Would this level of caring for a parent be too much?

[Overwhelmedandneedadvice]

If what is described below was your personal situation, would you be happy with this level of care for a parent (currently early 70s) until they die?

Current situation:
-Parent is 73 and has a degenerative illness that will affect them till they die
-You’re a single parent to two small children and expected to care for said parent every day (you live 5 mins away) as well as run your own household
-they won’t accept help from outside carers, only you and your sibling
-they need help with dressing and putting on shoes and socks
-help with toileting including wiping them after a poo and emptying their commode
-household chores
-cooking/food prep
-taking to weekly appointments
-getting ready for bed
-cannot go out alone so have to accompany them if they want to go anywhere

I’m sure there are other things I’ve forgotten but that’s the general gist.

If this was your life for the foreseeable future, would you feel happy to do these things and plan your life around them? If you make plans, you’re asked what time you will be round to help them.

Things like holidays have to be arranged
In far in advance to the other sibling can be there.

YABU: I would be happy to do these things daily for my parent
YANBU: I would find this too much - if this is your answer, how would you distance yourself? When I’ve said i feel like this is too much, I get lots of crying and guilt tripping making it impossible to back away, even a bit.

Can I make an observation?

You frame this as if it is your job to do everything and you can only stop doing it for even a day a week by "asking" and receiving permission.

I think your mum has manipulated you to such an extent that that is how you see the situation

But it isn't. You don't have to ask for permission to use your time and energy as you want. Your mum needs to ask nicely for support and you get to say no.

I would go a lot further than this and only make yourself available one day a week TBH and even that is a lot given you have young children

I guess you have not yet been in this situation and do not realise how hard it gets

My MIL also had a horrible degenerative disease and she needed A LOT of care. She rejected all outside carers, was adamant she doesn't want strangers caring for her.

She was told you have no choice. None of her 4 children or their spouses were up for it.

Not only did we bring in carers, she developed a wonderful relationship with them.

You basically treat her as a toddler who doesn't want to do something. A couple of warnings and then go ahead and do it. It's horrible at first but then they get used to it.

Rip off the band aid.

Are you aware that as an adult you alone have the sole ability and responsibility to make choices that impact your and your children's lives?
Currently you are choosing to abdicate that responsibility by your choice to allow your mother and brother to dictate how your and your children's lives are conducted. The way you're asking for permission to make your own choices is reminiscent of a victim of emotional abuse. Do you feel like you've been emotionally abused by your mother through your childhood and adult life. If so, you do need therapy to unpick the harm she's done to you.

If that isn't the case for you, then you are choosing to live like this. You can choose not not live like this. But I don't think you know you have any power. You do have power though. You are an adult. You can make your own choices. You don't need to ask permission from anyone. You could decide today to change anything you like in your life. What's your fear here? Disapproval? A loss of love? Do you feel loved or approved of right now? If you do, is it worth your health and your children's happiness?

So make a decision in the best interests of yourself and your children and take the practical steps to follow through on it. It's not a request your making. It's not a conversation that you're having. It's actual action that you need to take, the implications of which will be obvious to your mum and brother and they can sort out the impact.

I'm sorry you are struggling.

There is absolutely no way I would be doing what you do.

Your DB can get her up every day. You can help get her to bed every night.

You can clearly toilet herself currently.

Remove all the toys. Tidy/clean the house once a week. DB can do strip the bed/do the washing.

If the above is still too much for you, just do what you can.

Carers are available.

Op, remember her "doesn't want to" doesn't trump yours. The Elderly Parents board may be helpful.

This. You help where you can but your children should be your priority.

Tough love from @ToSayYouHaveNoChoiceIsAFailureOfImagination but OP there's a lot of power in there.

I think it would really help you to see these conversations as attempts to exert power. There is a lot of power in defining the rules of the game. Your mum and brother are setting out the boundaries with you doing all the giving. Other options including your brother doing half they are simply wiping off the table. Your first job is to shift the agenda and that starts with seeing it as the exertion of power that it is.

Of course it's not fair. You know and we know that you doing a speck more than your brother is not fair. But fairness doesn't matter when the two of them are defining the territory of the discussion around you doing it all like it's some brand of normal. It's not. But you are the only one with any interest in redefining it. They are both deeply invested in pressuring you to do it. It's like a confidence trick. They are going to keep pushing you hard while there is still any hope that you will cave.

It doesn't matter to them that you want the time back to spend with your child. They don't care, they only care about what they can get out of you. If you see it in that light you might be able to get more perspective. Get that therapy but you might need to move quicker than that too to change things. Your kids need their mum back.

Please listen to what most of us are saying and stop letting your parent run your and your children lives. She is only going to get worse and deteriorate more as she gets older, and then what? Will you move in with her?? Stop having any life of your own at all? What about when your children go to school and you're invited to things to see (plays etc) and you have to say no because your mum doesn't want you to??

caring for my in-laws almost ruined my relationship with my young teen daughter as she felt I was prioritising them over her. Is ruining your relationship with your own children worth it?

Did your mother look after her parents when they were old? Did she have small children a fb worked at the same time?

there are three of us. We have already told our parents that we will not do any personal care ( and for those saying they looked after you as a child and now you look after them there is a world of difference in them wiping a baby/toddlers bottom to you wiping an adults !)

as it is we work, have our own families who need help and have health issues. We simply can’t do everything so carers come in. We told them it’s to support us as well as them

in your case don’t be brow beaten. You move all your stuff home. You start taking care of your family health and work and fit in what you can.

anything left you get your brother to do or tell them they need to get carers.

