And so it begins...

[Missfelipe]

Posting for some much needed advice.

My parents are not elderly by any stretch (early 60s) but my father is not in the best health (not severely ill but a myriad of milder health issues that will no doubt culminate in worsening health - think diabetes, obesity etc) and my mother is old before her time.

My mother is the main issue here. She still works part time but if you never knew this you’d think she was a vulnerable old lady the way she goes on. She has a helplessness, probably wilful as opposed to learned and is totally reliant on my father for pretty much everything - organising life admin, cooking, sorting things like cars etc). When not at work she sits at home watching made for TV movies that I think affect how she thinks the real world actually is. As a result everything is over dramatised in her head and in some cases I think she actually invents stories for attention. She has no friends and no hobbies. Suggestions are met with excuse after excuse about why she can’t do something. She will say things like, ‘when your dad goes’ 🧐 and outlines her plans for when she assumes she will outlive him. I am not joking.

Recently my father has had to have surgery on his knee. Despite her being a fully capable adult, this somehow resulted in us (her adult children who all live a minimum 1.5hrs away) being manipulated into doing things for her she was more than capable of doing herself whilst he was in hospital. It gave me a very real look into the future and it filled me with dread. My siblings both have children and as the one who doesn’t, I can see the burden of this falling to me and it is not sustainable. The weeks before my father was up and more mobile and back to his old self where some of the most mentally draining of my life and this was a non-life threatening medical issue.

For those of you who have been there what should we be doing now to better prep her for the possibility future? Especially given that I don’t think she will take it on board and she is the sort of person that views any constructive criticism as a personal attack.

@DinosaurDiana

The menopause can cause anxiety. Perhaps she isn’t as confident as you think, perhaps she is concerned about being left alone.

It's very true that the menopause can have a big effect. You hear a lot about hot flushes etc, but there's all the other stuff. Needing reading glasses happens very quickly if it does, hearing may be going, you are made aware that you can't run like you used to, then you see people using mobile phones for tickets and become aware that train travel is no longer a matter of rocking up to the station, stopping at the booking window and buying a ticket. And nobody is sympathetic to little old ladies getting in their way! It's all very scary. But of course the only way for it to be less scary is to start doing it.

It's easy to teach new skills if you're nearby - but if you're at a distance, it's far easier just to do it yourself.

@Missfelipe If you know, you know.
I genuinely applaud you for getting the whole subject out in the open and creating a strategy with your siblings. You are wise to look ahead and there are legions of mumsnetters who have very valuable commentary to offer. Your thread already has some nuggets of gold to take on board.
My DF's 60th birthday is memorable for me because my DM was so annoyed I couldn't get to their home before 9.00pm, straight from work. (I was leading a branding project that went live that weekend, in my defence.) I had "completely spoiled their day" even though she never got him a present or a card and had known my attendance was in doubt. Now as I approach that milestone for our family, I can see how she had 'ducked' out of responsibilities even then and needed our interventions.

'You see people using mobile phones for tickets'?? She's early 60s, NOT 95! 

I'm late 50s, work FT, have kids living at home and am caring for elderly parents like a lot of people my age. It's a shame the OP's mum doesn't have anyone else to think of other than herself.

@Missfelipe - I would definitely make a plan with your siblings and hold firm. And tell her. If she has anxiety, she needs to go to the GP.

She is not elderly, she is not infirm, she is an older adult in good health who is practicing helplessness. You are doing her (and you) no favours if you indulge this behaviour.

And she is not 'a little old lady' @MereDintofPandiculation. Angela Merkel is 66. Gloria Estefan is 63

Don't be so touchy @Clymene! She's not much younger than me. I'm a Chair of one organisation, elected officer of two more, organise working parties of volunteers, held in regard for my skills and knowledge by those that work with me - yet I'm aware of how fast technology is changing, and how easy it is not to keep up when what you have is serving all your needs, and aware that I'm slipping into the invisible "little old lady" territory for people who don't know me.

And I wasn't advocating running around doing things for her while she's sitting there helplessly.

I'm not being touchy. I don't think someone in their early 60s is in danger of slipping into little old lady territory. I think it's a sexist trope and I try and counteract those when I see them.

DM started behaving like this in her early 60s. Twenty years later she's made herself old and feeble but is actually fit and well. It's very draining. You need a team plan and very strong boundaries, good luck.

