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)

It’s a wonder no one has mentioned care and their entitlement to inheritance ( haven’t read all posts. ) Unfortunately for some, it is sometimes the case that the most devoted carers of relatives, some who have given up careers and savings in order to care for them, get overlooked in favour of those who haven’t been near the old ‘uns in years!

I did not want to be in my current position, but things happen

I am trying to make the most of the situation

I lived 250 miles away
One parent passed away (remaining parent did help care for other parent)
No siblings
I travelled frequently to provide help & care
More health issues occurred
Parent refused to move to my location
We both sold our properties
We bought a property together
I gave up my good job
I am now a FT care £333 a month) & I sometimes work PT (round parent hospital appointments) & living on savings.
Parent receives attendance allowance
I am now responsible for elderly parent.

I have friends who are in 60s caring for their parents in their 90s

Lots of us out here!

Every time that I'm told to do paperwork online for anything, my heart sinks.

I think I recognise your username from education threads? I used to run a school faculty and - of course - I had to do all the admin for that online. Now that I'm no longer working and on my own, my confidence has gone.

Four years ago, I managed to do the bulk of the admin for my husband's estate by myself, but at least I was able to see people face-to-face.

I now manage to cope with doing my banking online, but it's taken me a while. I prefer to do things face to face, for fear of making mistakes. At the moment, my town still has actual banks but I worry about what will happen if the branches here finally close.

My local council now wants everything done online instead of at council offices. Sometimes, the forms are far from intuitive. (In spite of the fact that the one council system - for council tax - has my current address, a council worker input my old address after my husband died. I emailed several times to try to get that sorted out.)

It's supposed to be possible to use an online account to deal with all council related matters. I find that the online forms are badly laid out. You'll find yourself clicking on a link that doesn't work or being sent right back to the beginning. Thus far, I've been able to find workarounds, but my concern is that I'll not be able to do that forever.

So far as banking is concerned, I don't have all my savings with my main bank. I've resisted setting up online banking with my the bank where I have my ISA because I've read that it's security is not quite what it should be and I'm terrified of making a slip that's going to cost me my savings.

I've already had a near miss where I nearly allowed a scammer to access my mobile phone account of all things. (In my defence, it was early in the morning when they phoned, but I nearly fell for it, because part of the scam involved messaging where - I later realised - I couldn't see all the screen at once.) Fortunately, I cottoned on before it was too late.

I'm assuming that they intended to use my account to order expensive iPhones or the like.

Thinking about it, my main problem is that my confidence has gone. At the moment, I can manage to do online ordering via Amazon and the like without too much difficulty, but I wonder when that ability will go.

Reading about those with siblings, I do think I am possibly lucky to be an only DC.
Sure all the burden falls to me, but I am fortunate that DH is helping- his DPs passed away many years ago, and even DS19 taking his DGF our for lunch on occasion.
It seems with siblings there is a lot of judgment of who does what, and I suspect I would be cast in the role of DC who does not do enough, despite doing what I feel is a fair old amount considering I work and live an hour away. Thankfully DPs like to remain as autonomous as they can, DM has discovered she can book ambulance transport for hospital visits, so that’s what she does - couldn’t take her in the car anyway as she is immobile.
I will go to key hospital /doctor visits once we reach the stage where DM can’t talk anymore, but there’s no point jumping in just now.

My mum - I’ll move countries for her, and do any organising she needs. Fill the freezer, do the dishes. Ring every day. I’ll pay for the personal care even though she’d pay. I’ll tell her how great she’s doing.

My in-laws - I’ll go to our caravan every weekend and tell everyone how wonderful a DIL I am.

Why? Because that’s how they’ve treated us since our DD came along.

You reap what you sow.

Elderly people get lonely

Elderly people get anxious

On top of all their health issues

The unpalatable truth is that we do not have the resources to care for the needs of our ever growing numbers of ever more frail and ill elderly people.
We have the scientific know-how to keep people alive for much longer but we do not have the ability or the resources to make their lives enjoyable.

