Do you do ‘personal care’ for a parent?

[dottyduvetcover]

If you’re a carer for a parent, do you do ‘personal care’, e.g showering, toileting etc?

I oversee the care for my dad and from the beginning, I’ve always said I wouldn’t do that. I wanted to protect his dignity and also just didn’t want to see him in that way. He has carers who help with this but recently he’s had some bowel issues and there’s been several accidents (once in my car and a few times around the house). I’ve got in there with the bleach and sorted everything out but it’s been hard - it’s the one thing I said I’d never do.

Two of my friends are parental carers and they said they do personal care and don’t think twice about it. Both their parents have dementia though and also they’re same sex, so perhaps this is different as there’s less embarrassment.

I don’t think I’m unusual in drawing a line and saying I wouldn’t/couldn’t do it!

I personally couldn’t/ wouldn’t do personal care for a parent. But maybe that’s down to having difficult relationships with them.
I couldn’t imagine ever being ok with my dc having to deal with me either.
If it makes you so unhappy and distressed to do it then you shouldn’t have to do it.

Phone call with DPs yesterday. DF (92 with memory loss) recounted in great detail how he had just wiped DMs bottom ( 87 more or less bed bound) after a poo as the carers weren’t there. Bless him because he never changed a nappy so it must have been hard for him. She should really be in a care home but is still at home to help prop up his failing memory as he refuses to go in a home and she doesn’t want to leave him.

I certainly have no desire to do it on an ongoing basis, nor do I expect to ever administrate DFs showers. I would do it once in an emergency but then they have money so they options. Their preferred option may be for me to do it, but that isn’t happening.

In general, you're right.

My dad provided personal care for my great-uncle (actually Mum's uncle); a friend provided personal care for his FIL; another friend provided care for his wife. However, those are certainly the exceptions.

I wonder whether class comes into it? The three men that I've just mentioned were all working-class. I've never heard of a middle-class man doing it.

I'm a man and having to help my Mum with toileting sometimes. Basically, I help her with her clothes and wipe her bum. She wipes her vulva – that would be a step too far for me and perhaps her. I wear protective gloves for the wiping, which makes it feel a bit more 'clinical' and less personal. Neither of us likes it, but we just get on with it, and I too have reminded her that she did this (and a lot more) for me many decades ago. I'm afraid it is DW who does more of the direct caring tasks, and I try to help with shopping, cooking, housework and so on.

We have got carers coming in to do washing, apply ointments etc, and that has helped a lot, but we are looking at either a care home or a live-in carer longer term. Just started down that track, so not at all sure what is possible. It's the confusion DM is now displaying that is most emotionally draining, and a major reason she needs help with hygiene as she doesn't always do things in the right order!

Agreed. You can love your parent and have a carer for personal care. I couldn’t even do my kids’ vomit when they were tiny but couldn’t have lived them more! Everyone is different.

No I wouldn’t do it. And my mum hated doing it for my dad, her husband of 66 years. It’s one of the reasons he lives in a nursing home- he needs this kind of assistance and receiving it from people who are paid and trained to do it preserves his dignity and maintains his relationship with his wife. They are now able to get on happily again and enjoy each other’s company, which they had ceased to do when she was required to help clean him up and deal with the extra laundry and cleaning that his incontinence and lack of basic independence entailed.

No, class has nothing to do with it. I'm an authentic peasant (both GFs born in the workhouse, first person in entire family to have any post-compulsory education) and if anything this makes me less inclined to get my hands dirty. Because none of my ancestors would have had any choice in the matter.

I also agree that providing personal care, including the extra laundry and cleaning that accompanies incontinence and reduced mobility, comes freighted with a lot of gendered expectations. My mother had always done much more housework than my dad, even after they were both retired, and cleaning his poo off the floors and pissy clothes and making sure he was properly washed after the latest accident was viewed, for far too long by them both, as a sort of natural extension of the housework she led on already.

No! No, no, no, no.

I’m a carer but couldn’t do it for my own parents

It's a me problem too !
I work with animals but the thought of doing personal care for a human being completely repulses and horrifies me ,i absolutely cannot get my head around it and live in dread of my one remaining elderly parent needing my help.
I think i could possibly help my husband and adult children if i really had to.
I am a very practical person and i can easily get stuck in with keeping my parents house and affairs in order ,i suppose we all have our strengths and weaknesses though.