I don’t have advice how to fix it however I saw this issue with MIL. At 50 she had declared herself ‘old’ and therefore incapable of doing things.
I met her shortly after this and she was already being ridiculous about doing certain things. She was working full time and walking to and from work (25 minutes) but if she needed something from a shop (2 minutes away) it was ‘too far’ and she was ‘too old’ to go.
It got worse. FIL did everything. When she retired she literally never left the house unless it was something she wanted.
She couldn’t walk any distance because she was ‘old’, but she could if she wanted, she couldn’t work the tv or a phone (she could). Then FIL died and she literally thought one of her children would move home to be a full time carer.
She spent so much time pretending she couldn’t walk that she actually lost the ability.
It was something that needed to be fixed when she was 50 but no one wanted the grief. Instead they had 10 years of running around after her when FIL died.
I’m not sure if you can change her mindset but you need to try. I’m very close to 50 myself now and I’m even more shocked at what she was like.

Im with @Clymene little old lady im 54 and i am no liitle old lady and certainly dont struggle with buying train tickets using my phone. And i work in a shop trust me loads of more mature customers pay using their phones and clearly are perfectly comfortable with tech.
I suspect the invisible old lady trope actually means 'men dont look at me anymore' well im sorry that doesn't make me invisible, well only to certain types of men who can frankly sod off.

Gosh this sounds just like her @Sidewalksue. I don’t think she leaves the house on her days off unless it’s with my Dad. As I say she sits in front of the tv and what goes on there seems to be her frame of reference for the world.

No I don’t suppose she will ever change, she’s one of those people who will behave badly and will shrug her shoulders and say ‘that’s just me’ as if that makes it ok. I feel both frustrated and very sad for her that she lives the way that she does but we’re very different people. She is quite old fashioned and I think had they had the money to do so she would have liked to have been a housewife. She’s forever on about retiring but they can’t quite afford to do so and my Dad has warned her that if she did then she could expect to have to give up on some luxuries which didn’t go down well. But that’s his fault for not making enough money never hers 🧐.

I feel I need to raise it with them both, god help me, and say look, there’s been a couple of scares over the years and what that’s shown is that you haven’t got any plans in place, they’ve got a will but that’s it I think, and we can’t be micro managing her everyday life for her. Like other posters have said she’s not in her 80s (although I know some 80 year olds vastly more independent than she is!).

Clymene, I don't think it's all little old ladies at 58! But some definitely embrace the stage. Whether it's lack of confidence in doing something new, lack of experience in doing things alone... whatever it is, there is a definite category of people who do this. Some of them men.

In DM's case, she was treated like a queen by DF. She could barely use the kettle. He drove her door to door then went and parked the car elsewhere. She never carried anything. If it was more than DF could manage, she just sent him to put things in/get things from the car. So a picnic at the beach involved more kit than anyone could carry, but that didn't matter as he'd drop her at the shore, park up, carry half the stuff to the spot she'd chosen, trot back to the car for the rest, return to find she'd changed spot and he needed to shuffle the first set along etc etc.

It's a learned helplessness that left her unable to turn on the dishwasher or use the coffee machine after he died.

Sounds like your dad needs to get on board a bit more with not doing everything for her. What a fuss to make about a train journey! Had she never done one before (without a family member being with her). When I was 13 I came to this country having never lived here and did a six hr train journey changing twice to get from my boarding school to my uncle’s place for half term. I could hear my mum in my ear saying just bloody get on with it, it’s not hard!

@Clymene

I'm not being touchy. I don't think someone in their early 60s is in danger of slipping into little old lady territory. I think it's a sexist trope and I try and counteract those when I see them.

I thought the way I used the phrase showed I regarded it as a sexist trope. It's just one more thing - you realise you've let your "keeping up with technology" slide, and knowledge that other people will regard you as a nuisance if you fumble at your first attempt at using contactless pay, for example, makes it that bit more daunting. But, as I said, that's no excuse not to do it.

It doesn't matter that lots of you in your 50s have no trouble keeping up, OPs mother clearly has let things slide, and catching up will be a big step for her. And if she gets it wrong, responses to this thread demonstrate that she can't expect any sympathy.

@picklemewalnuts this will be her if we’re not careful, when I say he does everything he really does. I think he still takes her car to put petrol in it! I don’t really know where she has got the expectation from of people waiting on her hand and foot as she ages, she certainly didn’t do it with her own mother who became very frail in her last years.

