How to have that conversation, more help in home needed

[Barney16]

I have posted before about my elderly parents, very nice people, driving me and everyone else round the bend. I'm going to stay with them next week and am taking them to a funeral, even writing that down makes me apprehensive, it takes them so long to get in and out of the car, they can't walk properly but refuse a wheelchair but that horror is not why I'm posting. During this stay I need to talk to them about having help in their home. At the moment they are very well supported by family members but it's all becoming too much. They are capable of cooking a meal but won't if people are around, they find cleaning too much, but won't get a cleaner, the latest development is that they can't or won't do their washing. They throw their dirty washing over the bannister onto the hall floor then ask someone who visits to put it in the washing machine. To be clear they can get in and out if bed themselves, get dressed, go to the toilet themselves, manage their own meds. My mother still drives. At the moment she is recovering from a knee replacement but is doing really well. My dad however is very frail and in a decline. They are now asking far too much of family members and I want to suggest some sort of cleaner, housekeeper in the mornings who can do their breakfast, lunch and do some cleaning.and the washing They can pay for this, it's not a money problem it's a stubborn problem. How do I have this conversation? What can I say or what approach can I take that may have some chance of them agreeing. In an ideal world they would have thought of it themselves. But they haven't because frankly, they think and have always thought they are going to live forever. They also think that care should be free and provided by family.

Are family going round specifically to do their cleaning/laundry for them?

Why would they get paid help? They think care should be free and provided by family, their care is free and being provided by family, so all is right with the world.

Will they care that resentment is building? Will they care about being a burden? Would they respond to a plea that you want to be their family, not their skivvies?

Do all the other family members want to reduce their help and get a carer in?

@Barney16 welcome to the club nobody want’s to belong to. You will get lots of good advice on here and also I would recommend the Cockroach Cafe thread.

Unfortunately whilst people are doing bits for them here and there they most likely think they are managing fine.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/elderly_parents/5474948-cockroach-cafe-spring-in-autumn?page=4&reply=149890725

Yes they do. I live three hours away from my parents and work full time. I'm also an only child. I'm not available for day to day care. I suppose I think my parents are asking too much of others and also I want to kind of future proof the next couple of years. I feel really strongly the need for a plan. They don't seem to feel the same need.

I don't think you can 'suggest' at this stage, you have to insist. How easy this will be depends on the circumstances, but you have to be firm and blunt about it. You could present it as temporary 'until your knee has improved/until dad is feeling better'.

My mother had 'companion care' from Home Instead. I had LPA so I went ahead and booked it on her behalf. I told her someone was coming into help her. I did not say the word 'carer'. She happened to like the carer so it worked out fine and she didn't question it.

The carer came in every morning and did laundry, housework, cooked lunch, did some shopping - whatever was needed. So the help is available, if they accept it.

Yes family help them every day. They do say oh we wouldn't be able to manage without x and y. And it's true. They wouldn't. But when I talk to them about professional help they arent keen . They dont say no, they just don't engage. It's like non confrontational resistance. I talk about a cleaner, my mum would say oh but there are lots of firms to choose from. Then she changed the subject. Perhaps I'm expecting too much thinking they may sort themselves out.

Is there some role name that they might find easier to accept because it's familiar, eg home help, char lady? Or might they be willing to help a friend trying to start up a cleaning business by trialling her for a few months? I think figuring out the psychology of how to introduce the help that is needed is important, what might make it seem familiar, something that 'people like us' do.

My experience is that while they have capacity, you can’t force anything. My DF chose to live in a dirty house. He refused to move anywhere more manageable, he could afford to pay, I wasn’t going to do it, so he lived in a dirty house

Unfortunately @Barney16 they are making choices to live like this. Whilst they are deemed to have capacity the health and welfare LPoA is no use. Your can suggest and advise how life could be better for everyone with some tweaks but spend anytime on this Elderly Parents thread and you’ll find an army of frustrated and run ragged family members. I have even tried the ‘what happens if we can’t help/wash/clean/cook/ for you’ and all I got was ‘we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. They didn’t of course they simply let the house of cards fall ans we are left, I say we as a collective we, are left with the worry/guilt/resentment whilst also trying to juggle our own health and lives. It horrible.

They do have capacity and I think you are right. They are making a choice. It's so deeply frustrating because their choice rest on the assumption that people will do lots and lots of things for them. I have spoken plainly to my mum about family members not wanting to clean their house and she just cries. It's like banging my head against a brick wall.

