what dealing with elderly parents has made you think you will do differently?

[GenieGenealogy]

DH and I are the classic sandwich generation at the moment. Early 50s, he's still working full time, I'm self-employed part-time, we have three kids still at home at the end of school / uni stage. My dad died a couple of years ago, the three surviving parents are all in their 80s. We live in a different city from our parents, we are about 2 hours from my mum, 4 hours from DH's parents. DH's sister lives very close to her parents, my brother is even further away than we are.

This summer has been a blur of dealing with kids who didn't do as well as expected in school exams, trying and failing to get a job for another child, breaking up with first serious boyfriend for another. My mother had a planned stay in hospital and sibling and I had to tag team looking after her post-discharge and I was away from home quite a bit. Then DH's mother fell, broke a bone and was also admitted. Their house is really unsuitable for someone with mobility issues, packed with "stuff" and FIL cannot cope with the logistics and is panicking about managing. DH has been backwards and forwards the last 4 weekends to support his parents and sister.

So last night we had a long talk about how this situation has brought home what we want for our older years and how to minimise the impact on our own kids. We have already made wills and have both health and financial POAs set up - we did this a few years ago after a horrible incident at DH's work where someone was seriously brain injured in an accident and his wife seriously struggled to access money.

We have also decided that mid-60s (so 12-15 years time) we are moving out of our current house which is 4 beds over 3 floors. When the kids are gone it will be too big, too many stairs. We want something all on one level, whether that's a flat or bungalow. Preferably with a garden someone else has the responsibility of maintaining.

Anyone else making similar choices??

I could not and would not be miles away from my parents. If I’m going to support then when they need help, I want to be 20 minutes away in the car. Which I am. I am happy to help and they’re not unreasonable.

Declutter early. I have already slashed what I buy - don’t need it attitude.

Have wills.

Plan to set up a death file with everything together - details of all accounts/shares/phone/insurance etc.

Life doesn’t always work out that way though. I’m 500 miles from mine.

What I have learned is that selling up and retiring to Spain might seem like a great option when you are still well and active. However, when a few years have passed and you have worsening health issues that you need support with, you will find that living in a country your children are not allowed to stay in for extended periods will cause them a lot of worry and expense in trying to provide that support.

Good luck with that when they decide to move to Spain.

We (68 and 72) moved to a new bungalow a year ago from 3 storey house. I love the bungalow. No 'bungalow legs' as we have two dogs including a young cocker spaniel and go for a long walk every day. We can live here until we die. We've got little storage so did a complete declutter before moving, and enjoy the lightness of being of not having 'stuff'.

Your last sentence really resonates with me.
My dad died in his mid 60s and then my similarly aged mum moved into a small, one bedroom bungalow leaving behind the family home of 25 years.
She no longer had space to host gatherings of all her kids and grandkids so my siblings increasingly gravitated to the bigger homes of their in-laws especially on high days and holidays.
Mum became somewhat peripheral to the in-laws and spent too much time being upset about it.
I moved far away for work. When I stayed with mum I had to kip in the lounge on a fold-up bed which was inconvenient for us both. Due to illness she couldn't travel to stay with me.
So I'd advise retaining a 3+ bedroomed house for as long as possible if you want to remain a hub for family activities.

@Jamesblonde2 you say your parents are reasonable so you have that on your side and it is kind of you to want to be around for them. Many of us on here have unreasonable stubborn parents who said similar to you - as in planning to do all the things you say - wills, death file etc…..but they just talked about it never actually did it. In fact talked so much about how organised they would be it sounded impressive. The reality was starkly different.

If anything in retirement my parents seem to have gone on a spending spree both of clothes and ‘stuff’. It seems that was their hobby. So we have clutter beyond belief.

@Joystir59 hats off to you we did similar albeit to an apartment.

Unfortunately after meeting my friend last night and discussing aging DPs, a lot of it is just luck of the draw. Her DM is in her 90s but has retained her faculties and physical mobility albeit is a bit frail. She also has had 3 DCs so they can share the load in terms of visiting and supporting.

My DPs ate reasonably healthily and took moderate exercise most of their lives.They have been unlucky that DM appears to have had strokes and bad osteoporosis and DF is losing his memory ( likely dementia but refuses to discuss or get tested). The only bit they could really have changed was having more than one DC i.e. me, but even then who’s to tell where your adult DCs are going to live. In a way living healthily whilst they could seems to have just extended the non healthy, non enjoyable years.

So you can put all the preparations you want in place, but ultimately it’s a bit of a life lottery.

