Hi OP. I'm not really responding to your question as you framed it, as I'm not making a judgment about where, on the scale from awful to amazing, my parents lie. But I have, over the last 3-4 years, become increasingly involved in my parents' care, to the point where my brother and I are feeling extremely stressed and over-burdened by the responsibility of caring for our parents.
It's crept up over a period of nearly 2 decades: began with sorting out pension credit and warm home discounts and admin like that. Then helping get attendance allowance. Then getting LPAs. Then helping them sell and move house to a more supported, but still independent and purpose-built retirement apartment near us (major red flag!), that is to say, a 40 minute drive for me, 30 minutes for my brother.
And it's just gone on for the last 3 years, more and more asked of us in terms of shopping orders, sorting out medical appointments (so many of these!) and ferrying them there, running around to pharmacies, furniture shops, food shopping, getting cash because they can't deal with the ATMs themselves, and are vulnerable in the street anyway; dental appointments, chiropody, managing everything and anything that needs internet access, picking my dad off the floor after one of his many falls, managing my mother's rages and threats of suicide when my dad wets the bed or messes himself, or drops something on the beige carpet. Persuading them to accept more paid help in the form of cleaning services, then accepting a carer coming daily. THey haven't been able to get buses or taxis independently for the whole time they've been living near us, so any trip to the shops has to be facilitated by us and my mum in particular is so frustrated and bored and angry with how things have turned out, that she's incapable of just relaxing and enjoying the outings we arrange - everything must be just so, the item she's looking for must fall into her hand immediately or else it's 'a nightmare, a disaster'.
The worse thing has been being so horribly close to the deterioration of their relationship. We've always, of course, been aware of the fault lines and imbalances, as children are; but it's just so continuously toxic and miserable now. I am full to the brim with the poison that just leaks out of their situation, and honestly, their deaths will be a blessed relief. And they have been kind, generous and loving parents and grandparents in the past. They've just lived too long, and they refused to make any real provision for real frailty and extreme old age.
We - my brother and I - have spent the last 3 months trying to organise my father into long-term residential care. He's in respite care, supposedly short term, but he's actually been there since the end of May. The local authority is hellish to deal with and we've had to fight to ensure that we get top-up funding into place and to exercise an element of choice of homes to keep him out of the shitholes that were on offer via the LA, who just lie about their policies on contracting. We're not quite there yet, although tantalisingly close - but it could all fall through still in the next 24 hours, and if it does, I really don't know what we will do.
The long and the short of it is that I feel we are deeply implicated in whether my dad lays his head in a decent, caring, homely environment and sees out his last days in dignity and comfort, or not. And that my parents have effectively shuffled off this responsibility onto us (while of course loudly protesting that we are not responsible for them, and they don't want to be a burden - actually, that's more my mum's line, my dad has always been a passive person,happy for others to take charge), and that is not fair.
It would be different if they had experienced a stroke or a disabling accident, or had lost mental capacity, but none of these things are the case. At nearly 94 (dad) and 88, old age has been a factor to consider and plan for for a good 20 years. But they didn't, not really, Mum just thought she would rage and tantrum and control my dad and get him to do what she wanted and needed doing, which is how they've always done things. Going into residential care was only ever raised in anger, as a threat. Dad just went along with whatever was happening, and wouldn't ever initiate a conversation about care, just lie in his own poo and weather my mother's storms until someone came along to sort it out.
I'm writing this as I sit here and wait, yet again, for mediocre bureaucrats to make their decisions and determine whether or not my father gets moved this week to a good, permanent, care facility. If it does, we move into a new phase of care for our parents, hopefully a much happier one. If it doesn't, GOK what we'll do.
I am very resentful and angry about bearing this responsibility, and all because they didn't really want to think about it, and didn't want anything to change, and left it too late to be able to manage the organisation and decision-making and forward thinking that it requires. But it's too late now, I can't walk away.
And so, OP, I am begging you to learn from this sorry tale and STOP doing for your parents and filling in all the gaps. I would recommend a hard conversation about residential care, and being clear that the time has come that they need to hand over the reins of their lives to paid professional organisations and carers because you can't do more, and you don't want to.
Do you think you can do this? Because leaving it too late will leave you with no choice except to abandon them to the decisions of social workers and placement brokers. And if your system is anything like the one here, that is a real race to the bottom.