AIBU to suggest my elderly parents move to a more suitable home?

[SooPanda]

Off the back of reading a thread about an adult whose elderly parents don’t want her to buy a house with narrow stairs and no downstairs loo..
My elderly parents live in a nice house with very narrow stairs and no downstairs loo.

They are both 75/76 years old and although my dad is in good health my mother has trouble with her knees and lungs and needs oxygen to get around.

I don’t know how to broach the subject of moving, or whether I should broach it at all.

AIBU to suggest they downsize before it gets too hard to do so happily?

Their house isn’t suitable for adaptations but my dad keeps redecorating and making improvements to the aesthetic without mentioning the practicalities.

I live about 45 minutes away with 3 children at school. They visit us every other weekend and I know that soon I will need to visit them instead, which is fine as part of the routine and I know it was my choice to move away (they live in an area that used to be nice but now is bad for schools and crime) but I worry what’s going to happen when mum can’t do the stairs anymore.

I want them to move while they’re still
able to do so without struggling. AIBU?

Good luck. I’ve been trying to get my parents to be realistic with their future for 10 years and they are only now (at age 81 & 83) realising that looking after a 6 bedroom detached house with massive garden which Is 3 hours drive and an actual ferry away from family might be beyond them soon. They have had their head in the sand for years and unwilling to even discuss it. I know they are adults but it’s so frustrating.

Nonsense.

The best time to prepare is when you're still capable and clear headed and confident. The worst time to try to make decisions about big changes is when you are forced by circumstances to do so.

People older than 75 are statistically one bad fall away from healthy, fit, and active to needing an adapted space.

Iirc the OP has stated that the house cannot be adapted. Tha stairs are narrow. I assume there's no room for a downstairs loo or bedroom.

Her DF spends time and money fussing about the appearance.

There is probably an element of sunken costs fallacy to his reluctance to move.

Rude.

Im 65 and have 94 year old parents. I think its perfectly reasonable to have these conversations—my children can have them with me and I can have them with my parents. Its not a crime or an imposition.

At that age, I would not be suggesting downsizing to another home/bungalow. I would suggest that within the next 5 years, they look at retirement housing, which comes with a lot of features to help see them through until they need actual care.

Who are you to decide what is the best time though? As someone with a degenerative condition I would rather continue to enjoy doing while I can rather than change my life before I need to. I can totally see why older people feel the same way. I would feel very annoyed if my adult children or anyone who hasn't walked in my shoes kept insisting they know better. I also have elderly parents and as they are cognitively very able I leave them to decide how they want to live their lives.

Broadly, having stairs in elderly peoples houses is associated with better ongoing health. I guess it’s because there’s a little bit of exercise and exertion involved in everyday activity. however….

It’s taken a major health event to get my much more elderly father to finally acknowledge it could be a good idea to move. He’s doing it very reluctantly and even then the slightest potential for the transaction to go awry and he starts saying oh maybe I shouldn’t leave. He’s also starting to feel better after his fall so the mental rigidity is creeping in again. That has been one of the really interesting changes to see, this mental rigidity. That’s something I hadn’t fully appreciated in the elderly. And maybe it’s not all elderly.

The fact that your mother needs oxygen and has issues with her knees is a bit of a red flag event in my opinion. It sounds like the topic genuinely needs to be raised, and it can be done in a very gentle and kind way.

It's not a crime or imposition to have a quick discussion but some of the posts on this are quite patronising and actually quite ablist.

As someone who has lost both parents….id try and get them to move closer.

When one parent died, the other was left in a house totally unsuitable and an hours drive away. It was a nightmare. The house was too big, they couldn’t manage the maintenance and it out a strain on me and my husband, trying to manage from afar with small children.

Not to mention the issue of downsizing when one parent has died…doing it whilst grieving is not to be recommended.

My other parent moved close to me.. and everyone’s lives were easier. Including theirs. They saw more of the grandkids and it was easier to pop in for small visits more frequently to see that they were ok. They have passed now and it’s been a lot easier for me to manage a smaller house than the one they left.

They should have downsized years before. It would have created so much less stress for everyone.

