Helping parent's spouse with care (Parkinson's)

[BlueRaspberry7]

Has anyone here given up/reduced their work to help as a secondary carer (not sure if that's the official term?) for a parent?

How have you made it work for you, for your parent, and for your immediate family unit?

My dad has Parkinson's and is deteriorating and although his wife is his main carer I would like to be more involved. they live a 2-hour drive away.

I have two children and work 4 days a week (wfh)

Thanks for any experiences or thoughts.

Do you have a partner/ share custody of the DC? If you do I’d leave the dc and work from your Dads place/ help out for part the week. I personally wouldn’t choose to uproot my children to care for a person with Parkinson’s. That sounds harsh as it’s your dad but it’s really hard on children.

Honestly I would get the social services to make a care needs assessment , my dad had Parkinson’s and thankfully really we lost him in Sept before he became fully immobile etc but it’s likely your dad will need some additional care outside of immediate family. Caring is incredibly difficult and it’s not a weakness to ask for the help he is entitled to

@Badbudgeter yes I have a DH who works f/t. I'm thinking things through at this stage, if I can realistically help out with my dad without it impacting my own family.

I moved to be closer to my mum and dad two years ago and so glad I did but I didn’t have children to consider , my husband thankfully has relished the move from city to countryside and we wouldn’t go back

It will impact them though to be fair whether it’s time or money or just you being exhausted by it all. The question really is how can I balance caring for my father with children/ dh/ life.

Like a pp I’d strongly urge you to get a social care assessment. I’ve worked in respite care and so often family carers are utterly burnt out by the time they ask for help. Then because everything moves slowly they end up at crisis point before they can get care.

Have you’d spoken to your dad and his wife about this?

I would ask for care needs assessment from social services to get support for your Dad all the time (several times a day, every day of the week). Then any time that you can offer can be in addition to the carers and give your Dad’s wife some respite.

Are they getting all of the benefits that they’re entitled to?

I think it’s pretty difficult to do it almost full time if you’re 2 hours away tbh. Does your dad need someone with him all the time? If so perhaps you could sit with him in school hours to enable your step mother to go out? Or maybe you could order their online shopping for them?
can you cut down your work hours without giving to completely?