To ask if you refused to help with older relatives and how that went down?

[Fragmentedbrain]

I have 2 parents and 2 parents in law closing in on needing care. Reading other threads here it sounds as though this has a high chance of ruining my life over the next decade or so.

My husband and I work full time, love our jobs and don't have any caring responsibilities or instincts, not even a cat. I don't want to give up work or holidays or enjoying this bit of my life before I in turn am too old.

If we refuse to get involved beyond visits to say hello, how screwed are our parents?

(As we are child free I am not worried about any example setting although appreciate the relationship with siblings could get tricky)

In theory this is fine. Until they can't find help, or the help isn't reliable or dependable. The care sector is completely broken.

How will they know what care they will need to arrange? What if they have dementia? You are really not being realistic. It's not just about care, it's also advocacy.

I know I couldn’t just turn a blind eye though. And what kind of care system do you think is out there? What about someone to sit with them in appointments to remember what’s said? Someone to help sort out confusion at the pharmacy, to arrange a cleaner. There are countless necessary jobs that carers won’t do.

Im sorry but it’s selfish and heartless to ignore your parents needs and encourage a world where people don’t help each other. Most people don’t even live until their 90s!

That actually happened to an elderly friend of mine (since deceased). It was a cold day and she popped out of the back door for something. She came indoors and fell over. She laid there for over 24 hours with the back door still open. Fortunately, her youngest DS arrived the following evening and had to climb over the back gate to get in. I have no idea how she didn't die from hyperthermia!

Well you dumped her so...

I really get this. I loved my Mum dearly and was happy to help her and my disabled sibling (who lived with her). But I also ended up supporting her elderly neighbour whose selfish offspring lived abroad and couldn't give a damn. Things came to a crisis when my Mum got cancer and I could no longer help said neighbour too. By the way I was a full time working single parent through all this. After constantly emailing her offspring they agreed to pay for care ( set up by me!) but their Mum refused most of it, had several serious falls and finally ended up in a care home miles away from her home and friends. My beloved Mum died and we found a lovely home for my siblings. But I was exhausted. I now have bad arthritis and have just returned to work after a total knee replacement. I'm worn out at 64 and really wish I'd put in boundaries at the start of all this. I shouldn't have helped the neighbour but got her offspring to pick up the slack. And I should have insisted my Mum got other support so I wasn't exhausted and the time we had together was fun and enjoyable. Not an endless round of chores. Don't make the same mistakes as me!

@BooneyBeautiful poor woman. She must have felt very scared and vulnerable.

It’s not petulant, it’s fact. You are being overly emotional and waah waah, not me ☺️ I haven’t said anything about what I would do. Some people are child free by choice because they don’t want to spend their lives caring for others, why would they feel beholden to give up their lives for someone else.

Exactly this. What a truly shitty attitude to have. I couldnt be married to someone with such a view of their parents (although seems in this case both like that).
If my sisters were like this towards my mum, id happily do it all myself but theyd take their life in their hands ever coming near me again!

If you want to fall out with your family indefinitely, then go ahead and don’t help out.

We have a big rift in our family right now due to one individual refusing to do anything. It causes a lot of anger and resentment.

It’s your life of course nobody can tell you what you should and shouldn’t do however be wary of repercussions if you decide you don’t want to get involved.

Remember they are your parents. Do you love them?

I don't particularly like either of my parents. I visit and call regularly only out of duty.

I will absolutely not be putting my life on hold to care for them. I will continue to visit and help to organise things, but that's it.

I knew world is not as selfless to care for strangers but not giving a dam about your own parents (assuming they had been a wonderful parents to you) is another level of self centered-ness. I just wish that you and your husband does not ever find yourself in a vulnerable position where either your mind or body is struggling. In fact I wonder what would you do if one of you need care (that does not necessarily happen only in old age you know !) with that attitude you probably won't have anyone coming to help you either (unless your poor parents or siblings do it for the sake of their love). Those who are staying "if childless people like us can take care of themselves, then why can't they' - well you don't know if you can or can't do it because you are not quite there yet. Even if you hire carer for physical needs , mental loneliness and feeling of no one to lean on is the worst.

