Brother not pulling weight with our elderly mother

[Birdie2025]

Brother lives a distance away. He does not visit often, in fact only a handful of times in last couple years.Mother is managing well at the moment but is 82 and deteriorating. Am worried as time goes on everything will be down to me. He has a very responsible job and is always busy. I too am busy with my much more lowly job but as I am local I do the lions share and don’t complain about being busy. Advice anyone?

You can decide how much or how little you want to do. Accept that your brother also has the right to decide how much or how little he wants to do. You can't make him do a "fair share".

What do you want him to do? Have you talked about it with him?

First post 🔨

I don't think you're being unreasonable. Maybe consider talking to him about your worries.
To be honest my mum is younger than yours and my sister has moved away but I still worry as well about the future.
Do you get any financial assistance like carers allowance? If you're her main carer you would be eligible I think. It's not much but better than nothing.
Your brother might have his own ideas about what he can and cant do but without talking I don't see how you will understand them.
Good luck 🤞

Agree completely with this. You do you and let your brother figure out his own role. I don’t have a super big close relationship with either of my parents for reasons I won’t go into. I am not and will not be spending all that much time taking care of them. If my siblings do that’s up to them. I won’t be guilted into it.

From what you write then yes you will be doing most of the work if your mother needs help. And like others have said you can't make your brother help if he doesn't want to. With a few exceptions in every family I know who has dealt with elder care the burden has not been carried evenly. Dh is doing everything right now - it is like the others - with one exception - just don't see what needs to be done.

Do you get on ok with your brother? Could you talk to him about your concerns? As your mother needs more help you could ask him to pay for help if he isn't willing to spend time with her maybe.

Another thing is that siblings have different relationships with their parents. Your brother may feel he owes your mother nothing while you don't feel like that.

Why have you posted this twice, using different usernames?!

It isn’t up to your brother to do an equal share to however much you decide to do. Do how much you are happy with, but let your brother decide what he is happy with and don’t think he is obligated to help.

I think it will probably come down to you but it doesn’t mean you just need to accept this. Get carers in to help.

Some people put everything into family others stand back and let everyone else do the work saying they don't owe anyone anything ....human kind can be cruel.

What would you like your brother to do and have you discussed this with him?

When our Mum was alive and frail, my sibling did most of the "helping". Mum lived alone in accommodation that had pull cords to call for help, key boxes outside and such.

But my sibling did all Mums shopping, visited her for an hour or so most days, Mum always had Sunday lunch with sibling and family.

I visited, with my adult child, once a week for a couple of hours.

I worked full time (up at 5:30am home by 7:00pm) lived 25 miles away and didn't have my own car. I was also a single parent albeit child was an adult by then.

Sibling lived round the corner from Mum and worked part time. Both of us had adult children by the time Mum got frail, though my sibling had a reliable partner.

I dealt with Mums paper work (claiming Attendance Allowance, paying her contribution to the carers that she needed etc) but that really was not on a par with what my sibling did. What Mum needed most in her life was company, and my sibling provided that in spades.

But short of moving house and giving up my job (Mum lived in a small village with very poor public transport) what else could I do?

I was and am (though Mum has been dead for over 15 years no) grateful to my sibling for what they did.

So what is it you want your sibling to do?

I don't think you're being unreasonable and it is actually really, really hard to care for a parent when you have siblings who assume you will pick it up. You need to have a conversation with him first and foremost, and then on the back of that both of you need to have a conversation with your mum about expectations and what she might need, and how those needs might be met from other sources. Please do not leave it until 'later' because if she comes to rely on you and only you it can feel like it's crushing you.

Not sure what you want your sibling to do. Having a busy job and living a long way away can be pretty limiting on what is feasible.

As others have said, you can’t dictate what someone else is going to do, only be clear about what you are prepared to do yourself.
I’d look into professional care if it’s getting to much.

I completely agree with this.
I may face similar in the future and being in a position to not be able to stop work or reduce my hours one of my siblings may feel they have more responsibility, work issues aside personal choice in this is valid also.
I think the answer is to employ some of the care and though it may sound harsh i don't think the person being cared for has priority in the choice of this .

Another thing is that siblings have different relationships with their parents. Your brother may feel he owes your mother nothing while you don't feel like that.

This.

My parents with help from my sister and I looked after our maternal grandparents, grandfather had to go in a nursing home due to his Alzheimer’s, nursing home was 5 min away.

My aunt, her oldest daughter lived 12 hours drive away and afaik she rarely spoke to her mother on the phone and probably went 5+ years before they saw each other. Not sure if she helped financially, tbh.

My uncle, her oldest son, was NC with both her and his father. Not sure the details but my mother didn’t talk to him either especially after they died, dad still does though. He lives less than 30 minutes away.

Second Uncle, youngest son, came by from time to time (I can count on one hand how many times I saw him the 13 months I was there). I think the most he did was bring food (and praised for it for what my dad told me) but didn’t contribute nowhere near what our mother did and he lived 5 minutes away.

Go and have a read of the elderly parents board.

It’s full of selfish parents who have more than enough money buy in as much help as they need, but they put it all on their children, expecting their adult children to put their own and their families needs to one side, to be at the selfish elderly parents beck and call for free.

Good for your brother for having some boundaries, I’ll bet you barely even get a ‘thank you’ for everything you already do.

Neither of you are obligated to do anything, as others have said.

Honestly this is up to you and him to decide for yourselves but in reality he lives far away and works long hours in a demanding job. The chances of him changing that to care for an elderly mother is vanishingly small.
my dh sister keeps trying to arrange rotas for their elderly parents and gets really annoyed when her brothers don’t row in with it but the reality is that they all work long hours during the week and have young kids who they don’t want to give us spending time with every third weekend . She ends up doing every weekend which isn’t fair on her but she had decided that they her parents need a child visiting them each weekend.
im sure she’s frustrated with her brothers but it’s all about personal choice .

What are you actually doing?

You say your mother is coping well - what are her needs?

You say she is deteriorating - in what way? mobility/cognition

As long as she can do things, she should keep doing things even if it's more slowly / in a limited way - so more basic food/ aids to get dressed/ mobility aids.

Ageing can be a long slow process. I wouldn't rush to step in until it is absolutely necessary and then I would look at outside help first.

What your brother chooses to do is entirely up to him.

You cannot make choices for yourself and then moan that 'you're doing it all', especially if it doesn't need doing yet.

If he lives quite far away and has a demanding job, from a practical point of view it is unlikely that there is much he can do.

Also, you can't force someone to provide care and it is clear that your brother has made his choice already in term of what support he can provide.

You can also choose to have better boundaries and make it clear to your parent that you will not be able to provide regular care and that they need to start thinking about professional carers or whether they will be able to stay in their own home or will need to move into a care home.