My 80 year old dad is still caring for his 100 year old mum

[Doiwantthis8262]

My nan is 100, my dad is 80.
Nan still lives independently, doesn't have carers as such but we pay a home help to go in for 2 hours three times a week. They clean, do her washing. She can still shower and cook herself.
But she is very frail, doesn't go out anymore. She is very demanding of my dad's time. Rings him over every minor issue. But my dad is 80 himself!!

Does anyone else have this situation? There's only 3 grandchildren- I'm 40 with teenagers, work full time and I have an aunt and 2 younger cousins. Aunt lives in another country so cant help , one cousin also lives away. Youngest cant drive , lives 2 bus rides away.
Its starting to become a difficult situation. My mum mid 70s is really starting to deteriorate and often says nan will outlive them.

How does your dad feel about it? she can ring him, he doesn’t have to answer or jump every time she does.

If he steps back from caring for his mum, then other arrangements can be put in place. If he continues, then things will limp on until one of the three of them has an accident or an illness or a burnout 🤷‍♀️ and change will be forced at that point.

I think you need to talk to your Dad about the situation. If your mum and dad are both still healthy, it is really their decision. That being said, I am good friends with 2 girls (in their mid-late 30s) and their brother (mid 40s), their parents are both dead (heavy smokers, mum was in her late 50s, dad in his 60s), Nan (dad's mum) is happily still going, late 80s or even 90s by now...!

My mum is developing severe mobility issues and is going to need care herself. She is feeling very burnt out by the constant requests.
They do my nans weekly shopping for her, sort all of her medication, her appointments etc
Its a lot to keep on top of when your 80 yourself

Wow OP that really is a lot at their ages. I have 80-85 y/o family members who are in relatively good health and always been quite active, but even they barely manage to look after themselves now.
It's great that your 100 y/o nan is able to shower and cook still, amazing! But your parents are very elderly themselves and must be very tired physically and mentally to regularly help like this, and have their time consumed with phone calls on top.
You're right, something needs to be done, perhaps additional help from carers? They can sort out the medication and the shopping, and then your parents will be left with just the visits and calls, which they can (and should) put boundaries around. But all you can do is encourage them to do so, whether they'll listen or carry on out of duty is another matter.

A lot of that can be organised online:

Online groceries at a time when her home help is there to put away

Medication can be delivered for free

A regular taxi can be booked to take her to appointments.

I am 73 and my mum is 94. She is fairly independent but getting frailer so I'm basically heading in the same direction as your dad. I do her shopping, wash towels and bedding but she does the rest, take her to appointments, doctors, hospital, eye tests, have her over for Sunday lunch and ring her every day. Fairly manageable ...but this week she has notice from the DVLA that she is no longer able to drive her car. This will be a huge miss for her. She gets out every week to a ladies club, a sit down exercise class and also is used to picking up a friend to go out to lunch every week so now a huge change and I can already feel it impacting on me. I want her to still get out as much as possible but I also want to enjoy mine and dh's probably last few years of good health. Today a friend is going over who she usually picks up but is now having to get buses. I'm having a day out with DH so feel guilty that I can't pick the friend up but I know I have to start the way I should go on or my own days out ect will revolve around dm's social life. I will always look after her and get her to everything essential. She is always invited to any meals out I have with DD and her family and is always collected by me and taken home again. Always welcome here as well but I'm going to be careful over the next few weeks about taxi ING to everything she likes doing. I am talking up shared taxis with friends and pointing out that she can use the money saved on insurance, petrol, car maintenance, road tax ext for taxis. That is quite a few taxis if only used for her social life with me doing appointments, shopping, getting her over here ext so we shall see how it goes. 😁 When she is 100 I will be 79 so id better start pacing myself now 😄

@shiningstar2my stepdad has recently had to stop driving and it was a really hard conversation for us to have with him as he was adamant he wouldn’t. Like your mum, we don’t want to stop him getting out and about as it’s so important for them. Anyway we have taught him to use Uber. He’s never looked back. Would this be an option for your Mum?

She isn't into technology @hby9628 She has a mobile phone but it isn't a smart phone. She has several taxi numbers in her address book and prefers to use them instead of Uber. Which will be fine so long as I can get her started on using taxis instead of having the first thought for everything ...Shiningstar2 will

@shiningstar2 Can I recommend that you start getting your mum to use taxis asap. My Dad had to stop using his car when he was 93. (He was not really using it for at least a year before, luckily it was during lockdown so they had nowhere to go).

Family wanted him to start using taxis but he and mum could not manage it. It was not just the physical aspect of getting into the cab, it was also using a mobile to order the cab - you need to have a mobile on you when you are out and then they often try to ring you back to check the pickup point. We do feel that we should have got them used to taxis before the cognitive decline set in. Mum would say “oh we don’t use taxis” like taxis are for a different class of people to them. But when your nearest family lives three hours away it would help if you did.

I have mid seventies parents and a 99 year old active, independent grandparent. My parents don’t care but are doing more coordination of eg work around the house. However, they’re in poor health and it doesn’t feel like there’s a generation between them.

It sounds as if they all need to refer themselves to social services for a care needs assessment, your parents need carers assessments too.