Complete refusal to use technology

[Senttotestus]

My mum is 79 & a completely technophobic
In her mid 50s she resigned from her job as a Drs receptionist because they introduced computers. She worked for a few more years on a helpline then retired at 60
She has never sent a text message or WhatsApp
She has never sent an email
She cannot google anything
She has never purchased or booked anything online

A man from a tech charity for the elderly spent 2 sessions with her with no improvement

Over covid I told her she must learn to FaceTime & she has £1k worth of iPad for this purpose, she can also log onto her Halifax app to look at her balance - she cannot make any payments.

i do all her online banking, food shopping &
booking of appointments, she eagerly gives out my email address as if I am her PA

She has just rung to see where her Waitrose delivery is & she was unable to open the Waitrose app on her iPad - ITS 3 CLICKS - she presses everything with such force that most times the IPad thinks she is trying to move the apps around

I am accepting of this most days but today it just feels wilful that she has rejected all technology for over 20 years and thinks it’s acceptable to shrug and get me to do everything , laughing at any suggestion that she should be able to do some of these very basic things.

Rant over - deep breaths!! Anyone else in a similar position?

Then stop. Don't put this selfish woman who doesn't care about you over your own kids. Give her 8 weeks notice to learn to do this stuff and if she refuses, report to social services as vulnerable and take a big step back.

Or continue to be a doormat and let your kids suffer for it.

But, OP, if your mother didn't have children (as I don't), she would have to manage by herself, wouldn't she? So she is taking advantage of your willingness to help. Maybe it's too late for you to change things, but I think the moral of the story is not to start down this road of being too helpful.

Well, I'm older and only embrace part of the internet. I can order shopping/Amazon etc., but don't do takeaways, and choose not to engage with Facebook, X and all that.

Yet I would also say, stop doing so much for your mother. I do not expect my own adult children to do things for me and I won't when I'm even older and infirm. If I choose not to engage with certain aspects of modern life, I accept the consequences, I will not use it as an excuse for family members to do even more running around and arranging stuff. Absolutely unfair.

Set some boundaries. It's really sad that your own children are missing out because you're spending so much time dealing with an elderly mother.....and I say that as an elderly mother myself!

For some people (definitely my DM), the whole anti tech thing is bound up with a nostalgia for how things used to be. In some instances I do have a bit of sympathy with this - for example, my DM would argue (and frequently has) that things like self service tills in supermarkets and libraries, and online banking, has taken away a lot of the small, daily social interactions, especially for elderly people. I do get that. But, for me, it's the rejection of all tech, full stop, which I find frustrating (and which actually reduces interaction for my DM, as she can't join in with family WhatsApp chats etc).

My MIL was like this (she’s gone now). This including absolutely refusing to use a mobile at all.
she had one, it was switched off in a drawer for emergencies’.
Except there were emergencies and it remained unused, including her phone going off and she couldn’t call anyone.
She also refused online food deliveries as they would leave it on the street and get stolen, no matter how many times I told her you to sign for it .
She would also pretend she couldn’t really work her tv even though she clearly could.
All it was really was to get us to come and do it for her.

Well, I have the opposite problem. My DP's embrace tech but can't use it. They press buttons, delete things, do the exact opposite of what they were told to do, and call me at least twice a week with some tech crisis. I'm over there almost mevery weekend fixing things.

Both have been caught by scammers. DF clicked on something in an email and put his login details in a few weeks ago. DM almost got caught in an email scam but I nipped that one in the bud, thankfully.

Sometimes I wish they didn't use technology!!

That’s nice dear. Maybe you weren’t doing lots of other jobs for your DPs as well. Maybe OPs DPs aren’t quite as amazing as yours were. Maybe your situation and the OPs are not the same.

OP I say again, give up on the idea it will only aggravate you further. I see why you want her to do it - it feels like one of the few things she should be able to do herself. But trying to make her will drive you crazy.

Does she get attendance allowance? She should and that money could be used for a cleaner and someone to do the laundry . I know it’s easier said than done < says she who does a 2-3 hr return journey to change her DPs sheets> but I feel that might be a more successful option to reduce the burden on you.

It sounds as though she doesn't really want to embrace it and is happy with not using it? If she's just bashing the keys despite you telling her, she doesn't want to be able to do it.
My mum is in her early 80s. She has tech and she is willing to use it for the few things she's happy to - emails, reading news etc, looking things up. She is completely against any form of online shopping, won't use her card online, would never order anything at all, doesn't like social media, uses the phone to book anything. Luckily she is fully mobile and can drive and do whatever she wants in another (often more drawn out) way, but if she couldn't I guess I'd be doing it all. I wouldn't mind, to be honest.

I am in the same position with both my parents. They are separated so I have double the work while having my own family/home to run/work.

My dad is almost 90 he can use the TV and washing machine but if something was to go wrong with the TV he wouldn't know what to do. He has a mobile which he can use to call and look up the news but that's it. I do all his food shopping and pay bills. I've managed to change most over to direct debit as he was still taking cash out and paying at the post office up till February this year when ill health stopped him from driving. He lives with me so that does make fixing these issues easier.