You will be lucky to get away with it. There is the expectation from all services that family will step up. SW told me we have limited resources, family must fill that gap
A recent example. My mother limited mobility, housebound, some dementia so unable to organise herself. Had a leg ulcer that needed twice weekly dressing, District Nurses would not come to her "she is not housebound as can get it a car", me "she hasn't got a car". Bluntly told that it's down to family to arrange this

My parents lived in social housing 3 hours drive away from me. After my DF died, my DM asked if she could use her savings to build a granny annexe on the side of my house and come and live in it, so I could help her when she needed it. Thankfully, the £20k they had nowhere was nowhere near the cost of building an annexe, so I didn't have to say no!

She had dementia and I used to get a phone call from her most days, panicking because she only £20-something in the bank and stuff, so I went up and we visited the bank and they agreed to put the account in our joint names. We still had the daily "All the money's gone!" conversation, though, plus several others (neighbours spying on her, asking when DF would be back from wherever he was working overseas etc) . My DB was unable to help, he was living almost as far away, has severe MH issues and had only recently been discharged from a long spell of being detained under section. I managed to get a referral to a service that had volunteers who'd visit the single elderly weekly, a keysafe fitted and stuff like that.

There's no way I could have cared for her, I was working full-time, stuck in an abusive marriage and starting the bloody war that my divorce turned out to be. It sounds awful, but it was a relief when she died less than a year later.

I'm childfree by choice, and resigned to having to carers come in to help when I can no longer fend for myself, and to have all my savings and equity in the house spent on care home fees.

Do you both have siblings? Realistically will probably end up on their laps because most people (excepting abuse or neglect as children) are not going to refuse to help their parents and leave them to the tender care of public services. So I’d be clear with them and with your parents/PIL, acknowledge that wills should be changed to favour the children who are prepared to help - this is fair and they be will more likely to realise how serious you are. If there are no siblings, it becomes more tricky - there are state services but your parents may want to consider an advocate, transferring POA to their own siblings or maybe a niece or nephew? Have these conversations when everyone is of sound mind and body and then…. You live with your decisions!

Dont think it is patronising.They may have been living with technology for 30 year but that doesnt mean that they have all learned how to use it.
My mother who is early 70s refuses point blank to deal with anything other than cash or cheque. She won't buy anything at all online using her bank details. She is happy for others to irder ut for her and then gives them a cheque as payment. She won't have online banking. She will go and draw out cash. She has sky tv but won't allow anyone to show her how to work it in the respect of recording and catch up tv. She then complains bitterly about missing a tv program if she hasn't turned the channel over in time. She won't deal with any utility companies, insurance etc I have to do all of that for her. Several of her friends appear to be similar.

how screwed would they be? Depends entirely on what happens to them as they age. If they decline gradually into being frail or having dementia, they will need someone to advocate for them. To contact social services (unless you prefer them to be found living in squalor, possibly by the police or a neighbour) when they need help.

it also depends entirely what you see as ‘help’. You can ‘help’ without getting involved in personal care. I don’t have any intention of doing that, but I would certainly step in to help with administration, organising care, sorting out accommodation.

Do you and your partner really only visit to say hello? Would you carry on doing that and ignoring obvious signs of decline so you don’t have to get involved? Do you care about your parents and what happens to them? It seems only fair, if they cared for you as a baby, to repay that care in some way.

This is heartbreaking, Weary. Thank God your DH had you to advocate for him in hospital - essential imo, but not everyone has someone with them who cares about them. Thank you for telling us this.💗

In the past it was at the cost of women’s time, lives and careers. My mum looked after granny 1 and then granny 2 and almost lost her mind in the process but it was expected. I would not advocate for anyone having to do that.

Now children can’t or struggle to provide that care. It’s on the elderly or the state. Not sure what the answer is, really.

