Page 27 | To not help my Mum change Grandads bedding?

NimbleBee · 2025-04-30T08:30:29+00:00

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.

Marylou2 · 01/05/2025 15:36

How old are you OP? I'm thinking that if your DM is 70 that you aren't a child. I realise this must be soul destroying for both of you and that everyone has their limits. Perhaps suggest a family meeting to get support for your mum or for others to help get additional professional carers. All this shouldn't be on the shoulders of your mum.

WearyAuldWumman · 01/05/2025 16:30

Malagase · 01/05/2025 15:27

Surprisingly common, just expected that "caring" women will care!

My experience around me is that caring women are getting very firm with their boundaries and that if they have looked after their own parents they are in no rush to do it all again for in laws, simply because their husbands don't fancy it🙄.

Another friend told her husband to crack on and pay for carers/cleaners etc., if he didn't want to clean his parents house and do shopping but she hadn't a notion of spending her Saturdays doing it.

So many men are so fundamentally selfish, they know well what is involved in doing appointments, shopping, laundry and cleaning etc., they simply don't want to.

There have been more than one very straight talking discussions removing any "confusion" they might have had as to exactly whose responsibility it is.

Another friend of mine is married to a man with two sister in laws living abroad whom thought they could dictate her summer when it looked like caring duties were going to be required for their parents and her husband was travelling for work.
She promptly decamped to her parents for the whole summer and left her husband to it, muting her SIL's for the entire time.

Thr two of them actually thought her marriage to their brother meant she was now to be told how she could spend her summer.
They got a huge surprise and she has fully refused to be in any way involved.
Her husband travelling with work meant she was busy enough.

She was mightily pissed off at the high handed nature of the way they spoke to her and her husband got it with both barrels.

Her inlaws have plenty of money and will have to pay for caring duties if their daughters aren't around, not foisted it on their DIL whom they have a polite, but not warm relationship with.

These soft duties of appointments, shopping, helping with house work could go on for years.
There was no way she was entertaining it at all.

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I made some mention of my dealings with my late husband's ex and her children.

Neither of her children invited her to move in with them, but one of them made an appointment for her to view a (very expensive) sheltered flat near them. The DIL told me that she refused to view the flat in the end.

I found out from a mutual friend that the ex had said that she didn't want to move there in case her son and DIL decided to move house and she was left on her own...plus she knew that if she stayed where she was, she always had Weary and DH to hand!

I told DH quite firmly that I had no intention of being his ex's carer. He did agree with me...

Less than a year after the ex's partner died, she found a new man, a widower with two adult daughters.

TheGander · 01/05/2025 17:45

I have a lovely friend married to a guy with 2 brothers, her in laws have been moved by her and her DH to sheltered accommodation nearby due to a combination, between them, of most of the diseases of old age. One of the brothers, a high rolling Mr Big has been WhatsApp ing her a care rota , obviously heavily featuring my friend, and him not so much. It makes me angry on her behalf.

Malagase · 01/05/2025 19:38

TheGander · 01/05/2025 17:45

I have a lovely friend married to a guy with 2 brothers, her in laws have been moved by her and her DH to sheltered accommodation nearby due to a combination, between them, of most of the diseases of old age. One of the brothers, a high rolling Mr Big has been WhatsApp ing her a care rota , obviously heavily featuring my friend, and him not so much. It makes me angry on her behalf.

So common.
She can accept it or delete/mute his number and tell her husband it is between him and his siblings.

Thats what my friends have done.
Between work, kids, menopausal symptoms.......they simply weren't having it.

Epidote · 01/05/2025 20:47

Wonderingwhyyy · 30/04/2025 15:42

The OP's mum seems to think this is women's work too. She is asking OP for the third time this week and not her sunbathing husband. He is clearly making the wrong decision not to help.

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He is wrong, and her mother should be able to ask him, but that doesn't make OP right refusing to help her.
I think in this cases is more about get them the help now and after make the argument. I pick my battles and I love my family, I would definitely help her or if I can't try to get her some help. I would change my grandad wet sheets as many times is needed. In fact I've done it for one grandmother and one grandfather, in my case they were more embarrassed than me, until they got in use.

Wonderingwhyyy · 01/05/2025 21:10

The OP had already helped twice this week. It is not fair for the mother to keep putting the burden on her daughter.

That is why women are so burdened with care. They are told to consistently put others needs before their own. Men are rarely told this.

https://www.healthmatters.org.uk/BLOG/rndblog/blog1-a.php?pid=674

Help now, make the argument later keeps women burdened with care.

