How do you achieve balance?

[Mothermisery]

Just wondering how people view their responsibilities towards caring for parents in balance with their own lives and families? Particularly people with children.

I'm in a position where caring for a disabled and only just elderly parent has to come first before pretty much everything else. This could be for a very long time to come. I can't look towards getting the type of job I'd like, we couldn't take holidays or long days away. Is this it? We have young children. If we manage to get carers involved I'll still be the one with overall responsibility and picking up the things that they don't do in their brief visits. Have been there before. It feels bleak having no autonomy over our life or the freedom to make choices to put myself/my family first.

How do others view this? It's very much put forward to me that this is what happens: our parents bring us up then we look after them in their time of need.

I really for you.

I'm an only child, extended family too far away/elderly/doing their own lives to be of any help, particularly over the last year with Covid etc.

My mum lived with her own mum until she was nearly 40 and never forgave herself for moving away with my dad and me for the last 6 years of nan's life so she has certain expectations and I find her emotional needs extremely difficult to deal with. The physical care my dad needed (and I have tackled the whole remit in the last year ) has been a walk in the park by comparison.

What helped me was the realisation that if an elderly person has next of kin and one or both of them has capacity, it is very difficult to exercise any control over their situation, even if it is for the greater good (eg my dad went into a home initially last August but mum insisted on bringing him home and still talks about doing the same this time around).

In situations such as this the only power you have is over your own fate and you have to let them make a decision and wait for the cards to fall where they may.

My mental health has been severely impacted over the last year and I will not put my DD through the potential repercussions of that. If my mum brings my dad home again, I will walk away if I have to, as much as I love them both, purely out of self-preservation.

Have you looked into getting some counselling for yourself to untangle your responses to the expectations placed upon you? I found transactional analysis particularly interesting.

OP did your parents look after their parents? It's important to think what help your parents gave your grandparents and what affect that had on their lives. Either your parents were run ragged by your grandparents or they enjoyed their lives and made their own decisions. If they were run ragged you want to avoid the same mistakes and if they weren't you want what they had. As regards permission to do something, your children and their happiness and childhood is the only permission you need. Your job is to do what's best for them and your own family. Dont have your own children looking back and saying they couldnt do this or that as their mother was too busy looking after gran. They won't appreciate it if you let their childhood be affected. My youngest is 30 and I've blinked and it's happened. It goes by in a flash and I will never get their childhood back. Just keep saying NO. What would you tell a friend? Do that. Take a day at a time and agree to nothing.

I think that's the way forward. Tiny steps. It feels so much at the moment.

I'll just mention now that I did the bulk of care for grandparents too. 🤦🏻‍♀️

@Mothermisery How are you today? Have you managed a few of those tiny steps?

Thank you for thinking of me. Generally feeling a bit battered and not capable of achieving much!

If you have been conditioned to please your DM from a young age it’s often not until you have children yourself that you discover that you were badly short changed growing up.
Power to you.

If you have been conditioned to please your DM from a young age it’s often not until you have children yourself that you discover that you were badly short changed growing up. What's the alternative? If children don't want to please their parents, they reach an age where they can't be controlled physically but don't have the maturity not to go badly off the rails. Most of our good behaviour comes ultimately from wanting to please our parents, or wanting to fit in with our peers.

If you have been conditioned to please your DM from a young age it’s often not until you have children yourself that you discover that you were badly short changed growing up. What's the alternative? If children don't want to please their parents, they reach an age where they can't be controlled physically but don't have the maturity not to go badly off the rails. Most of our good behaviour comes ultimately from wanting to please our parents, or wanting to fit in with our peers.
Maybe I could have been more specific. In my own childhood, my DM didn't want me or my siblings to do extra curricular activities, so no sport after school, no Duke of Edinburgh, no sleep overs. We learned from a young age it was best not to ask because my mum could not leave the house and she felt pressured if we didn't come home immediately school ended. (We were needed to do the shopping.) In my entire school life, my mum never walked me to or from school which was unusual because she did not work. So my siblings and I were 'conditioned' to please her and not rock her social anxiety boat. Needless to say, I am on this board regularly 50 years later as her problems worsened...

OP's comment about having to look after DGparents made me instantly think her DM had neatly body swerved the situation, knowing OP had been 'conditioned' to take over. However, this could be far off the mark ...

You're right @Mum5net. I'm in middle age and still running every single decision from the tiny day-to-day ones up to major life choices through the filter of what will be acceptable to her.

@Mothermisery

You're right *@Mum5net*. I'm in middle age and still running every single decision from the tiny day-to-day ones up to major life choices through the filter of what will be acceptable to her.

You need to stop, you know you need to stop so what's frightening you? Guilt probably. But you've done your bit the kids come first keep that as your mantra. Organise her help by all means but don't let this affect your kids as it is affecting them when their mother is so tired and stressed and has no control over what she wants in her own life. Tell her you are organising help, you have to be there for your family and children. If she refuses help well you either accept that and run your family into the ground or you stand up to her. Make sure she knows she needs to help you by accepting help. If she doesnt accept help you cannot help her. Otherwise in 10 years where will you be? Kids grown and resentment and it's all and I mean ALL in your hands. She accepts help or you can't help her. Make next week the week you set the rules. If your mother could live her own life she wouldnt be destroying yours. She can't live her own life but she doesn't get making the rules you make the rules

Please op try and change your thinking for your children’s sake and your own. Beak the pattern.

Break even🤭

Why don’t you go rogue with an opposite day and every single bad ass decision you take will enrage and annoy and help you break free

I'm in middle age and still running every single decision from the tiny day-to-day ones up to major life choices through the filter of what will be acceptable to her. Interesting - I think I realise what the rebellious period in the teens is about. If you make the most of that, you break the expectation that you're a "good girl" and will do what your parents expect. You're a grown up. What was your mother doing when she was your age? I have a vague recollection of saying to one of my parents "I can decide for myself. When you were my age you were married with a 4 year old daughter".

Stop telling her about tiny day to day decisions. Practice doing things that you'd like to do that she wouldn't approve of (but won't get the chance to disapprove because you won't bother to tell her). Most people, from teenagehood upwards, give their parents a very edited view of their lives.

Mum5net I see what you mean. Yes, you want your children to want to please you, so you can guide them into a good set of values. But that comes with a responsibility to use that desire to please for their benefit, not for your own.