I blame Escape to the Country!

[Mini712]

Is anyone else in the same situation?

My parents retired 12 years ago & decided to retire to Dorset. At the time, I was pretty upset that they were moving away from me and my young family but accepted their decision.
During those 12 years they have had an amazing retirement, living in a beautiful part of the country and travelling the world with fancy holidays & cruises galore! But more recently their health has started to fail so they can’t do as much anymore and Mum in particular is feeling a bit isolated which as meant they now want to see us more. They come and stay with us regularly(usually for at least a week!) every other month but we live 3 hours away so we can’t just pop in for a cup of tea.
I am now feeling guilty as I don’t want them to feel lonely but also resentment as it wasn’t me that moved in the first place!
Last saw them 2 weeks ago when they stayed with us for a week but now getting pressure from Mum to see them over Easter. Should I cave in and see them even though I had planned to spend Easter with hubby & sons?

By the way I have a brother but he rarely calls them, let alone visits or has them to stay

Any thoughts would be appreciated ❤️

@EmotionalBlackmail

How long was it since the great aunt had worked herself?

I've found with my DM that, partly she's become considerably more selfish and insular as she's aged, because she's very focussed on her own aches and pains and what her neighbours are doing. She has no idea what I spend my time doing, what I do at work, what my commute is like etc, she just isn't interested. She does assume I have far more free time and flexibility than I do though!

And her working life was so different to mine now. She did things like shop for an elderly relative at lunchtime and drop it off. I often end up eating my lunch in a meeting! She was also offered far more flexibility at work to support elderly relatives - more annual leave, lots of flexibility around timekeeping, no work outside working hours, extraordinarily generous compassionate leave.

My experience is that they lose awareness of any bigger picture - the reality of childcare commitments, FT work, commuting, even the size of houses(!) - because they become so focussed on their own situation.

My great aunt didn't work. Don't think she had done for 20 years. Even then it was 5-8 hours a week in a small corner shop. (Her previous husband looked after her financially.) And yeah you're right - like your DM, she was very focussed on herself and her life, and never gave a thought to how busy other peoples lives were.

I was surprised at the Staff Nurse though. Just assuming a busy young 30-something mother with 2 little primary aged children (and senior aged parents herself,) and also a part time JOB, would take on the care of an elderly woman who had just had a major op.

Yes I have certainly been thinking like that about myself recently as I see how things are for my elderly relative and the difficult and exhausting time I’m having with them. It does make you think, what’s the point in trying to be healthy 😢

A little over the top, surely? This site is a blunt place. I clicked though in good faith. Like most ppl here I’m exhaustingly working ft, caring for far away and highly unreasonable elderly relative and teen kids as single mum. So my response started blunt but actually showed willing in trying to watch and answered the point. Sounds like we’re all in the same boat to be honest.

You can't win at this. When my Df was in and out of hospital I went to see him when he was in the county hospital, which was 30 minutes drive from my house rather than an hour to where my parents lived. I took along my daughter who was a toddler at the time because I didn't have any choice. My Dad slept through the whole visit (although my mum later said she'd spoken to him and he knew I was there... total bollocks).

One of the nurses cheerfully made a comment about me not seeing my Dad much when he got out. I don't think she intended it but it made me feel awful.

God I hate it when nurses say that, I've had it too. Bloody judgemental. They have no idea.

and yes, my Mum hasn't worked for 20 years now. When Dad was in and out of hospital I got a lot of pressure from her. At one point she told me I was going to have to be a carer for my Dad. I was really horrified and upset and the next day phoned her and said I wasn't going to be a carer, at all, because I run my own business and have small children. She then pretended she'd never demanded that I become a carer.

She's also told me that there are "insurance policies" for my job if I need time off!

The point in trying to be healthy is that quality of life will be worse if you don’t. For example arthritis improves when you lose weight. But my thoughts will be far more towards palliative care rather than any aggressive treatment to extend life. I need to outlive my father, and DH, but after that I’m a free agent.

Yes you’re right of course. I think sometimes one dips into a dark place with all the pressure. I’ve promised myself that once my kids aren’t dependent I will move into 50+ assisted living to try and future proof for me and kids. Good luck with all your circumstances, I hope it gets easier.

I think this is an attitude quite particular to this specific generation, the gen before and after seem to be more realistic, but this one seems to have a firm belief in the idea of "having it all" as the aspiration

My parents (78 &87) absolutely seem to really want to have it all.
Possibly because their parents didn't - most looked old before their time and died of overwork, one lingered painfully with dementia.

They also didn't really do the heavy lifting for their parents. Beautiful new local council pensioners flat in the 1980s, siblings taking on the care or a swift end.

But I do feel trapped by their expectations. No help when my kids were small, they wanted to travel the world. No financial help at key moments because it was important for me to stand on my own two feet.

Probably the thing that stings most is their unwillingness to listen to ideas from someone younger, they always had to know best whether it was a lift ladder (apparently not necessary) or Brexit (directly impacted my job).

But still my mum wants three hour round trips to celebrate every bank holiday, with every member of the family present despite teenagers working in hospitality.

I also resent them for making the relationship quite transactional and what that models to my kids.

Honestly, I'm only hanging in for the inheritance.

I hear you @ParentChat but what if your inheritance is all spent on care home fees?

I'm not expecting any inheritance.

Past weekend I told my parents I couldn't help them much financially and got quizzed on the value of my home. Still trying to work out what they expect there. Me to extend my mortgage for them?

@LadyWhineglass I cynically think of it as gambling. Like buying a lottery ticket and I'm not budgeting the money into my life until it's absolutely in my grubby little hands.
If it all goes in care home fees, well, unlucky, my number didn't come up.

