To not help my Mum change Grandads bedding?

[NimbleBee]

My DM is taking care of my grandad in his final months.
I helped twice this week change his bedding, because he is double incontinent now with his age and illness.
My DM asked for help yesterday, I have said I can not help no more.
Aibu? My Grandad has other family who could help but do not.
My step Dad was not happy yesterday when I declined to help my DM.
I said to my retired step Dad, that he should go and change the bedding as it is his wife who is 70yr old that needs help with her Dad's bed change and he has lots of free time.
Yesterday step Dad was sunbathing and sleeping in the garden instead of helping.

Yes exactly

dreadful

I'm so sorry op, but your post has triggered a lot of anger for me. I have cared for a couple of very ill relatives while everybody else just stood by saying stuff like "I don't know how you do it. I can't do that." Well, you know what? I can't do it either, but here's the thing: someone has to do it. Or do we want our loved ones to stew in their own filth? To die like animals (animals would receive more care) How barbaric is that? I nearly had a nervous breakdown, but it wasn't from the caring it was from witnessing and experiencing the lack of compassion from other family members for both the person who was ill/dying and for me. Ffs help your mum.

This exactly.
Whatever the rights and wrongs of who should or shouldn't be helping, this is about helping your mum and grandad in his final days

I think YABU but I suppose it depends.

Why won’t you help?

And just because a lot of men behave appallingly we don't have to do the same.

I think there is more going on here, once you get to the point of someone needing personal care like changing pads especially for your different sexed parent then carers are needed for privacy and safety.

My opinion this situation will come to ahead with a hospital visit and social services will get involved. The real question is why aren’t carers coming to help? Nobody should be doing all this without support. Is it a money issue? Care is only paid for by the person needing it not wider family.

You’ve misunderstood my point.

My posts on this thread are mostly around the OP understanding her own motivations so she can be at peace with her decision whatever it may be. She hasn’t signed up to this and no-one should pressure her to do more than she feels able to do.

I regret doing as much as I did for my parents over the years because I robbed myself of time with my kids. She may have other priorities and that’s ok if she’s ok with her decisions

unless she encouraged her mum to take this on by promising to help then she’s doing nothing wrong by stepping back if she herself is doing it for reasons that she’s comfortable with

I chose to help in this scenario. My GP has passed now and it comforts me that I was able to be there for them.

Unless you've actually dealt with a soiled adult bed, you're in no position to criticise @NimbleBee . I'm 70 and main carer for my elderly Mum. She has occasional accidents in the bed, which I then have to deal with. It's horrendous and every single time I urge constantly until I vomit. She wears pads and pull-up incontinence pads but if it's Diarrhoea it leaks out so she needs showering and clean nightclothes. The bed has to be stripped and washed. I end up exhausted and nauseas for hours. There's no way I'd ask my daughter or my son to help because it's a vile job. I've dealt with babies and pets without too much bother but this really turns my stomach. The only way to access help is via 24/7 carers at home or in a nursing home.

The SD might not want to help with intimate care, and the GF might not want him helping. But the SD and other family members could be doing all the every day shopping, housework, laundry, gardening, pet-care, whatever between them, so that the OP's Mum is left only with her father's immediate care - although she may still need assistance with bed changes and washing of her father, because that can be hard physical work. But the others could be doing more, even if it's more indirect.

The pile-on towards @NimbleBee on this thread is horrible. She should feel absolutely no obligation to clean up after her GF - it was not her choice to have him at home, she is well within her right to refuse to clean up sh~t and p~ss.

I'm not even going to get started on the subject of the idle SF sunning himself in the garden. It reminds me of my entitled goldenballs uncle who expected my DM and auntie to clean up my doubly-incontinent GM, but became enraged when it was suggested that he and his wife lend a hand. It was, according to him "demeaning work that he refused to allow his wife to stoop to". So that was alright then.

@NimbleBee - you might want to try asking your questions in the Cockroach Cafe section of MN. It's a long-running thread for families of elderly people in often challenging situations. Latest here: Cockroach Café 🪳 🪳 🪳New Year 2025 | Mumsnet. It is full of kind, understanding people who have been through it themselves and can offer wise support, practical solutions and empathy. They might also be able to help with suggestions as to how to get some more support and care in for your DM, so she isn't shouldering the main burden, and possibly also some options for GF, if he is needing more in terms of care than your DM is increasingly unable to give.

You are not a bad person for not wanting to do this grim job. You didn't ask for this. The fact that others have no qualms in rolling their sleeves up does not obligate you to do the same.

Best wishes to you. x

Lovely post

I can see SD’s laziness is annoying but you should be guided by your own moral compass as to what you should do. Your poor mum and grandfather - you should help them not whine about how much other people are not helping.

I don’t think you’ll wade through all these answers @NimbleBee. It isn’t fair when someone is in the picture and is capable won’t pull their weight, but nothing will change them. They know exactly what they’re choice leads to and that isn’t enough to motivate them, they double down.

your choices need to be based on you alone. If your DM is asking for more than you have to give then you need to spell that out to her. If you’re prepared to help coordinate the admin involved in getting outside help in then that alone will have a huge impact for your DM. She doesn’t have to struggle on alone but if it’s too much for her then she has an obligation to her DF to speak up (to the GP, palliative nurses etc) and get him more support.

your SD sounds like a dick. Feel free to say that loudly and widely but mirroring his actions won’t do anything but add to your DM’s stresses.

I think that these AREthe very moments it needs to be addressed tbh or it all gets swept away and forgotten about until the next time someone needs significant care and then it's " oh no we can't raise our voices about this because so and so is ill, we should just get on with it "

This attitude is part of why the cycle of misogyny continues, it has to stop.

So the poor bugger who’s dying is left lying in their own shit to satisfy feminist ideology. It’s not the kind of feminism I want anything to do with.

You dont have to do anything that you dont want to do. Or that you are not able to do. My elderly mum broke her arm. When she came out of hospital i didnt help her. I got shouted at by my aunty for being "selfish".

I pointed out to my aunt - that i lived three hours away and that i was working full time. My aunt didnt ring my brother, who lived nearer to mum, and call him selfish.

Its always women who are expected to just drop everything and take on caring reaponsibilities.

Like how your mum is asking you to do it, yet she doesnt ask her husband to do anything.

So women should burden themselves otherwise it would be barbaric? Yet nothing about the men not contributing?

I myself had to step back from caring for an elderly man. The man wanted me to do it because his son had a BIG IMPORTANT JOB. The more I did the less the son did. It was only when I stepped back that the son did more.

Was it barbaric that I didn't drive myself into the ground caring for him while the son carried on with his life as normal?

It is nothing to do with feminism ideology. This is exactly the kind of misogynist claptrap that some women dish out to other women.

You get round there and clean the grandad up.

Good nobody wants you to be part of feminism. Stick with the misogynists where you belong.

Keep the women in the caring role while the men get off scot free.

I’ve been a feminist longer than you’ve been alive. Your version isn’t one I recognise.

It's not an idealogy, it's real life, it's the poor treatment ans over expectations heaped upon real women all the time, everywhere, it ruins THEIR lives.

OP saying no doesn't mean her GF will not have help, it just forces the issue to find more appropriate care.

This is not her responsibility, it's not her mother's responsibility either.

Helping the DM keeps both women in the caring role while the men get on with their lives.

The bigger picture needs to be examined by both MEN and women in the family regarding care.

I think both you and your stepdad are being pretty horrible refusing to help your mum at this time (unless a massive drip feed is coming?).