That’s awful. Once again thank goodness we live in Scotland, I will maybe stop moaning about paying extra taxes as DMs council has been excellent about getting carers in place.
Ironically DPs could easily afford private care, but having seen the push back on some things, I am so glad that’s a battle I don’t have to fight.

@lessglittermoremud

Agreed.

With regard to my late parents, a lot of the care involved helping with hospital appointments and so on. When dementia took hold of Mum, I also had to do all the admin. (Previously she had done all of it.)

With regard to my late husband, it would have made such a difference if his kids had visited him in hospital. They lived a good bit away, but - for example - one time changed a planned holiday because there was "no point in coming up when Dad's in hospital - we'll see him when he gets home". They had planned to stay with their mother and her partner. I suspect that they didn't want to lose part of their holiday to hospital visits.

The reason that he was still in hospital was because there had been complications following his triple heart bypass.

He was in hospital for 4 months following his stroke. Thankfully, his son flew up and saw him in hospital for half an hour.

His daughter wasn't working - she was on a career break. I didn't expect her to come up during term time - her child was still at secondary school - but I did think that she would come up during the school holidays. (She could definitely have afforded it.) She waited until he was no longer in hospital.

I twice asked DH's son to intervene when I felt that the hospital wasn't taking me seriously over DH's care. The first time I believe that he did have a word when he flew up after the stroke. The second time, he copied me the letter that he had sent to the ward where he told them to refer to me if they had any further questions.

Does your DM have care visits to help you out? Can she get Attendance Allowance to pay for it while living with you?

I agree!
Society has shifted such that it's more difficult for men to force women to make the sacrifices. Women have better opportunities to have well-paid jobs, meaning that they can be financially independent from men and the option to have children with a man so that he will support you financially is much less attractive.

This is why the right wing is looking to have women pushed back to 'barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen'. It concerns me that the blame for all the ills in society will be pushed on to women, our new found freedom will be seen as the cause of all the problems.

@WearyAuldWumman , I know just how you feel about online stuff. Some of it is really badly designed imo, and as you say, sends you round in circles. I do my banking online, have done for years, but won't do it by phone partly because I'm scared of fucking it up but mostly because the mobile signal where I live is pisspoor.

I was pleasantly surprised the other day when I had to renew my driving licence. I started doing it online and it only took a minute, and the new licence arrived within 48 hours.

I'm still working (p/t) at the moment, but will be giving it up by the end of the year. I'm aware that my memory is nowhere near as good as it used to be and suspect I may be in the early stages of dementia. I've no idea if it's hereditary, but both parents had it.

I think YABU. I think you have a moral obligation to look out for your family. Yeah they can pay for their care but you’ll probs be needed to help with admin side of it.

why wouldn’t you want to do it for people who have spent their lives worrying about you and thinking of your best interests.

assuming no backstory of abuse etc, I find it really unpleasant to not look after those special people in your life if you can. Isn’t that what makes life? The connection and time we spend with people that matter? Making each other’s life easier? Enriching it?

Also because of house prices many people are spread out. You may want to help but logistically can't do much

It really does depend.

After his stroke, DH was supposed to get interim care three times a day. (Mum had moved in with us and did have a care package - she had severe dementia and osteoporosis.)

The interim care team came in the first day, took one look at me and cut DH's visits to once a day. He was supposed to have them for a few weeks, I recall. I don't think that they lasted for any longer than a week.

I felt that there was an expectation that I would quit my job.

ETA I did all Mum's night-time care and the stroke ward told me that it was my job to take DH a urine bottle in the middle of the night. (No, I wasn't asking anyone else to do that. It's just that there was never any account taken of the fact that I was working.)

It's dementia that I fear: Mum and her father both had it.

Do you have any community classes that you could take to help build your confidence? Where I live there are free or very low cost community recreation programs that cover some of these topics.

This is the bleakest response to a post I have ever read.

I'm wondering what sort of parents you had, @Finteq to provoke such a reply. Presumably damagingly awful.