AIBU to make my mum go home after 3 weeks?

[Borntorunfast]

My mum is 80, had an accident in the spring, went blind in one eye, recovered some sight (miracle!), and recently had an operation where they repaired the remaining damage. Phew.

While she's recovering she's staying with me, as she's lost sight in that eye again (it will come back gradually). I have said it's for 3 weeks, as she needs 10 eye drops a day (!) for the first 2 and then she has a follow-up the week after. By which point she'll have regained some sight and be down to 1 eye drop a day.

I am at the end of my tether, 10 days in. She's incredibly needy. She keeps crying if her drops are 2 minutes late, or if I go out, or if we do something that she's not invited to. We've had to postpone trips and celebrations.

She often makes out she's worse than she is, so I have no idea whether she's OK or not.

Example: I got her referred to a specialist hospital for a second opinion. All good. BUT at the appointment - to which she arrived after a torturous walk that she wobbled and huffed and puffed all the way to, clinging on to me and hospital crutches - they assessed her and said - your sight is actually pretty good, you can drive, and we've no idea why you're using sticks to walk. She then ditched the sticks, started driving, more or less within hours (!). I don't think it was intentional, I think she was shaken by the accident, but ....

Anyway, she's started dropping hints about not being able to cope if she goes home after 3 weeks. Tbf her sight won't be fully back, she won't be able to drive for another few weeks, she lives alone, she's 80....

But I just feel SO resentful, and manipulated, and knackered. I want my home back. I already had her stay for 5 weeks after the accident, where her care needs were extreme. I have to look after her dog as well as my own (permanently, apparently), I work FT, have 2 kids with disabilities, commute, am battling perimenopause, yadda yadda yadda. She never looked after me when I was a kid AND no one else in my sodding family will step up even one tiny bit. Made worse by the fact that she won't ask them herself!!!

AIBU in taking her home after the follow-up, if all is well??? She has this wonderful knack of making me feel entirely responsible for her. She has another child she could ask, after all...

You know not all mothers were created equal right? My mum can go funcking whistle if she expects me to look after her.....or maybe she could hit the hell out of someone to see if that still works....

Thanks everyone for responses. Some good advice and I will start putting some clear boundaries in place.

I do love her, I know it sounds like I'm such a bitch, but I'm not. I do so much for her, and it's generally from a place of love. It's just that she will take and take and take, and my childhood and the lack of support from the rest of the family makes me really angry and resentful.

Partly this is my own fault: I'm a people pleaser and a problem solver, will always take the lead in getting s**t done, and so some of this is of my own making. Because yeah, she's my mum and I do want to do my bit.

She doesn't need long-term care btw. Once her sight is back she'll be fully fine - she's in remarkably good nick for someone her age.

Just tell her you can’t, it’s to much. If she feels she can’t live alone anymore then you will start looking at care homes with her.

She’ll make a miraculous recovery within 24 hours.

Bet you are a people pleaser as a childhood response to your mother....hypervigilance to stop her kicking off in some way?

You are 100% right, yes. More to do with my (narcisstic) dad but mum is also massively passive aggressive, which is horribly damaging to a child. I walked on eggshells a lot. Hence the 'hints' she's dropping now and possibly the manipulation: she doesn't know how to ask for what she wants.

I appreciate the whole 'making plans so my kids don't have to look after me...,' but it just isn't that simple... I dropped everything when my Mum got ill and took care of her for a couple of years until she died .. my mother wasn't mother of the year and was only 54 when she died. I recently had a serious accident and when I was discharged from hospital, there was my eldest daughter who dropped everything and moved in with me to help as I couldn't weight bear... I now have a step mum who has had to have some operations done on her eyes and when she did I went down and took care of her as eye stuff is extremely disorienting, she's having the same operation done on the other eye in September and I will do the same then... I am not a paragon of virtue, nor is my child, we are just regular people helping one another out. Exorcising the past is best done with therapy. I too had a similar experience to you so I do understand but I have no resentment at all. I just think we aren't here for long and we should do our best even if the best wasn't done for us.

This bit struck me “she never looked after me when I was a kid”… that sounds very hard. I can imagine caring for someone who didn’t care for you is reopening all wounds include some totally understandable anger.

It’s ok to spin it that she’s getting too dependent on you and will lose her independence if she doesn’t force herself to go home. Which is true.
Gets you off the hook!

This is going to be my situation before long, and it worries me sick.

Some posters are saying things like "it's time for her to start paying for care", but what happens if there isn't money for that? And what if there isn't another sibling to help out? I worry about this a lot and totally understand OP's predicament.

But I have stepped up. I have dropped everything. For 5 weeks when she had her accident (well, a lot longer but she was living with me for that period, I did all her care including personal care, endless hospital appointments, second opinions, cooking, shopping, hours and hours driving her places, private physio, you name it, I did it). And now for 3 weeks post-op.