Wow, I’m quite shocked by your coldness. No, you shouldn’t have to turn in to a carer/quit your job/sacrifice your career, but do you honestly not want to help ringing social services to get your DPs an assessment? Visit a few care homes or help your DPs book a cleaner and meals on wheels etc?

If your DPs and ILs developed dementia and couldn’t do the above themselves, what would you and DH do?

My DM is very good to elderly neighbours and church acquaintances, picking up shopping or liaising with far away children etc. She does it because she’s a decent human being. In reality it saves the people’s own kids a lot of worry and hassle.

If you don’t want to help, that’s on you and your conscience - but I hope you don’t end up one of the selfish people who leaves it to local friends and neighbours to pick up the pieces instead.

At first when I read this post I was irritated but I’m actually quite sad for you. You are so selfish that you cannot even be bothered that your parents may need you and may suffer but you don’t care as long as they don’t get in the way of your life plans. What ever happened to love and care and helping the very people that did everything for you. What a sad life you will live as it seems if there’s in it for you, you won’t be interested. You are right no one will bother caring for you either. Let’s hope you never have any issues and never need any one to turn to in your hour of need. If we all lived by this mantra what an even crappier world this would be. Good luck living your perfect life with no responsibilities

Personal experience of this today. DH was unwell yesterday and got taken into hospital in the middle of the night, chest infection. Call this morning, noooo no infection, he's coming home (it is a military operation because he's bed bound)

Open his bag to find antibiotics, presumably for the infection he doesn't have. Only they're in the penicillin group. He's allergic to penicillin. After calls to surgery and hospital, TC from very apologetic registrar who is launching a formal investigation.

I worked in Adult Social Care for nearly 30 years. I have seen everything, valiant spouses who are 90+ themselves not "wanting to be a bother " and having to be gently strongarmed into accepting help featured large. The advocacy and oversight thing is very, very important because I'm not 90+ and I know the system but could easily have ended up doing something that could have harmed him, totally inadvertently.

None of us know how we'll end up, or when. No, I don't think people should automatically give up their lives to give hands on care, it often isn't practical or reasonable, but if you have a decent relationship with your older relatives, why would you see them struggle and fail if you can help?

I think this is true. I don't anticipate my childless (not by choice) old age to be a happy one. I think I will feel lonely, vulnerable and scared.

All these people talking about how awful it is not to dote on your wonderful parents! I expect you'll find that many, many people don't have wonderful parents and feel no compunction to be running round after them in their dotage.

My dad had no interest in me whatsoever and I don't miss him at all and if I didn't phone her then my mum would never speak to me - unless she needed me to do something.

Do what's right for you OP.

I'd say that helping to organise things is a big help.

I don't really get this thinking. Presumably people have kids because they WANT them? No one asked them to? And watching a kid grow up is a lot more joyous than watching someone get old, frail and die. I know who got the better deal out of the two! I'm not saying I wouldn't help my mother, but I'm literally terrified of having that responsibility.

Thank you for sharing this, Uricon. I'm glad that your husband is getting home.

The two things don’t equate do they.

If you are child free by choice, how will that make you exempt from caring duties? You will still have parents!

Yes, it must have been terrifying! ASC weren't involved, so she didn't have a care alarm or anything.

Why did it sting? She rewarded people who had helped her and presumably became close to her at a time when she needed to feel close to others. Well done to her. And to them. I hope the money helped them.

Well I hope your not expecting any type of inheritance from both sets of parents. I get that you don't want to get involved in their care and that's fine. But wouldnt you want to just drop in on them to check that they are comfortable, maybe even have a chat with them.
I am of south Asian heritage and this is very strange to me. We would never put our parents in a home or leave them alone to live, that is very alien to most of us. They are loved and cared for until their last days. If in the event they couldn't be looked after at home they would go into residential care and they would be visited regularly by the family. My mil was in a nursing home as she needed specialist care but she was visited by her children nearly everyday until the day she died.
When my dad and my inlaws were in hospital for treatments, it was really noticeable which patients never had any family to visit regularly and you could see the sadness in them.
In general south Asians have very close family networks and we look after each other in times of need. And by family networks I'm not just talking about parents, I'm talking about uncles and aunts, cousins, nieces and nephews and we wouldnt have it any other way.