I agree with @mathanxiety. It’s too late to think about this stuff after it’s needed.

if parents have expectations that their children will help in older.. and possibly infirm.. old age, then these conversations need to happen as the outcome impacts everyone.

On another thread yesterday someone mentioned that it can be helpful to think, not of downsizing, but instead of rightsizing. For many older people the house they are in was right for them when they moved there - when they were working and had children at home. When they’re in a different stage of life they should think about what is right for now and the foreseeable future. Maybe that would be a helpful way of framing it. What is right for them now.

My parents moved in their mid 80s. It was stressful but we managed and they are happy in their new place close by.

Depends, are they not capable of making decisions for themselves and need their child to tell them what they should do?

Definitely look at power of attorney though - this doesn’t become active unless they lose capacity but it enables you to step in and help with financial and/or health matters if things change and they are no longer able to make decisions themselves. So many people leave it too late and then can’t do anything.

Why is it too late when it is needed? I am disabled and perfectly able to organise moving when I need to. Obviously I would need to employ a removal company but so do a lot of people.

Yes, power of attorney would be useful

I think many older people are scared to make the change as it makes them "feel" older! All you can do is mention it and see how it goes down .Maybe just casually though

My relative at mid 90’s moved into a fantastic residential nursing home. The corridor their room was on (mansion house conversion) had two sets of stairs of five steps, when I questioned the suitability the carers said if they stopped doing steps in no time at all they wouldn’t be able to do steps full stop. Don’t be too swift to banish stairs from your life - it really is use it or lose it!

If your parents have friends and a good support network where they are I can see they’d be reluctant to move.

My mum and I aren't close, but I'm very grateful she moved when I advised it.
Her health and mobility is now very poor and she is in a ground floor flat with emergency intercom if needed.
It was hugely stressful - for me! - as I did everything but it's worked out well.
She may need a home in the future but for the past 6 years the flat has been great.

That’s great but many older people experience some degree of cognitive decline which makes moving or even thinking about it much harder. My parents thought they’d planned ahead but actually their home was completely unsuitable in terms of location as well as layout. My DF developed Alzheimer’s which meant that he was unable to walk and the last time he left their home - a bungalow with a narrow hallway and steps to the front and back door- was through the integral garage on a stretcher. It was undignified and distressing for him and my DM, and difficult for the paramedics to manage. With him in a nursing home my DM found it very hard to make decisions - it turned out that she had always relied on my DF as the decision-maker and without him she became quite helpless. She did agree to move from their large rural home to a 2 bed flat in the town but having bought the flat took another year to move into it - clearing their house sometimes by only one item per week! Fortunately, she had actually made the move by the time she had the stroke which means she is now partially sighted and unable to drive. There was no public transport where they lived before.

Planning ahead is sensible and makes it much less likely that decisions are made for you by others when you get to crisis-point.

My parents could have taken time to find somewhere that suited them in the 8 years between the obvious start of DF’s decline and that crisis point but my DF didn’t realise what was happening and my DM was completely in denial. She couldn’t have made the move on her own - it took a huge amount of time, effort and support from me, my DSis and her DH.

I was referring to people who were physically disabled but cognitively well. Your DF obviously wasn't.

This. My 74-year old DH is still working full time running his company and we live in a 3-storey house with no downstairs loo, on over 50 acres.

OP, I think it's fine to suggest they should possibly consider moving to a more suitable home in light of your mum's mobility issues but be prepared for them to want to stay where they are.

One family member of mine had a good compromise with a house where they could live on the ground floor but there were two upstairs bedrooms and a bathroom for visitors. They climbed the stairs regularly to dust and air out those rooms but if they couldn't cope they had all that they needed downstairs.

Our parents are both in their 90's. My sibling's solution...... don't move but build a lift in their lounge up to their bedroom!

Yes, but planning for the future involves planning for aging and cognitive decline is often part of that.

It’s one of the reasons that setting up PAO at an early stage is also important.

It must have been devastating for you, can’t think how it was allowed to happen. Were you forced to read books and be resourceful? Ghastly.