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)

"most people would rather deny an unpleasant reality through pretending it’s not happening and deceiving themselves that their adult offspring are just offering a modicum of support, whilst said person is pretzelling themselves trying to manage care and work"

Thanks @rookiemere - this made me laugh. The description of pretzelling would fit my life. It wasn't at all easy. To the person who asked how you manage medical appointments which are during the week - the answer is with difficulty. It is especially hard when mobility issues get to the point that it is difficult to use taxis or private cars.

You have absolutely no idea how you will react until you are in the position. In laws have both been diagnosed with dementia. MIL's behaviour became irratic and she tried to kill someone when she was in respite. She went into a home after that. There is no way on this earth that we could have cared for her at home.

I think people project how they will feel when they become older - its an understandable fear. Do you really want your children sacrificing their time to look after you - sacrificing time with their partner and children to look after your needs. I certainly don't. They need to live their lives without burden.

Try and get a plan in place. Get power of attorney for health and finance whilst everyone is fit and well. Buy in care and draw lines as to how much you are willing to do/sacrifice. You can say no. We made it absolutely clear that my in laws needed to move into assisted living if they wanted our assistance and moved them out of their house miles away to be nearer to us. We put down boundaries and see them a couple of times a week to do washing/get groceries for my fil whilst my husband battles prostate cancer. Everything is calm - for the moment. 😀

I think we are all talking at cross purposes as you seem to be doing quite a lot. Twice a week visits and help with washing/groceries would be way more than I expected!

Its not really care though is it - just visiting your mum and dad as you would usually do. Going to sainsburys and adding a few items to your shop. Picking up a few clothes, washing them and bringing them back.

We are not there to get them up and get them dressed and then back to bed again. We are not there overnight.

I am hoping this will be enough for me. I don't want intimate care from DD. Would rather a stranger did that.

Maybe some intervention if the assisted living was really crap and mistreating me!

It’s pretty much what I did. I also did transport to medical appointments and dealt with the finances. No personal care other than a couple of times when it was unavoidable. The most important thing was advocacy, I dread to think what happens to really frail old people without stroppy adult children to stand up for them.

"Beyond visits to say hello.." Sorry but this is quite a callous post. There isn't much compassion being shown for both sets of parents more like they are a couple of irksome commodities! You don't specify what level of care is going to be needed but either way its not great to say you don't want your amazing life to be hindered. I provide POA and online help for my aged mother and make sure I visit and help her with little things. There is also a load of help out there with care in the home that can replace you. This doesn't affect my amazing life and ability to take holidays and I'm happy to do it. You will be old one day!

Assisted living has been great for fil and they really look out for him. We get a call to say he's not back yet. And then track him.

Absolutely no way I'm wiping anyone's bum. Except dh's.

Yes you can refuse to be hands on but realistically you need to be prepared to handle money, bills, care contracts etc . At the minimum get powers of attorney in place, you can contract out the above if needed but that costs money. Arranging taxis rather than giving lifts for instance is a good example but someone needs to set them up.

My FIL had an account set up for him with a taxi company. He loved it and used it a lot. As he didn't pay for each journey in cash he didn't fret about the cost as he would definitely have done otherwise. (One of his adult children paid on his behalf monthly).

I intend to do the same for my parents if/when necessary. Plus sort out a cleaner, supermarket delivery etc.

They refuse to move closer to me so I will just do what I can, however I am not going to put my life on hold or make myself ill looking after them.

As I said in a previous posters, I don't really like either of them and I had a difficult childhood where I never felt properly loved or ever good enough. I will do my duty because I try to behave well and honourably but I don't feel any love for them or enjoy spending time with them.

I'm sure that other people feel the same.

This is spot on and the commonest experience I see. Neither my parents nor in-laws lived with us, the care we and our siblings provided was in the form of advocacy and support and regular contact rather than personal care day to day.

I find comments like this I think burdens are lonely. Not being able to do what you want because of some human millstone very sad.
I never felt it was a burden - sometimes it was a hassle or an inconvenience and I’d be lying if there was never an eyeroll, especially with FiL. However advocacy, help with the digital nightmare navigating services and medical support and regular visits was not a burden and none of us had any regrets. We loved them. Like most parents I don’t want my DC to be providing personal care or similar for me (and I have built the resources that it will never be necessary) but I’m honest enough to know I’ll be grateful for their advocacy and support.

Also its all very well saying the current 90 somethings have had years to get used to digital systems but in practice a great many, especially women, did not have that kind of early exposure that made it easy for them to confidently navigate the endless changes in systems. Its a challenge for the most independently minded elder.
DM was quite happy doing online supermarket deliveries and banking and used specific shops and facetimed etc but needed some help if systems changed and was too conscious of the risks of scams to expand beyond those basics in her late 80s and 90s. Navigating medical appointments systems and health and social care services was a nightmare frankly - we had difficulties with it, how an unwell 90 something is meant to to do it I have no idea.
In the end we opted out of the “approved agencies” and found private carers which solved the care side of the problems.