My mum is early 70s and has major anxiety for general life and that includes technology. She can use her mobile to call and text but that's it I have to pay all her bills cause she wouldn't have a clue how to use the internet. She is housebound so I do lol her shopping although she does order meals over the phone which she manages alone. She will go into a blind panic of she does something wrong with her mobile and she panics using things like apps to top up her gas and electric so I have to do that as well.

Not going to lie it's hard work being split between them and have my own life

Can I ask what he did for a living? I feel that's a big factor

Yes, but that's not a "tech" problem really, it's a "dementia" problem. Our MIL was the same with her bank cards, cheque book and even cash. She just totally lost the ability to deal with any of it. After using bank cards for years, she suddenly forgot what they were and threw them away, and started trying to use cheques again, but she'd forgotten how to write cheques, so she threw away her cheque book too after a few weeks of us helping her write cheques, all the while waiting for replacement bank cards, which was also a nightmare as the banks always wanted to talk to her, so we had to hang around her house waiting for the bank long call queues to be answered etc. Then she forget about the meaning of cash, so was convinced a £20 note was worth less than a 20p coin as it was "only a bit of paper" compared to a shiny piece of metal which "had to be" worth more, so she started getting conned in shops etc when she tried to give a big note for a small purchase.

So, I think when it comes to dementia, it really doesn't matter about "apps" etc., because they probably wouldn't be able to function using old ways either.

@Isitreallysohardhe was a teacher

@Badbadbunny I often wonder how many times people complain that their elderly parents are refusing to learn something when it's actually MCI or early signs of dementia. Looking back becoming reluctant to using the internet because "they've made it more difficult" was the first sign with mum although we didn't realise it at the time.

OP's mum resigned from her job in her mid-50s because she refused to learn how to use a computer. This is wilfull and deliberate ignorance which would be fine if she didn't expect OP to do everything for her that requires the use of technology that her mum refused to engage with when she had the chance.

As this has been posted on the Elderly Parents board you must have seen other posts where posters are being run ragged caring for elderly parents that have never been great parents, even when they were much younger.

It's great that you feel that it is a privilege to care for your elderly parents, but don't assume that everyone has the same experience as you. For many people, it is a burden and not a privilege to care for difficult and ungrateful elderly parents.

You have my utmost sympathy.

The EPICF (elderly person I care for) is the same. It used to be wilful but now it's mostly their cognition. The learned helplessness drove me mad.

Online shopping was fine when it was endless crap from M&S, or fucking QVC. But ask them to order anything they actually needed like a new fridge, or food and they couldn't.

Grr. Fucking. Grr.

I live miles away and it would have been so handy if they could send me pictures of domestic disasters (like the ceiling falling down), or the error message on the boiler. But nope. Totally impossible. These days they can't even work out how to take a photograph of a single sheet A4 document.

Apart from using the accessibility functions on iPads maybe some posters could look at getting webcams or Amazon echos (or similar). You can set things up so you can easily talk and see what people are doing. You can set Amazon echos up so that the person on the end doesn’t have to do anything to receive a call/video call. You can just ‘drop in’. There are endless possibilities and they aren’t too difficult to set up. Try AI or YouTube videos.

Apart from using the accessibility functions on iPads maybe some posters could look at getting webcams or Amazon echos (or similar). You can set things up so you can easily talk and see what people are doing. You can set Amazon echos up so that the person on the end doesn’t have to do anything to receive a call/video call. You can just ‘drop in’. There are endless possibilities and they aren’t too difficult to set up. Try AI or YouTube videos.

i physically take my dm shopping,
online? surely there is a minimum spend that they wont reach, or dont they care and pay the forfeit?

Minimum spends aren’t that much, usually £40 or so. Buy washing liquid, toiletries as well as food etc and it’s not hard to spend that much even for one person.

Gosh. Well done her! 95 is a good old age to get to and to be mentally alert enough to use tech is fantastic

I haven’t read the thread so apologies if someone has already mentioned it but some supermarkets do allow elderly customers to place orders by phone.
I would try and set up everything possible by phone, imagining a situation where you are, for example, in hospital for a couple of weeks and couldn’t help her.

We've had incremental changes over the past 40 years. If people had the wrong attitude a couple of decades ago by refusing to engage with "new" tech, then the chasm soon gets too large and they'll not cope with going from nothing to the current high tech World. I only hope that current "middle aged" people lose the attitude and get on board with tech now, i.e. parking apps, online banking, online shopping, etc., otherwise they'll likewise struggle as more and more stuff goes app/online only which is clearly what is going to happen.

This is different from people who've previously successfully used tech and have lost the ability due to dementia, etc., but they'd struggle with "paper" based systems and "in person" dealings too eventually as the dementia progressed and would likewise need carers/support to do day to day things, even the old fashioned ways.

Co-op minimum spend is £15. Website is very clunky compared to Ocado, which is what I use for our household, but it's Co-op or nothing for Mum (on an island).

Husband's grandma is 94. Doesn't do computers (fair enough, just about) and has come up with arrangement to phone in her shopping order.

Yes, this is what MIL needed as she had MS so didn't have the dexterity. Her iPad enabled her to manage a lot of the day to day stuff, and husband set up curtains, lights etc via that to allow voice commands etc