to church and Tesco at the moment.

I think ultimately the issue will forced if one dies or needs a care home. But until then I just worry and spend a lot of the time on the A1!

if only someone has told me when I was 18 that I would regret being so far from them, I wouldn’t have believed it then.

That could happen wherever they live. We’re a bit younger than your parents @Whatsinaname1234 and we’ll leave this house in a body bag or to a care home. The last thing I want is our kids looking after us, we’ll pay for it. That’s why we have savings.

Where i grew up is not a nice place, sorry. I left at 18 and never looked back, so did my sister, as does every young person from our community. There are no jobs, or prospects and i would not wish to raise my kids there

Think this is a bit harsh, convenient would be to ship them into a care home. I want to find a way practically for me to see and help them. If they have a fall now i’m 4 hours away

Dad’s brother wants him to move (they are super close) but the whole family dynamic is no one ever really says their mind and he won’t tell my dad what to do. But i should speak with him again, it’s a great point.

The hoarding. So funny it felt like an afterthought on the post but the comments have made me think again about it being serious.

He’s always found it hard to part with things but i think it git bad when my mum’s health issues got bad when we were kids. He was working full time, effectively a single dad and a carer and i think (?) he got worried that if he threw a paper away or whatever he would lose something important, like dates for parents’ evenings or news articles which were important. And it sort of snowballed from there. I guess it’s a control thing.

My mum's 85
, frail but in fairly good mental health.

I moved to SE in my id twenties. She lives in the midlands.
I still live here.
My mum struggles to walk. She's fallen a couple of times.

Her health isn't great but she copes.
I've had her neighbours complain to me about how I should be doing more for her.
I can't.my husband and I are in our 60s and the travel is becoming tricky due to various health difficulties. She resolutely refuses to move , but then, why would she? It's her home of decades. She couldn't cope with the move away from all that she knows.
When I broached the subject she was resolute that she wanted to die in her own home.

I've realised that asking her to move closer to us is to assuage our guilt.
I think this applies to you.
It'll make you feel better to have your parents near you.
But they'd feel estranged. Would you want to move nearer to them?

Leave them be and adult social services will intervene when necessary.
Yes they'll take all my mum's money but she's happy in her own home.

Yanbu to want them to move.

But you can't make it happen.

The biggest help is help with things no-one else can do. I realised the thing my father wanted most from me was to be able to talk through decisions - everyday decisions such as "what does this letter I've been sent mean?" "What shall I do with this money now this bond is maturing?" And that can be done from a distance. Help them setting up tech - get them adept with zoom, with photographing documents and sending them to you, and so on. Help them to set up direct debits, on-line shopping.

Start lurking on the Elderly Parents board, particularly the Cockroach Cafe thread to see the practical problems in dealing with elderly parents. There's a reason live-in care costs £1000 a week - it cannot be manged by a single person.

If your in-laws think they are next to receive your care then they’re being very unreasonable and presumptuous. You are allowed to have youre on life! Especially if they are unpleasant to you

YABU unreasonable in saying they "should" be the ones to move.
Not at all unreasonable to worry about them.
But, it's THEIR choice, not yours. That's just the reality of it, unfortunately.
Having broached it with them and being shut down, I really wouldn't even consider trying to 'talk them round'.
They're not children, even though you and others have concerns.

OP, this sounds really hard. Just sending my best wishes, and confirming that I also have a job that realistically doesn’t exist outside London.

Hell will freeze over before I move back over the boarder into England, never mind hit the home counties or what it encircles.

If I end up in a care home, it'd probably be diar, but still a step up on the lack of support I have at home with my disabilities. I'd prefer it to being in a place I have detested since I was small.

I'm not in the North but my northern, Scottish and fellows where I am (probably obvious by now) tend to share the same sentiment.

Thanks for the final bit of your post, hearing your experience is super helpful.

I do feel your other comments sort of haven’t read my message properly.

They do live in a city. Just a smaller one. But when you’re on a suburban road honestly a road is a road is a road. Amazingly the roads in the london suburbs aren’t packed with crowds they’re just normal residential places with corner shops and trees and primary schools and neighbours who say good morning to each other. It’s not all crack dens believe it or not.

When i said ‘the north’ it’s amazing how many people have assumed countryside and rolling hills. It’s a post industrial place. Not at all beautiful or rural.