Could you ask them to 'try' a cleaner once a week/fortnight, who will also put a load of washing on at the start and take it out at the end? Say you can review after 2 months.

I don't think you will go from nothing to 4 hours daily, it needs to be a bit more stealthy.

@Barney16 so difficult. I use the word inertia a lot with my parents. They had a good life of post war boom years, good jobs they left and got new ones in a heartbeat when they fancied, good holidays and were always kitted out in the latest fashions. I genuinely think they just looked at life right in front of them. They needed some work doing on their house 25 years ago - think rotting wood - they got quotes in and simply said ‘we’ll think about it’. It has never been done.
The work they have done my mother has been so rude to the trades people most local ones won’t go near her.

Some relatives consider me mean but frankly I have had a lifetime of their indecision and it always impacts me. I would say in the past 10 years they have realised they have made some poor life choices and become quite bitter. One of my siblings decided my mother was ‘ill’ several years ago and wanted a ‘diagnosis and medication’. nothing was found to be wrong with her she is just unhappy with her lot but will not do anything about it.

When your mother cries is she sad or does she want you to do the cleaning? Can she explain the crying at all?

You can suggest or insist but if they say no and they still have capacity, there's not a lot you can do.

I wouldn't think of this as one conversation....

Be really clear.

I had loads of conversations with my FiL about Mil's worsening dementia. "We are just getting on living our lives..."

Who are the family members going around there?

What do they say?

Can you say agree with family members to be "unavailable" for a week and draft in Home instead to drop in two mornings a week. They can be very light touch.
Thats how we started and mine got used to it.
Who would be paying though?

You all need to pull back and do less. Be unavailable, don’t answer the phone whenever it rings, don’t cover each other if one is ill or on holiday. As mean as it seems, you need to let them fail.

Emotional blackmail. Seriously. Burst into tears with her. Or rudeness. ‘What did your last slave die of/I pay people to do that for me, I’m not doing it for you’ when asked to put laundry in. Or lying; put your arm in a sling and refuse to move it.I wouldn’t personally become harder to contact, because there are some times when you genuinely need to step in, but I’d become a lot less easy to manipulate and a lot less nice for the sake of bloody cleaning.

As long as X and Y keep helping them, nothing will change. Why are they doing this? What relation are they to your parents?

X and Y are the obstacle at this stage, not your parents.

My adult children are helping them. It was meant the be a relatively short term thing because my mum had her knee replaced but kind of at the same time my mum had that done my dad really went downhill, it can't be a coincidence but it was really rapid. My mum is about four months post op and when she makes the effort she gets around fine, but she spends a lot of time just sat with my dad. She seems to think that's needed. He absolutely doesn't think it is

Sounds a lot like my in laws. Always living in the moment, planning the next holiday, no future proofing or planning ahead, no adapting the house (or even maintaining it) or considering downsizing, no bothering with POA as obviously they were going to live forever.

You are going to have to be blunt. If she cries, she cries, that’s a handy manipulative tactic (whether deliberate or not) but it can’t be allowed to work. Decisions have to be made - they can’t be relying on family any longer - presumably they have lives too. If they won’t accept help then you need to step back and let things fall. If you won’t do that, they will never accept help, why would they?

Well as long as your adult children continue to step in, the situation will not change. How do they feel about doing this care? Was there a time limit put in place when they agreed to do this?

if your children don’t want to do this any more then you should be supporting them to step back. If your mum won’t accept external help in the first instance, maybe the reality of living without it will help change her mind. As long as you prop them up, she will not voluntarily change the situation.

Some kind of weekly cleaner or carer can keep social workers and care homes at bay - tbf normal families stretch to a cleaner anyway, so why shouldn't they?

Unfortunately, older folk have a strange or tbf realistic attitude to money. Why spend it if they don't have to? My Dad had people in daily to tend to Mum when she had advanced Parkinson's. Often they didn't/don't come for very long, you don't get your money's worth etc So he cancelled it. This is all very well but he had an eccentric side to him, when Mum was on the floor and he couldn't lift her and called out the ambulance to help. This happened twice and then he was 'on the list' where social services get involved. And the next time she goes into hospital, she is kept in there as leverage to put her in a care home, you're on the next step along the line and it's a grand a week, no exit save through death.

So while it might not be thought of as great or cost effective to have a cleaner or carer in, it does 'safeguard' you from these kind of state interventions where ultimately your parents will not be not in control and it costs a fortune.

This is how you can 'have that conversation' - you get someone in for fear of something worse.