Unvaccinated mother getting bored with lockdown

[LoveHeartHug]

Im in a reasonably difficult position with a parent. My mother is late 60s and she's cracking up and getting bored. She now wants to ditch the public health guidelines on social distancing and go into town on the bus. All to kill boredom and to spend a day in town. As far as I know there's only grocery stores open and other food related stuff and all other stuff is closed. She wants to do it because she's bored.

We are not in the UK by the way so she's no where near close to seeing a vaccine.

My mother laughed last summer when we first went into town. She found it hard to respect the social distancing guidelines and she was told many times to step back in queues. She wears masks but she hates them and doesn't wear them properly. She hates hand sanitisers.

I think the whole entire thing is a disaster and a huge risk all around. Using a bus and a public shared spaced. Doesn't wear mask properly. Won't use hand sanitiser in case her hands get sore.

When she's at home she's refuses to cough or sneeze into the elbow, so her day out to kill boredom may put myself and another sibling at risk and we've done toso much to minimise virus and to protect her as much as possible.

I know many people here will gladly tell me to fcuk off and get homeless for myself and stop trying to control my mothers life. I'm not trying to control her. We are in a pandemic and we need to keep a level head. I think it's ridiculous that she's putting herself and the rest of the family at risk to kill boredom.

I don't drive so I can't drive her into town. I offered to do online shopping for her but she doesn't want that. She just wants to go into town because she's bored.

What do you think I should do? She wants me to download get the bus timetable from online for her. What do you think I should do? Do I do it and risk her picking up the virus? Or lie and make it difficult for her so that she changes her mind so that she's somewhat protected from picking up the virus.

I got vaccine from work and she's refusing to wait a week for that to give me some protection and then I could accompany her into town and hopefully be around her to ensure she's wearing mask properly and use hand sanitiser. Im not willing to jeopardise my vaccine yet by travelling on a bus just yet. I need to give it time to protect me.

She isn’t a child. She can make her own risk assessment and go into town if she wants. It might do her mental health some good.

She is an adult who is able to decide for herself what risk she is happy with but so are you. If you don’t want to see her because she is not being careful enough that is your prerogative.

She's not doing any risk assessment though especially considering she doesn't wear her mask properly. We were in a shop together not so long ago and the person at the till wasn't wearing a mask. My mother's mask was under her nose and she moved her face right into his face. There was no risk assessment done there and there will be no risk assessment carried out.

If I was to go on a bus and someone was to start a fit of coughing, I would get off the bus. That would be a risk assessment. My mother is someone who would continue to wear her mask under her nose because she can't breathe properly and shes someone who properly wouldnt move away from a cough.

We had some workers come into the house before the Christmas and if I was at home, I would have carried out a risk assessment questionnaire at the door for the workers - and ask them a few questions about their health - like do they feel well, any cough or fever or any covid close contacts or testing. That's a risk assessment. My mother would allow someone to come in choking on cough. She was never able to comprehend the public health measures from day one.

Does she live with you?

If not let her crack on, you’re not under any obligation to see her if you think she poses a risk to you and your family.

She sounds like a liability but I don't know what you can do about it. She sounds determined to just do what she likes without caring about risks, or anyone else. Why do you think she's not understanding the risks?

Yes we live together. I have another sibling and I would consider him to be vulnerable to the virus. He's now more overly vulnerable because if she contracts the virus, he's going to receive a high viral load because she refuses to cover her coughs.

You would have carried out a risk assessment questionnaire at the door?!

I’m with your mother. If i didn’t have 3 small children to cart around with me I would go into town for the day because I’m bored too. It’s a different walk; what’s not to like?

Could you arrange for her to meet a friend for a walk, chat or picnic outside? Safer and more fun than town.

She’s an adult. You can’t stop her. Let her go.

Her closest friend is shielding and her friend is not coming out from her house. I thought about getting garden furniture so that we could have some visitors over as safely as possible.

Mam goes out walking every day where a lot more other neighbours are going out walking and she meets others while out walking for a chat. I know it's not great or ideal.

My partner has offered a lift so that would be the safest thing but she's refusing his offer of a lift. She's putting herself at risk of contracting covid that's all. I'm finding that very hard to stomach. Then people here telling me, 'she's not a little kid'. It kinda pisses into the face of all of the measures we took over the past year to protect ourselves and our health from this virus if she's willing to throw it all away because of boredom. She's not thin about anyone but herself. What if she gets the virus and becomes ill? I will have to Puck up the phone and tell my siblings who live abroad that she's sick. That's not fair on any one of us.

I think there is a dynamic difference here depending on whether you live with her or she lives with you, depending on whose rules you live by (although it’s obviously home for both of you).

But, you’re not in the U.K. which changes your local restrictions. So actually, your beef is that she wants to get the bus to walk somewhere that isn’t in her local area. By your own admission you say there’s nothing open, so she just wants to walk somewhere different. Not ideal but not the worst thing in the world either. I’m fairly sure that most people’s risk assessments don’t involve getting off a bus if someone is coughing; if you’re on the bus you’ve got somewhere to go. She doesn’t want a lift because she wants to do it herself, under her own steam. Probably as a reaction to her life being micromanaged by her daughter.

In reality, how much bigger is the risk by the bus journey alone? Probably not that much.

I live with her and before people start sprouting, it's her home, she can do what she wants - the house is not hers, it's in her ex husbands name and she doesn't want to sort out that mess between them.

My issue is that it's not essential movement and she's risking not only herself but me and my sibling too by pissing against everything we did over the past year to protect our health, all for the sake of curing boredom. Its not only a walk in the city she wants, she wants to find open shops even though there's alternatives that I offered. I'm doing online groceries, and online pharmacy shopping for the whole family and other shopping for us too.

What's she's planning is non essential and it's idiotic because the cases are still so high in our country (ireland). We are averaging 1000 a day.

I'm writi g this while she sits in the kitchen coughing without covering her coughing and she's placing my sibling at risk of a high viral load if she picks up the virus. Not only that what if she has contracted the virus and her cough is covid? She is refusing testi g and isolation and she's risking others. My sick of her old age carry on.

I hate lockdown myself and I'm doing what is required of me to suppress the virus to keep all around me as safe as possible. It's not OK what she's planning on doing. We watched a funeral last week online from one of her cousins who died of covid. They were the same age and it isn't registering with her what she's planning on doing.

Thankfully my brother overheard her and gave out shit to her over her plans. She needs to wait for the covid to come down in the communities before she shares some public spaces.

Thankfully, she backed down. She never took my concerns on board though, she only listened to my brother when he told her it was absolutely ridiculous and dangerous what she was planning to do, especially now at this stage when she's weeks away from a vaccine. She wanted to go shopping in town and he said that there's fuck all places open and there's alternatives available with online shopping and a lift from my partner. Thankfully she has backed down for now. She can go shopping in town when it's safe to do so but right now it's not safe. She was risking her own health but not only that the health of my brother too because she refuses to follow basic hygiene and manners with coughing and sneezing. The poor man is in his room living like a hermit to avoid picking up the virus to protect her and she turns around and decides she's bored and potentially fucks it all up. Hopefully she will continue with the restrictions and guidelines. We are all fed up but what's the point in ignoring the guidelines especially considering the alternative is contracting the viral covid infection, sickness and possibly death.

That's good OP, gives you a bit of relief...for now. Good luck with her lol.