Also I think i had made clear their house isn’t tatty. It’s structurally unsound. I literally said, it’s not cosmetic, because if that was it, fine, none of my business. But i kind of feel it is my business if my parents get crushed by fallen masonry 🤨

No you misread. I said they have both savings and income. Money is not a problem.

It’s a tricky situation and l can see it from both sides. Their current situation doesn’t sound very sustainable to me but a move to London would be a big culture shock. I would make sure you manage your expectations about you moving there or making mad dashes there all the time to deal with the latest crisis

Im in a similar situation as my mothers health is deteriorating, l think she thinks we will end up moving to where she lives which was my home area growing. Even if we wanted to and we don’t -don’t like the climate, no friends nearby etc. Then we are tied into jobs, childcare, mortgage deals etc where we are now. I will also be managing her expectations about how little l will realistically be able to help from such a distance. She never worked full time when my siblings and l were young, or provided care to other people. l don’t think she realises how little time l have and how l don’t have the ability for 200 mile dashes at the drop of a hat

There are retirement homes that have 24 hour support (in case of falls, etc), OP — so perhaps it doesn’t have to be their house or move near you or ‘rotting in hospital’. They might not consider that yet but it could be an option later down the line if it gets to the point that they really can’t stay in their current home.
My dad moved near me after my mum died and he really struggled; he had several friends where they’d lived; when he moved, he only had me... I know your parents would have your sister too, and your dad’s brother, but moving from one end of the country to another is huge, and I don’t think you should overestimate that, even though you’re suggesting it out of love.

Longevity with chronic issues. There really needs to be more exposure of this sensitive issue, perhaps by drama's, as it's a pretty new one but requires a changing of thinking by all parties.

I agree with the other posters that London is not everyone’s ideal, but what I came on to say is that your parents will never ever deal with throwing things away. I had an elderly relative who lived in a large house on her own that was full up with all the stuff she hoarded. She eventually had to go into a home because she couldn’t walk but she would never have left the house voluntarily. Her stuff was all her memories.

You can want whatever you want, but your parents are in their seventies, your mother is in poor health and your father is a hoarder, and they don't want to move. It isn't going to happen.

In fairness people their age who lose their long term home and have to move to a strange area don't always do well.

@Flossflower and @TheYearOfSmallThings thanks for the pragmatism. I’d thought there was some magic argument maybe i could use…

My in-laws eventually made a move to live nearer their daughter and wished they had done it sooner. My FIL died about 18 mths later from cancer but was comforted by the fact that his wife was near her daughter already.

You might have to just ‘tell’ them that they have to move and just go ahead and make it happen.

Not always a choice. Some people need to move for work.

Families are spread out all over the world for various reasons.

You can't talk your parents round op and be careful what you wish for.

I'm in the same boat OP. Parents both mid 70s with health issues and won't move closer. Leaves me feeling guilty constantly as I can't just drop everything to drive 3 hours to help them. They are so keen to cling onto their independence and not be a burden that it's having the opposite effect.

We did this when parents were 65 (one had had heart attack) they lived in house with big garden 100 miles away, no other family nearby. So no other option really.
We moved them round the corner in a small bungalow and it worked out really well for 20+ years, until they died. The only thing we would have done differently is to move them even closer - we considered next door at one point but they were too settled by that time. Hope this helps.

We have recently bought a flat in a city centre. We will be retiring there soon because it’s the right thing for us and we love the (fabulous) flat.
Our children are pleased because they won’t need to worry about us going forward. fantastic all round. We’re not in our 70s yet but had our children tried to tell us what we ought to do, we would not have been best pleased. Assuming that your parents both have mental capacity, I can understand their attitude.
Ironically in respect of this thread, our kids want to follow us up to our new area because it’s so much better than where we all are now.

FWIW, I’m a Londoner. Wouldn’t move back there if you paid me to so again, completely understand where they’re coming from.

If I were you, I’d sit down and have a straightforward conversation. Tell them you love them, you’re concerned that the house may be getting on top of them and you would like them to consider the future and downsizing to a smaller place, closer to you. If they are still dead set against, the quid pro quo is that they can’t expect assistance from you as they age and things become more difficult.

Everyone knows where they stand and you can mentally let go.