There is something I'd add to the thread, coming out of experiences I have had with myself and with my parents (2 very different locations in the UK).
Register with a good GP - if they are no longer good, ask around and see what friends or neighbours think. This has been the case for both of our surgeries, and both have split sites with one location much easier than the other, in the case of not being able to go by car (arisen in DPs case because DF can no longer walk far, or sit in a car seat easily due to swelling).
Also go through the process of getting a proxy form registered for anyone who would be able to receive test results or discuss results/appointments (e.g. both partner, and children). It is still very difficult to get the NHS app online access for a 2nd person, with this, but it will save some anguish and admin when it's actually needed, as the person nominating a proxy has to be able to be present and 'uncoerced' to do it.
Without a proxy form, a GP cut my 80 year old mother off almost instantly for attempting to get my rather deaf DF to hear in an appointment, with 'What are you to (him) - sister, wife...?'

@Ormally good point about the proxy. I would suggest that conversation is had with the elderly person when you do the POA for H&W and a note made that they will agree for you to be the proxy. What I found was when my mother became more difficult than normal but was deemed to have capacity the GP couldn’t discuss anything with us. They were very helpful and suggested we write a letter explaining our mother needed a proxy - she would also need to sign it. She point blank refused for any of us to be a proxy and with capacity she had and continues to have every right to do so. She is impossible but great advice from you.

@BlueLegume exactly - my DM is in no position at all to be able to do anything on an NHS app record either for DF or her, and it would be so useful for me to have proxy access to that - so that the smart links can generate their appointment letters etc for them. But as I am not at the same surgery, that is the part I am not able to do at present. Phonecalls are difficult enough, and DM is already trying to be a carer while wrung out and exhausted. So going through the procedure they have to accept, helps a little.

@Ormally would your DM and DF agree to you being their proxy? I am not at my parents surgery but they seemed willing to allow one of to be proxy as long as we wrote a letter and our mother signed it agreeing. Might be worth asking. FWIW I was impressed at how much our parents surgery wanted to help us and could see how frustrated we were. They were really professional and kept making suggestions….all of course scuppered by an ‘I know better’ mother!

agree you need stairs
but perhaps stairs that can accommodate a stairlift
downstairs toilet

Yes, fortunately it's done (for both of them) - but I still don't comply to be eligible for the process to have proper 2nd person login access to anything re the NHS app for them. The best we could do was to register for no smart link messages to be used in communications, via DF's profile settings - there is a slightly tedious combination of reasons why this isn't practical in their case.

@Ormally ah I see. I suspect similar applies because of medical ethics. It must be equally difficult for the GPs.

Yes, but it's a bit Kafkaesque on the other end. It makes putting a proxy in place extra difficult in circumstances where you are more likely to really need one (including stubbornness and not facing up to the needs you don't realise will cause much greater difficulties).

@Ormally absolute sympathy with you there. I never expected this experience to be easy as my mother has always been incredibly difficult but once my Dad went into nursing care - he used to be able to temper her mad behaviour-she has revealed her whole self - Mean Girl persona, acting like she is in some kitchen sink drama, contradicting the most sensible ideas and worst of all lying by omission to garner sympathy. Her best one was ….well I’ll save that for the book 🙄

OP, As someone who is in my early 70s, I disagree about downsizing. The fact that we have spare bedrooms means the grandchildren can stay when we look after them. Our hobby is hill walking and we need the stairs during the winter months when the weather isn’t suitable for walking. We are trying to keep our house in good repair and declutter.
We live very close to excellent bus and rail links and I think this will be a bonus in our old age. I don’t believe in driving at 90.

Elderly people are INCREDIBLY stubborn

I'm sorry that some of you have problems with elderly parents who are not accepting their limitations, but can we not have this kind of ageist generalisation going on?

👏👏👏

They haven’t and won’t. Our family is close. I’d never leave my DC to live abroad either. I’m not selfish enough.

@saraclara @Dorabledoreen SOME elderly parents are stubborn, and probably always have been.

Elderly people are INCREDIBLY stubborn - not and acceptable statement I agree.

Hmm must be great having the perfect family and the absolute certainty that you have control over everything. Meanwhile, those of us back on planet Earth must deal with messy reality.

Again I’ll say: all that is great until it isn’t.

Please don’t be so pessimistic. I am not about to downsize my life now as I am having a wonderful time. We need space for visitors and all the items to entertain and do our hobbies. This could change tomorrow, but I could continue to enjoy living my life for another 20 years. As I have said many times on MN, hell would freeze over before we would let our adult children look after us. We have had this conversation with them and they said they would organise care, if we needed it, but not provide it. There are people in my road who are 20 years older than me and living in exactly the same design of house as me so I know which room can be used as a downstairs bedroom and how the downstairs loo can be extended to include a shower. Further than that, I will not think about it until I need to.