AIBU to think that a gift isn’t really a gift if it’s being a carer on holiday?

[AmazonDiamond]

My mother is quite wealthy and is 89. She’s in pretty good health on the whole but she’s got mobility and cognition (not dementia but age related decline) issues. Her financial adviser has recommended that to avoid 40% inheritance tax on her assets as much as possible, she should gift £6k a year (the limits to avoid the 7 year inheritance tax rule is £3k plus another £3k if it’s interest earned on investment and you can prove you don’t need it to live on). She has excellent pensions which give her an income far in excess of what she needs or wants to spend, 4 children and numerous grandchildren. So she could give away £6k a year no problem.

Instead of giving her children the money (and of course she doesn’t need to give it to us - she can give it to a charity or anywhere!) she says that she wants to use the money to pay for us to take her away on holidays. So her gift is us taking her away on holiday. Not all together but each of us taking her away in turn.

I work full time, have three kids (two with SEN) and a limited holiday allowance. AIBU in thinking this isn’t really a gift and is actually working?

For context, I do most of the day to day caring as she moved to be very close to me after my dad died 6 years ago.

She keeps badgering me about where I want to go. I do love her very much but this wouldn’t be a holiday. I don’t know how to say to her that I don’t want to take her on holiday without really hurting her feelings. I’ve suggested a series of day trips but she keeps pushing back with that not being very relaxing for me. She really has no idea that she is not at all relaxing to be with.

If anyone has any good ideas how I could say thanks but no thanks I would love to hear it. And I don’t want her money at all.

OP spends plenty of time with her!

As someone who has recently done this, just wanted to send solidarity and to say stay strong! My mum 'treated' to me to what under normal circumstances would be considered a luxury holiday, but it was the longest, hardest week of my life. Since we'd booked the trip a few months earlier her health had deteriorated, so as well as other medical conditions she was also severely incontinent. I was a full time carer, with no escape. And I had to buy an extra weeks annual leave from work to cover this trip.

I have a good relationship with my mum and will support as much as I can, but that trip nearly broke me.

Go with her and leave her at the bottom of the steps! Take loads of photos but then sit down in a café for an hour.

I'd just say that as you work full time and two of the kids have sen you hardly get any quality time with them as it is, you have limited annual leave and its the only real quality time you get with your children so you can't really take more than a couple of days out of that allowance without it affecting them

Me and DP used to take my elderly mother for a week's holiday once a year.Paid by us. Always self catering as that was our preference. She was pretty independent at home, though we lived nearby and had contact daily, we did some heavy work for her and shopping etc. She wasnt disabled but had reduced mobility just due to age, however she was very emotionally needy. Couldn't have more than an hour without us. She used to try and inveigle the best room (double/king size bed, en-suite etc) but we stood firm on that as we wanted to sleep together, but she always got the best seat-window with the view, etc. She didnt have to lift a finger at any time, and all outings/activities were planned around her.
We found it extremely hard work, never having time on our own, making sure she was happy, meeting her needs, being judged if we had more than two glasses of wine on an evening, and on balance could say we enjoyed the week maybe 30% at most.
We were lucky that we had no other caring responsibilities, so the week, though challenging, wasn't draining. We look back and laugh at some of the memories now.

In your position, I wouldn't contemplate taking her on holiday, I just wouldn't have had the patience, inner resources, or emotional resilience to make it enjoyable for either her or myself.

I would go for one holiday. She's 89, she's unlikely to have many more chances and it might be nice for you to have that one last holiday with her but maybe do a long weekend away rather than a week to save your holiday allowance.

This is a great idea, but she can pay for the whole thing AND give you £6k.

She really has no idea that she is not at all relaxing to be with.

this is the crux of of matter and you have my sympathy.

is the work of being with her just the caring duties, or also her personality?

either way I think you have to either: Make excuses, such as limited annual leave that you’d rather spend with your family. Or spell it out. Point out that caring duties mean wouldn’t be a relaxing holiday for you.

what if she paid for a carer to come, as well as you? So your only role would be company? Would that make it something you’d actually enjoy?

I find it rather telling that she’s been advised to give you a gift, but instead has come up with something that benefits her. Sounds rather selfish.

Perhaps you should just gently point out to her what you've said here because it explains it very well.
You do most of the caring. Relaxing for you would be a break where you don't need to care for anyone.
Suggest if she really wants to treat you she does something more suitable.

Can you go somewhere like a Nielson or mark warner holiday which includes clubs for the DC, meals included, activities for you from yoga to sailing to mountain biking, and your mum can enjoy being abroad, read by the sea or pool, be in the pool with DC etc
Minimal thinking or planning required by you but also minimal moving around with your DM, if she doesn’t require too much care and can cope with being in a room by herself?

We have done this and seen many other 3 generation family groups doing the same.

Oh @AmazonDiamond I am in a very similar position to you. My DM is also late 80s, wealthy and keen to spend on us - which is really, really generous. But the strings that come with it are sometimes just too much.

My DM too wants to go on holiday with me but she is hard work, more in that she is judgemental although her physical decline is more noticeable now.