No. I won't, and I don't. My mother has carers for that. Beyond cleaning up once in an emergency when the carer wasn't due for a while, I haven't done it since and I don't want to. She now keeps more carer visits going when I am visiting so that it is less likely to happen again.

Stop telling people what they will do. Many of us won't, and as I have said, I don't.

I have to say, I'm rather selfishly feeling a lot of relief reading many of the replies on this thread. My DM who has Alzheimer's lives with me, and I've spent years feeling ashamed of myself because I have carers in to help her wash and dress, and won't be committing to toileting on a day-to-day basis if she becomes incontinent. It's partly because I have worsening pain and fatigue issues, partly because I work, but mostly because I simply don't want to see my mother with no clothes on if I can help it (we were never a naked family so to speak) and am horrified by the thought of toileting. I'm not a mum and have never wiped a bottom in my life other than my own, which I'm sure has a lot to do with this, but I've tended to assume these tasks (or at the least the washing and dressing) wouldn't bother most people.

Naturally, I will do anything my mum needs if there's ever an emergency of some kind (which I realise is pretty much inevitable sooner or later), but day-to-day is a no. I feel a lot of guilt over this (I think partly because when my dad became unable to do his own personal care he made attempts to guilt-trip me into taking it on so my mum - who was perfectly healthy at the time - wouldn't have to do it, and seemed very surprised and disappointed in me when I refused), but I feel a bit better about it for reading that there are others out there who also don't feel able/willing to do it.

I find it interesting that most people with dogs are quite prepared to pick up after them these days, an act which I (not a dog owner) find quite disgusting. Cultural expectations have a big impact on what many of us are prepared to do. But some on this thread may be surprised at what they will do when directly faced with the need.

If there's an urgent need in the moment, yes. I'd never leave my DM in need of cleaning up if she had an accident. But (and obviously I can only speak for myself) as far as dealing with faecal matter on a day-to-day basis were she to become incontinent or start to need toileting assistance, that'd be a no from me.

Agree re dogs, though, I like them but this is one of the reasons I'd never own one.

Some on this thread may, though I doubt it. I certainly won't be. I won't be providing any personal care for my parents, under any circumstances. The very thought is utterly revolting to me - just like picking up warm dogshit, which I also wouldn't do under any circumstances.

Seems like a lot of people on this thread think that handling your parents' genitals is some kind of moral duty and that those of us who baulk at the thought will get our comeuppance one day.

Fuck. That.

I help my dad shower and he's fine with that, but nothing beyond that at the moment, but future does worry me.

Fantastic! I feel the same as you, though I don’t mind dogshit.

Wow. I bet your fun at parties! I personally don't give a shit whether anyone else does it / nor do I think it's my 'moral duty' either. The OP asked a question . People answered.

'Fun at parties'? What relevance does that have to a thread like this? 🤔

@bringincrazyback - My "fun at parties' comment was satire 🙄

Me neither, and there is no way my children will be doing it for me. I have already had that conversation with them.

Yeah, got that, thanks. 🙄 It was still irrelevant to the thread.

I would do it for my mother without hesitation but I’m not so sure about my dad due to my strange relationship with him. I don’t know what I’ll do when faced with it.

This 100%

I did personal care for my dad when he was going downhill and end of life for just over a year. We had carers in too, but he was doubly incontinent so there were often occasions I had to step up or he'd have been uncomfortable for hours.

It surprised me how unbothered I was by it, but we were very close and similar personalities - very matter of fact about the human body (we'd previously done life drawing classes together!) so neither of us were bothered.

I had to do a bit of cleaning up after my mum when she had food poisoning after a hospital admission a couple of years ago and I hated it more than I can begin to describe. There is no way I could do it for her regularly and I'm really not sure why except that our relationship is more challenging (not terrible though) and she is very squeamish/pedantic so likely to be more difficult than my dad who was very laid back.

Yes l did it for my Dad and for my Mum, it never bothered me tbh .