People forget that the NHS would have looked after the very sick elderly not that long ago. My Dad was the main carer for his parents and once their illnesses were too much to manage they went into long stay hospitals. So many hospitals and bed places have been closed to be replaced by care homes or family having to cope. The whole NHS continuous care process is the only acknowledgment that the NHS was actually supposed to manage the care of the very ill.

It does mean family are much more involved even if they are just managing someone going into care and I don’t think the rest of society has caught up with what is going on. I actually have been through all this and decided to become a carer as for me it was the only way I felt in control of the situation and was the least worst option, I can’t judge what other people decide to do. Sometimes the supposed difficult decisions like becoming a carer are actually the most rewarding and the easy decision like not really bothering has the worst repercussions.

Have you considered therapy OP? You have an incredibly warped sense of how the world is

This is disturbing . As is the Switzerland comment.

if evreryone was a selfish as you, the world would be a very unhappy place

I don’t think the change is that recent. When my grandmother died in the 80s most of the old “geriatric hospitals” had already closed, the pressure on daughters to be full time carers (especially if the elder had no financial resources) was as bad as it is now with similarly low levels of support. However the systems were a lot less complex and easier to navigate.

It was another Thatcher decision, I don’t think much of what changed then has really been absorbed much like Blair’s government changes. If it’s in living memory I don’t count it as that long ago, it’s a big change and before the NHS existed there was still free healthcare for many in that situation. I have been in enough NHS wards to know that these decisions aren’t exclusively female and also been shocked at how ill someone can be when going into a care home, it’s literally we can’t do anything for you off you go.

im shocked how cold hearted you are what happened to the word "love" and wanting to help with some things because you love them and will be devastated if they are in pain of any kind. We're not talking pets or neighbors its your parents for gs😳

Some of us don't love our parents though for very good reasons.

Yes that is true and nobody should feel obliged to support someone who has abused or misused them. However this isn’t the case for the OP who has stated the opposite - they are good people, but providing any kind of support would be a “millstone.

I wouldn't presume to speak for the OP but I could easily imagine a fairly cold-seeming, logical cost/benefit analysis that comes out in the DH's favour. Again, not intended to be derogatory - this could very much include all sorts of reasons her life is better by him being in it than not, but if I were right her attitude would be likely to be very much based on her own interests one way or another, rather than strictly what is best for him regardless of her.

Alternatively, it could be based on a particular actively adopted morality about having to have actively adopted an obligation on order to be bound by it.

To be clear I am not suggesting that I am diagnosing the OP as a psychopath(!) but the frame of reasoning reads as so incomprehensibly bloodless to many that I think it's worth pointing out that they may be operating from very different frameworks of moving through the world.

Reading some posters' responses is like listening to a Christian trying to persuade an atheist round to their point of view on, say, veganism, using only Bible quotations. The discussion won't achieve anything because there are no basic assumptions shared to begin with!

I’m guessing both your parents and your DH parents know exactly the type of person you and your DH are. They are probably filled with absolute dread that you should become any type of “carer” “advisor” “someone to rely on” to them. I suspect they have already had discussions amongst themselves about what should happen as they grow older.
Why don’t you simply ask them what they’ve organised or are organising???
I’ve had discussions with my children and they are in no way lacking in empathy, but they have their lives, children and careers and I shouldn’t want them end up discussing on mums net - “what shall we do with the old f*s”

And I'd also like suggestions for how it works when you live 3 hours away.

In the real world, "love" sometimes has to come second to "logistics" I'm afraid.

Working full time, having a mortgage and bills to pay, living several hours away, having a marriage to keep healthy, a home to keep on top of, kids to look after and being careful to avoid burnout - it can't all be ringfenced and put on ice unfortunately.

I lived several hours away from both my parents and in laws. I also work in a demanding job with long hours - I’ve always been the main earner. Ironically being senior can bring a great deal more practical autonomy in how work is managed.

We (as in us and our siblings) split support according to what each of us were best placed for. Both had PoAs in place for medical and financial care but day to day I managed their machines remotely and could log in to help with any online problems/appointments/finances. One of my brothers was closer physically and better placed for odd jobs around the house. We all kept in regular conversations via facetime/skype as did the grandchildren. Medical appointments were often remote and joinable remotely, others we split between us depending on what was practical. At the point of more appointments there were also caring needs and we employed good carers who could be there for eg telephone appointments if we couldn’t.

We also shared weekends with siblings so yes, traveling every other week or every third/fourth week could be considered burdensome but it never really felt like it and we had no regrets.

It makes it so much easier when siblings are all available and on board. My only sibling lives abroad, so very different circumstances for me and many others also in my shoes.