I think all I could commit to is a long weekend away.

Similar - My mum was going to take me on a cruise when Dad died. She'd be saving up to £14k A MONTH (yes a month, for 24 hour care) and was very free and easy with her potential savings

in the end we went abroad and I paid £1,000 for the "privilege"

My sensible siblings wouldn't have dreamt of being so stupid as to offer to take her, be her carer and pay for themselves.

Yes would it work for her to pay for a very expensive holiday with you and a carer to do the the helping so that you could actually enjoy it? Or are there hotels that have caring built in? I have never looked into this, but I'm thinking a service a bit like what kinder hotels do for children?

She is 89. Quite possibly she would have "adjusted her expectations" twenty years ago but many, if not most very elderly people become very set in their routines and extremely inflexible in their ways and forget that others have different ways of doing things. Their world has diminished and they genuinely do not consider that they are behaving selfishly. When my elderly mother visits us, everything is arranged around her needs and wants - even the television seems to be changed to her programmes. This is fine for a few days in one's own home but a very different proposition when on holiday. @AmazonDiamond, I think you are going to have to be very politely firm. You could say that a long weekend in Eastbourne really is the most you can do as you do not have enough holiday from work. To be honest, most very elderly people would find more than two nights in a hotel overwhelming in any case. She probably has fond memories of past holidays when she was younger and fitter, forgetting that this is impossible now.

But stipulations on what to spend on (herself) then mean it's not a IHT free gift as she retains some control. Gifts should be no strings. A Gift with Reservation of Benefit (GWR) is still subject to IHT

I don't think a holiday has anything to do with inheritance tax. She's muddled perhaps? Or just after a nice holiday or two where she spends it with her kids and her kids look after her!

Perfectly ok to say no.

My MIL used to "treat" us each summer to a week with them in a place of their choice. They would pay accomodation and our limited budget would have to spend money on food and transport for a holiday that didnt feel like a holiday to us. But now she's dead we're really pleased we put in the effort for her and gave her the family time that she wanted.

I think the problem is that it's gotten mixed up with this whole gift/inheritance tax business and so you're finding it hard to see it as what it is, which is a gift for her. You have more sway over the holiday than we did so modify it in terms of length and venue to something you can get through and make some memories. Shortening it to a weekend means you can go somewhere expensive with kids/teens activities built in perhaps?

Does it count as part of the gift allowance if she’s spending it on a holiday? Surely that something that can be put down to just a regular payment rather than as a gift, if that’s what she’s wanting to do with the money.

There's a lot of crucial detail missing from the OP's posts when it comes to assessing what's reasonable/manageable. For example, I am not clear as to whether the OP is a single parent or whether the children's Dad could look after them for a weekend while the OP goes on a weekend break with her Mum to a nice hotel somewhere in the UK. I am also not clear how much care the OP's Mum needs, eg whether she can wash and dress herself and take herself off to the toilet when needed or whether she will require a high level of personal care from the OP. That makes a big difference.

Other issues aside, I’d have thought the sort of holiday she’d want would probably not be at all the sort of thing you and your children would enjoy.

My point is…. The reaction of the DM to the OP pointing out that her circumstances simply can’t do a full weeks holiday - will be telling. I get the impression, the DM won’t accept that as an answer and keep on at the Op, which 89 or 39 - is selfish behaviour.

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Thanks all. Interesting to have different perspectives.

To answer a couple of things

She won’t do a big family holiday - the dynamics don’t work for many reasons. Which is why she hit on the idea of each of us choosing a lovely holiday and her coming along too.

She’s already got holidays booked with two of my siblings and is in planning stages with the other. I think she feels like I should get an equal ‘reward’ in terms of holiday value as the first of those holidays is in March.

I have more recent experience than my siblings of getting her through an airport (v hard work) so will be interesting to hear the feedback on that. Part of the issue is that her short term memory is getting pretty bad and so you have the same conversations over and over again.

I told her yesterday that I don’t have the holiday to take a week off (and it would mean DH taking time off too to manage the kids on his own) and she asked me again today. She then suggested we do a cruise around the U.K. that she’d read an article about. It’s 14 nights! 😅

I can’t remember who asked but yes, I would get time to myself but only an hour or so here and there when she has a rest. She has surprising amounts of energy. I don’t lack quality time with her and will not regret this as a chance to spend time together before she pops her clogs. I speak to her every day and see her 2-3 times a week. We go out to Sunday lunch (just the two of us) once a month and I go and watch tv programmes we both enjoy at her house to keep her company. Three nights in a swanky hotel in an interesting place would feel like a break and is short enough for me to be patient and kind.

And I would never go away with her and my kids all at once. We’d never get through the airport (or I’d end up spending the week in airside Wetherspoons while the rest of them jetted off which isn’t a bad idea come to think of it 😂 )

You don’t answer the key question - do you have a close and loving relationship whereby if you explain your situation, she will be totally understanding?

Just leave her chilling on the sun lounger with a margharita and you enjoy time in the pool with your kids lol