It is very worrying that it is starting so young. And if she is right and she outlives your Dad she will expect her children to pick up where he left off. And it's much harder to say no to someone who is grieving.

I don think you need to sit her down and tell her she needs to be more independent. Your dad is part of the problem though as he enables her.

'we've never seen anyone in such a state still going' to 'you do realise this could go on for months or even years'?

Sorry for hijacking the thread, I am going through something similar.

Nobody tells you about this stuff or how to deal with it do they?

OP, your mothers attitude is strange isn't it? I like to hang on to my independence and ability to do things, not opt out.

You must. Talk to him about how important it is he not allow her to fall into that trap, because it is a trap!

DM shouted at DF, because he made her coffee wrong. He'd had surgery for a brain tumour and his receptive and expressive language was impaired. It was shocking. She'd simply never considered that he wouldn't be doing everything for her.

I can see myself going the same way, so I'm not without sympathy. I don't properly walk the dog alone (anxiety), and have given up attempting to use the TV. There are things that are too much effort to bother with. I am however fully prepared to manage without those things! I'd never expect someone else to provide it for me.

@Mincepiesallyearround...just trying to rack my brain...I recall she got the train once to visit me, about 10 years ago, it was a direct route although I think my father drove her the first leg so she didn’t need to make the change.

Technology wise you can bet your backside she knows how to record all her favourite tv on sky and pore over social media as well as navigate online email and medical records for her job so it’s a selective helplessness it would seem, at least for the moment. I suspect that my Dad goes along with it for an easy life, as I’ve said she doesn’t take anyone standing up to her very well.

Learned helplessness is such a good phrase.

One of the worst issues with MIL is that she had spent so much time pretending to be incapable. When she got old and frail it was a massive shock to her, the reality of not being able to do things rather than choosing not to.

Been there, done it and got the t shirt 4 times over. I still didn’t learn. My best advice is to say “no” now.. and keep on repeating it.
You will feel guilty, but the other option is that you basically become their parent, and others will see that you cope with it and leave you to it.
You have to decide which is a worse outcome for you.

Your plan to be singing from the same hymn sheet as your siblings is definitely the right one!

At this stage I'd try to get DF on board. Just ask why he does everything for her, say you're concerned she won't manage if something were to happen to him, and ask him to show her how to do everything? Can they do it together so she learns? If he refuses, or she refuses, I think you need to go nuclear...

I'm quite blunt when needed, but if the gentle suggestion above failed, I would simply (politely) say that you'll always love them both, but you don't have the time to take on ordinary everyday tasks for either one of them if something were to sadly happen to the other. Therefore you're giving them the heads up now that they need to be able to take care of their own transport, shopping, utilities etc. There is time to learn!

If DM says she can't possibly manage to learn these things / anxiety etc, just ask her what she'd do if you and your siblings weren't there? Would she starve in a darkened house without electricity? Or would she woman up and do the same things required to survive that every other able-minded human being does?

It sounds to me that you need to challenge her mindset about what a person of her age is capable of doing. I am just a few years younger than her, and find her attitude bizarre. It would be worth checking whether your DF has been doing so much for her that she genuinely doesn't know how to do it herself. If she is so keen on TV show her the women of her age and what they achieve in real life. My MiL is more than a decade older and is running a town council. I know that she is often contacted by people with learned helplessness who are in good health and younger than she is, but who expect to be helped.

Only in bolstering her confidence and life skills are you going to avoid the trouble ahead. Don't forget she could have 30 more years...

@MereDintofPandiculation i dont think its fair to say that those of us that objected would not ve sympathetic to others. I can assure you i am kind and pleasant to all. I think we and certainly i object to what feels like insidious ageism from some pp, and a playing to sterotypes if your older you cant use tech. Obviously some people this is true for and i wasnt in anyway suggesting that all people are similar

But this is a derail as the op has been perfectly clear its not about age or capability but choice.

It doesn't matter how much you do for her, it will never be enough. Set your own boundaries and practice saying no to things. She'll be annoyed, but would have found something else to be annoyed about anyway. You can't change her, but you can work out what you're comfortable with and stick to it. Let her complaints waft over you like a gentle summer breeze, smile beningly, let your mind drift to a calmer place