But that's not the same as making someone responsible for your entire life and happiness. Or baby-birding it and acting like you can't do anything for yourself anymore. That's what I won't do to my kids.

Also: I won't make really stupid decisions, like living miles away from your DD, with no local shops and no local transport, despite your DD saying - that's a terrible place to retire, what happens when you can't drive anymore? Or pissing all your money away on spurious get-rich-quick schemes so your DD has to pay your mortgage off. Or buying a huge, untrainable dog in your 70s, when your last one pulled you over and broke your hip and - oh look - you now don't want to look after because she's "too strong". That's the bit about making plans.

There is SO MUCH we can and should do - to plan for a life when we can't drive, when we will need a network of good, local amenities and healthcare, and friends, and money to pay for carers if we need them, and a house without stairs, or a garden that's not so big you can't manage it, because that's the reality we will all face if we're lucky enough to get to our 70s and beyond.

Not living in the arse end of nowhere expecting your DD to bail you out, over and over again.

Can you read the OP before posting nonsense? Here’s the quote in case YCBA:

“She never looked after me when I was a kid”

Op, your mum really dies have to go now otherwise you will become her permanent carer.

Thats a rather unfortunate typo!

Thank you. Too late to edit it!

You don't sound like a bitch in the slightest x

Ha ha. Yeah I was going to say i dont think you can ever have looked after a needy person for a week. Just two days of constant attendance is enough to drive anyone round the bend, plus the op has already said she works full time, has two children with disabilities and perimenopause. Youve clearly no idea that in perimenopause, oestrogen declines and we cease to tolerate......the hormone that allowed us to push everything down before is gone and a lot of the time we feel rage that everyone needs something from us and we have NOTHING left to give !!!.
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Look OP, she can drive, can walk. I wonder is the crying part of a histrionic / waif poor little old me thing she has done all her life or is it new?. If its new, might she need to get a gp check up?

I would be straight with her and say youre finding life a struggle and dont have the capacity to care for her , but you can help her find a care agency or help find a care home where she would have 24/7 support, if she feels she needs that. You get to decide what help you can give her. She doesnt. This is a good time for her to future plan ( power of attorney etc), see if she might meet criteria for attendance allowance ( but if she can drive, i dont see how). You need to have a physical or mental disability, require help with personal care or supervision for her own safety. Sometimes people who are your mums age lose confidence and feel powerless and scared, but the way to combat that is by making them exercise their own agency, if they are capable (sounds like she is), not by waiting on them.

Do you have a partner? They should help out, it's their kids, household, and MIL (ok, maybe not if they're a new partner, but still, they should help a bit!)
Your siblings should also do their bit.
It's a scary situation though-what is a person who is old, frail and struggling supposed to do with no one to help-really the government should provide district nurses or carers, or even better have convalescent care (they used to apparently) which would save money long-term. Because women work nowadays, it's not possible for daughters (and it would have been daughters) to easily provide the care they did when these things stopped being available. The situation is not fair on people like you, or people like your mum!

@Borntorunfast when her stay is up, gently say ‘let’s get you home to see how you cope!’ Ignore hints of staying until then. Drop her home. Once she’s settled, leave. She’ll soon get used to it and probably start to feel pleased to back at home.

As they say ‘there’s no place like home!’

Don’t sweat it.

Edit: if she says she isn’t coping, start discussing home help / carers coming in to see her. Apply for Attendance Allowance to help cover the costs.

You can’t pour from an empty cup - so it is completely reasonable to set a boundary and stick to it. If your Mum wants more help , then it is your siblings turn to pitch in.
You’ve done a lot already and it is impacting your children if you have had to drop things, and so it is not sustainable.

You shouldn’t have had her to stay. She has regressed and become more dependent. You are unable to say no to her and tell her not to be ridiculous when she tries to stop you living your life. Time to take her home. Carers exist

This
I can't imagine a world where I would send a scared, lonely 80yr old lady never mind my mother off on her own, whilst recovering from an accident in case she gets too dependant.

It's easy to say that when you have a good and healthy relationship with your mother, but if you have never had that its a different matter. There is no "debt" owed here, although I must say that I dont agree that "I cared for you now you must care for me" is a reasonable social contract.

Would you say that @Borntorunfast should house and care for an abusive ex partner because they are scared and lonely as a result of their own actions? Her mother was a mother in name only, not in actions. And as if often said on MN, judge people by their actions not their words.

When she drops hints about needing help from you turn it into a discussion about what help she might need and where she can access it. Get her expectations out in the open and set your boundaries.

No your not by all accounts you have done more than enough!

Crying as her drops are 2 minute late?! She can do her own drops 🙄. All of her behaviour sounds really annoying, she needs to go home. I would be careful she doesn’t use this to live with you long term