The burden of family care on women

https://www.healthmatters.org.uk/BLOG/rndblog/blog1-a.php?pid=674

Valeriekat · 02/05/2025 01:08

NowYouSee · 30/04/2025 09:42

Sounds Like a need to carers to come in and help rather than purely family. But also looking at his continence arrangements - I know from experience this isn’t a silver bullet but the right continence pants make a big difference. Also large puppy pads strategically placed underneath him can help.

This is very sound and considered advice. Get carers in to help. Does he live with you?

ruethewhirl · 02/05/2025 13:10

BIossomtoes · 01/05/2025 14:28

I’ve done it. That’s why I understand this poor woman needs help.

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Yes, she does. That's why I've suggested that if outside help is an option she should avail herself of it and take some of this massive burden off herself.

And as you've done it, presumably you also understand how hard it must be for OP to have had this landed on her too?

JenniferBooth · 02/05/2025 19:09

whitewinespritzerandastraw · 01/05/2025 12:52

If I had a husband and a daughter like you and your step dad I’d be so disappointed.

what awful attitudes.

Heres a really awful attitude The State expecting family members (usually women) to run themselves ragged to care for family members, risk or give up their jobs as a result, and then treating them like scroungers when its all over.

THATS what i find disgusting

JenniferBooth · 03/05/2025 23:45

@Wonderingwhyyy As i left my elderly mothers this evening i got asked by the taxi driver if i was going to move in and care for her He would not have asked a man the same question

2024onwardsandup · 03/05/2025 23:53

JenniferBooth · 02/05/2025 19:09

Heres a really awful attitude The State expecting family members (usually women) to run themselves ragged to care for family members, risk or give up their jobs as a result, and then treating them like scroungers when its all over.

THATS what i find disgusting

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It’s not “the state” - it’s society - men and all the women who are like the ones on this thread.

2024onwardsandup · 03/05/2025 23:55

And outsourcing care to be paid by the state is not the answer - because it will just go to other women to do it for poor pay in crap conditions

if men did even half the unpaid caring labour women do many of these challenges would be resolved - but as you see from this threat the worst enemy of women is often women as much as men

JenniferBooth · 03/05/2025 23:57

2024onwardsandup · 03/05/2025 23:53

It’s not “the state” - it’s society - men and all the women who are like the ones on this thread.

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its both Or do you think the Job Centre rolls out the red carpet for someone who has been caring for years instead of being in paid work??!!

Wonderingwhyyy · 04/05/2025 08:35

JenniferBooth · 03/05/2025 23:45

@Wonderingwhyyy As i left my elderly mothers this evening i got asked by the taxi driver if i was going to move in and care for her He would not have asked a man the same question

Sadly that is just typical. Men think it is women's roles to do the caring and even many women think it is a woman's role.

This just proves again and again how much more pressure there is on women. Women are made to feel guilty, pressured, told to think about others in ways that men are not.

Some many women on this thread have piled on the OP say don't care, just do it.

Wonderingwhyyy · 04/05/2025 08:39

2024onwardsandup · 03/05/2025 23:55

And outsourcing care to be paid by the state is not the answer - because it will just go to other women to do it for poor pay in crap conditions

if men did even half the unpaid caring labour women do many of these challenges would be resolved - but as you see from this threat the worst enemy of women is often women as much as men

This thread has sadly proved that often women are the enemy. Many have told OP to grow up, laying on the guilt saying I couldn't leave my mum without help while ignoring the stepdad.

Notsosure1 · 04/05/2025 08:55

2024onwardsandup · 30/04/2025 10:32

The fury at a woman not wanting to do the labour while it’s accepted from a man

your mother has capacity - she can get her shitty husband to help her

Exactly. It is her mum but it’s also his wife! And presumably OP has a job and other commitments she needs to juggle. She has already helped twice, step dad has helped zero. He’s not busy, he’s falling asleep in the fucking garden while his wife struggles and breaks her heart caring for her dying father - there’s compassion for you. If he doesn’t want to deal with personal care the least he could do is bung the soiled sheets in the washing machine and dry them afterwards so he is being of practical use, or just being there on hand with a cup of tea and snacks to offer moral support. But no, his moral compass is satisfied lying in the sun and having a go at his step daughter to do the job he’s not prepared to. He’s a selfish arsehole.

Futurehappiness · 04/05/2025 10:28

Wonderingwhyyy · 04/05/2025 08:39

This thread has sadly proved that often women are the enemy. Many have told OP to grow up, laying on the guilt saying I couldn't leave my mum without help while ignoring the stepdad.

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Yes apparently this male selfishness is 'just how men are' ie just the way of the world, and the onus is on women to make up the shortfall of care. This thread is a depressing example of the fact that so many women are their own and each other's worst enemies, and feminism is paper thin.