OP this sounds so difficult and totally unsustainable. There is no way I would do what you are doing. You have young children and they are your priority. Tell you brother to step up and sort it, your mum needs carers.
Your family has to come first and you need to get busy making memories for your children. You are not appreciated and you will run yourself into the ground!
Step away for you and your family.

This, definitely. You need more help. You have 2 young children to look after.

Absolutely no way. You are sacrificing your time but also the time you spend with your own immediate family. Extremely selfish - did she care for her own parents?

Are your parents both claiming attendance allowance ?
If not, please apply, it is not means tested
Money to be used to buy in extra help

You should claim carers allowance & your National Insurance contributions will be paid (towards state pension & other benefits) while you are not working or work PT. This has a cap of earnings per week.

What happens if you want to go away on holiday ?

The level of help that you are providing is not sustainable long term.

Your DM could live another 20 years +

https://www.gov.uk/attendance-allowance

https://www.gov.uk/carers-allowance

op you just need to stop! Pretend you are unwell, flu maybe, bed bound for a week.. see what happens. Brother might have to step up, I bet he’s not so keen.

My dp’s didn’t want strangers in the house (carers) and then there was an incident where help wasn’t available and it forced the situation. Social services were great, and said that people often have to fail before they will accept help. They now have carers a few times a day.

Honestly, I can't imagine being the sort of older parent who expects their children to provide intimate care such as wiping their bum after a poo. The very thought of it makes me shudder. Having a paid for carer would be preferable to making my adult children do this.

There isn't a contract where, because mums looked after their children as babies, including changing nappies and wiping bums, this identical service needs to be offered to the parent when they are elderly. People choose to have children and know what caring for them entails. Failure to do this can result is having your children taken away and even being prosecuted for child cruelty and neglect. There is no similar legal obligation for adult children to provide that sort of care to their parents.

My mum moved in with me due to mobility issues following a stroke. We bought a house together with a granny annexe. My DS was about 3 at the time and it was much easier looking after her in the same house. I did the cleaning, cooking of main meals, cuppa and empty commode in the morning and change bedding if needed (she was urine incontinent at night and sometimes pull ups would leak). She would read to or play with DS though while I got on with things so that was a help and I worked part time. She was able to get herself a sandwich or some soup or toast at lunch and put in a microwave dinner if I worked later or on the odd occasion we were out at dinner time. She became more confused, the start of dementia and I left her notes or she would forget what to eat but we managed well for 2 years before she seriously declined and had to go into care. She always thought I should look after her but progressive vascular dementia is a bitch. She could be very angry with me though for a while which got less as she declined.

We did get social services in when the rest of us went on holiday just for one visit a day. We sold it to her as piece of mind for me and they emptied the commode, checked her bed, got her some lunch and made sure she had a plan for tea. My aunty also popped in some afternoons to make sure she was ok.

It is hard, you almost have to get social care in on the premise that they are their to support you and get your GP onside but my mum still hated them coming in and refused to wear a pendant. You don't have to go from nothing to 4 visits a day though, you could say have carers in once or twice to start with to reduce the amount you are going round. Anyone with dementia though does not fully understand how much support they are getting and or need and a lot of old people can be stubborn (in my experience)! You need to make sure you look after yourself and your children and say no if it really becomes to much.

So what help does your 'golden child' brother provide, as he obviously has much more spare time than you do? Why do you owe your mother support but he doesn't? I assume that your mum has supported and helped him throughout his life.

You don't need to ask for one day off a week. You need to tell her that you are having at least two days off a week. I assume that even if your brother works, he could be available at the weekend?

I feel so sorry for you having such a needly and ungrateful parent. If you refuse to care for her, she will have to accept paid carers. Your children need to come first.

I have told my son to find me a nice care home and visit me now and again and to never feel guilty about not looking after me if I ever get like that!

While this is absolutely true, my mum looked after her mum through her teens and early 20s and her mum was in her early 40s. She died in her 40's. My mum had to change her and clean her (she was still having periods). Of course this was the 40s and 50s when there was presumably little option.

So given that she looked after her mum and would have continued to do so (once saying she would never have got married and left home if her mum needed her), she absolutely expected the same devotion from me her one child.

A parent should never expect that of their children but my mum while being a lovely caring mum and grandma, could not see a different point of view to hers and at times that made things very difficult.

If your parent loves you, they will be happy for you NOT to help. No matter how hard it is for them. It is just the right thing to do to let our busy adult children with jobs and families of their own live their own lives.
I would be quite happy to let strangers be carers for the benefit of my children to be free of the burden.

I help my parents in their home I helped with deep cleaning I helped with gardening I helped with doctors appointments I helped with paperwork but I always made it very clear to them that if they qualified for attendance allowance they could use that to pay for daily cleaners and in no circumstances would I be doing personal care. Both my parents and my husband's parents tried this on us stating that they didn't want anyone else in the home that they didn't trust strangers that they only trusted us and we repeatedly said no we have grandchildren we are getting on ourselves we cannot offer any level of personal care.

@Overwhelmedandneedadvice my heart goes out to you. I did my mother's caring with a new baby and my father's full time for three and a half years. It nearly killed me ( I was so desperate I would have happily jumped off a bridge). He didn't have any professional carers until the last two years of his life. He used his attendance allowance. I wiped bums towards the end when the carers turned up late and I had school age kids. My father was lovely but even he wanted meals made and refused farm foods etc. I managed to get some respite in the last couple of months of his life ( all carers are granted 8 weeks care home support per year). I lost my job and hundreds of thousands in lost wages. I'm one of four and the rest did sweet fanny Adams. A fortnightly visit as he lived with me. How I stayed married I don't know.
Ask to speak to carers support at your mum's surgery. They're the ones who know the options.
You must think of your children.