My mum has form for being quite manipulative, quite unpleasant but as she's got older it's getting more clumsy.
As part of their 'escape to the country' they had a completely fresh start socially. They loved that. It must be a factor in other people's choices - new friends, new life, no baggage, not about work hierarchy...

I don't think I would, I like the casual interactions with people I used to do the school run with, what feels like a lifetime ago.

I bumped into their neighbours and only after realised I was being quizzed, my mum's stories are sometimes not quite adding up now so goodness now's what she's been telling them.

I think its very difficult to know the conversations held when we are not there and the impact they have on someone at a point of great vulnerability even if not confused.

I've had or shared PoA for several elderly relatives over the last five or so years and the pressure put onto them is huge. One of my relatives having been told they were going to live with a daughter or niece (because yes, its usually the women) was then told that the relative had changed their mind and didn't want them after all. In fact the relative had never arranged to have them because it wasn't possible - the staff had lied.

The same happened to my own mother who was sharp as a tack mentally but very vulnerable at the time. Sometimes its simple incompetence, sometimes outright lies but they know that faced with a frighted, anxious and ill relative most people cave in to the staff fiction unless its totally impossible. Whether incompetence or laziness the end result is the same and repeated up and down the country. Whatever the pressures there is no excuse for this kind of treatment of vulnerable patients.

If your friend/relative was told you wanted her to come and live with you I wouldn't assume that was the only lie/error. She may have been told quite badly that you had "changed your mind" or "didn't want her" rather than them admit they had fucked up in the first place.

This is the thing that gets me. Neither of my parents looked after their own parents. Even now that's she's retired and has the means and time, my mum still rarely visits my grandparents never mind provides any care. And to top it all, my parents barely raised their own children-we were expected to look after ourselves and the house and work in their businesses from childhood (I started working for them at the age of 12).

Yet throughout our lives we've been told that that's what family does. Family takes care of each other apparently. My dad even said on one occasion that what he'd love is for all his children to permanently live under the same roof forever! It's so dysfunctional.

I have spent the better part of most of my life so far taking care of them in some way. Throughout school, university, my own job, I was still expected to always be there to facilitate their lives. I'm now done. I am nearly 40 and it's time for me to focus fully on my own life. One of the key factors for me deciding to not have children is the fact that I feel like I've had them already-all I want now is to be left in peace to live my own life.

You don’t need to do those trips and inconvenience your kids though do you? Just don’t do it.

I also resent them for making the relationship quite transactional and what that models to my kids.

Honestly, I'm only hanging in for the inheritance.

I congratulate you on your honesty. So many threads on here with "it isn't the money" "I don't care about the money but it seems unfair" "I just don't feel loved" when they are also just wanting the inheritance.

Fortunately (or not) no one in my family had any money to leave me so we avoided all the angst.

It struck me yesterday that goldenballs brother has done the ETTC bit himself and moved 5 hours away from his DC now he's retired while issuing orders from on high about what other brother and I should be doing for mum. Mum lives an hour from us as she followed goldenballs when he moved for work. The town has everything she needs and she is mobile etc but dementia means that she needs taking to every appointment and a lot of support.

@SabreIsMyFave that post has made me so angry on your behalf Id have ripped that Staff Nurse a new one.

One of my relatives having been told they were going to live with a daughter or niece (because yes, its usually the women) was then told that the relative had changed their mind and didn't want them after all. In fact the relative had never arranged to have them because it wasn't possible - the staff had lied

Not the first time ive heard of this either and it should warrant a disciplinary. It would in any other profession.

I hear you. My parents didn't look after their own parents at all due to distance (that fell to other children), so they have no idea how demanding it can be.

I think it’s worth remembering that social care was better in the past. DHs grandma lived in a supported bungalow paid for by the council. There was no pressure for her to move in with 7 of her sons. They weren’t doing any care.
I certainly remember my FIL or MIL not having anything to do for her.

My grandmother died 2-3 years ago. My parents didn't lift a finger. It was all down to their siblings, though both were in homes at the end.

I'm not sure when it was better. I know when both of my grandmothers were terminally ill it was family who cared for them except for the nurse arriving (often late) with the morphine injection.

Twenty years later when my mother died the situation was the same. MIL paid a neighbour to help her as there was no help provided.

So for me the 60s, the 70s, the 90s and the noughties were very lacking in support for the terminally ill.

There was much more support for the frail elderly though, not terminal illness (which then and now seems very dependent on charity funding ie hospices).

More support in hospital with HCPs to support with washing, meals and toileting. Seemed to be more awareness of the need for support for rehabilitation. Long term geriatric wards no longer exist. More local, small, hospitals so easier to get to. It's a pragmatic decision to centralise services that need specialist expertise and expensive equipment, but the downside is that's in a few much bigger hospitals.

More community support - greater availability of GPs, who would probably actually know the person, and easier to get a home visit. More people like district nurses who could do home visits. Most (all?) areas had the meals on wheels service, so daily hot meal and a sandwich delivered which meant people were getting a decent meal and seeing the delivery person every day. Simple things like the postman being someone you knew and who would stop for a chat each day - now they're rushing around and probably tracked!

She died a while ago now but one of my very elderly relatives was a lifelong council tenant, and very easily got a place in a sheltered housing flat with her husband and then into a care home attached. That was with no nursing needs, just residential care. Now she'd have been left in her original council flat with a few care visits.

Some of this is because things have improved, in some ways. Elderly people now live with complex conditions they would once have died from years earlier. People were once kept in hospital for ages after things like hip replacements, but surgical techniques have improved and the risk of hospital-acquired infection and staying in bed recognised so they now go home within days. That's great, but then they don't also get the support they'd have had in hospital from not having to worry about meals or cleaning to regular physio.