Hi all,
My parents are in their sixties. Four years ago, my mum had a series of massive strokes leaving her extremely incapacitated. She was in hospital for months before being discharged into a nursing home. Another few months later, she was deemed able to go home to be cared for by my dad and four daily visits from carers. She is effectively housebound except for occasional excursions out as my dad finds it physically hard to push the wheelchair. Their lives have obviously completely changed and they’ve had an awful few years coming to terms with this.
My mum’s mental state has really been affected. She gets upset very easily. She then wails in a very distressing way when upset over the smallest thing. This is on top of her depression, which she’s battled with for many years before all this anyway. She blames a lot of things on my dad because she’s not mobile and he is.
My brother and I (who are both in our 30s) visit constantly, ensuring that someone is there most days. At first, we were both there every evening and weekend. This meant we never got home until 9pm every night. Then we started alternating days. Now, one of us is there most days. He works full time and I now work part-time and have a 1-year old boy. As a teacher, I also have a lot of work to do at home. I have Thurs-Sun off and visit 3 out of the 4 days, usually for a while afternoon. The only other person who visits them is my Aunty. Other families have distanced themselves a fair bit and my mum’s best friend hasn’t seen her since she was admitted to hospital. Our visits do keep them going, especially now they have a grandson.
There are a huge number of problems that my brother and I are trying to address with them regarding my mum’s care and the house, but we are blocked each time. If we bring something up with my dad, he asks us not to upset our mum, as she’ll take everything out on him. If we do bring it up with my mum, she gets upset and then angry and refuses to listen. And often takes it out on my dad.
My main concern at the moment is the cleanliness of the house. My dad really struggles with housework as he spends all day with my mum. She is very dependent on him and demands to know where he is if he’s not in the same room. The house is in a bit of a state. The kitchen is filthy and there’s a growing mould problem throughout the house. My dad doesn’t really see it unless we point it out to him, then he just does a surface clean. The only real cleaning has been done by me but I just can’t keep on top of it as I have a toddler following me around. I’ve also generally had to keep a lot of cleaning efforts secret from my mum as she would make my dad’s life hell if she knew what it had gotten like.
Things have to change as my son is exploring the house more. Today he found a pan which was covered in mould.
I’m at a loss as to how to bring this up with the pair of them. My dad has so much on his plate. This will stress him out. Yet he won’t accept help from anyone other than my brother and I. He’s blocked the idea of a cleaner. He would never entertain the idea of going to a carer’s support group (and my mum would really make him feel guilty about going to something like this). We don’t want to offend or upset my dad, or my mum who just can’t process things like this as well as she used to.
In short, I have to prioritise my son. But this will involve upsetting my parents at a time when they need that the least. It’s their house. But they depend on our visits and would be utterly heartbroken if we didn’t go.
Any advice on a fresh approach when talking to my dad?
In all honesty, it’s helped just writing this out!