Adult children buying stuff their parents don't want or need

[Surelyknotted]

I think it would be good to have a shorthand for when adult children living remotely buy technology for their parents which serves no purpose other than to make the child feel they are taking action.

I think if it can be named, it'll be easier to realise and avoid.

We're all under so much commerical pressure to buy unnecessary stuff and this is a particular vulnerability I think is being exploited, which is damaging to relationships and the environment.

I've searched but can't find a term has been coined for this but I think it deserves one. Please tell me if I've overlooked a term that already exists or suggest a new one.

Techwashing. Perhaps purchased by one child who lives remotely when they make a visit. Leaving another child who lives more locally to explain again and again how to use said tech item.

OP, I don’t understand why you think there needs to be a specific term for this. Lots of PPs have given examples where all kinds of things are bought with good intentions but miss the mark with the recipient. Or, have you never bought something for yourself thinking it would solve a problem but it actually doesn’t?

I think you’ll find this happens all the time on birthdays and at Christmas and isn’t confined to elderly people.

I bought my DP a dementia clock, which tells them the day & date. It is on the kitchen wall but they never look at it. Preferring just to ask me when I’m
there what day it is.
More successful has been a weekly wall planner white board which they have adapted to using quite well. Although they aren’t always sure what day it is!

Well it’s not clear here whether you’re the parent or the sibling of someone buying the tech. But it all depends on the parents’ cognitive health, anttitude and the type of tech. DM loved her heated pad and blankets but couldn’t turn them back on after they timed out and the carers had to check each visit. She stopped recognising her 20 year old cordless phone as a telephone and would only use the phone with a corded handset. She managed the stairlift to her last day at home but not the tv remote, microwave or central heating. I set up a (very loud) water detector alarm in the bathroom for when she let the bath overflow but she didn’t recognise the noise as something she had to act on. She did however manage to troubleshoot me removing the plug from the bath and used her face flannel to block the plug hole and flood the place again.

Her fall alarm worried her and lived in her bedside drawer (pressing the button on the top and speaking to a person freaked her out). She loved her speaking clock from the RNIB until she stopped understanding what it said.

There are so many things I explained and she “forgot” (wear your fall alarm, wait until the carer gets there to have a bath) that there’s no way on earth she would have managed an Alexa or iPad type of “new” technology.

(Dad on the other hand was texting us and using his laptop until his last few days because he had a very positive view of learning new technology and how it could help him)

The term you need is guilt trip. It involves the adult children knowing all their parent really wants or needs is a little bit of their time. But the adult children are too busy/ important/ self centred to supply it, so they buy their elderly parent technology to keep in touch that they can't understand and have no interest in.
But the adult kids can say " at least i tried!!"

(Yes, I am projecting here, from bitter experience).

Why posters like above are being so rude to the OP I don’t know. One can always ask for clarification if one is unsure. Or just not respond if one is in a hateful mood. Appreciate the interesting responses though.

In my experience it’s the elderly parent refusing to engage with anything new or different because they want their daughter to do it. Failing to recognise that their daughter lives several hours away, is the breadwinner so works full time to pay the mortgage and has children at primary school.

The daughter has offered to help set up an online shop each week and a falls monitor with a keysafe. But, no, what the elderly person wants is the daughter to drop everything else and come and deal with it in person.

Obviously there is also a male sibling who mustn’t be bothered with any of this because his job is too big and important.

Interesting how our different experiences impact our perception of situations. ‘Guilt trip’ to me is more about a parent refusing and rejecting everything available in the absence of complete capitulation- 24/7 availability to respond to every passing whim, but stay in your cupboard until wanted. She would appreciate an entirely dependent impoverished relative to live with her, whose sole purpose was to cater to her every whim. In the absence of such, we are relentlessly guilt tripped.

I recognise this.

We bought parents iPads and Amazon fire sticks. They like and use them but the temptation to upgrade them is strong.

DS also buys me tech now. I don’t need any more stuff. My android phone worked as well as my iPhone I was given.

Could you elaborate op?

My post was intended to be more light-hearted than it has landed with some but the breadth of replies has been very interesting, and elicited some really useful tips, thank you very much.
I’m the adult child trying to be helpful to a parent a few hours’ travel away from me and I’m trying to do the right thing myself through learning from others what is helpful. I think the behaviour I’ve described is common though I’m not suggesting it’s universal, and some people may not have encountered it (yet). I agree, it’s not confined to electrical devices, but maybe the intensity marketing and big promises of tech is greater, especially around dementia. With a price hike.

@TheAutumnCrow you made me laugh with your suggestion, thank you, and @MMAMPWGHAP you’re the one to be beat with ‘techwashing’

There was a spoof advert for an Alexa for older users I found very entertaining. It’s probably ageist, and probably no longer acceptable, but I did find it amusing a few years ago. DM has one in every room, and I’m always pleased when it’s Alexa being shouted at rathe than me 🤣

This sounds both very generalising and very specific.

There is nothing from a technical perspective that my dad can’t take apart, rebuild and reprogramme. My parents also have a lot more money thank DH and I, even though we have good jobs with good income.

Could you tell me which remote this was?

im
looking for something simpler
thanks.

I discovered mum's on off button on her remote wasn't working anymore so she was switching her TV on and off at the socket. Other buttons for volume and channel were fine. Sourced an identical remote and she still switches on and off at the socket because that's what she's used to now and can't understand that this remote is not the old one. If I'd got a different remote she wouldn't have been able to work it.

Try things before it’s too late. If you get a positive response, act immediately!

My problem is that ILs do engage, but if my DH says ‘we will go to the shop with you and help you choose a smart tv like ours so we can help you use it’ they immediately go to the shop alone and buy a completely different tv that they can’t work - and expect us to know instantly how to use it! Same with laptop and even search engine (my MIL trying to explain things over the phone was mind boggling)

However they do pretty well and I’m 100% confident that our assertive putting in place of iPad then iPhones, tv, cleaner and laundry outsourcing - none of which they’d have initiated or been able to organise themselves - has massively increased their quality of life. Yes they record the local weather forecast daily and often seem to watch tv series in a random order, but they are at least somewhat au fait with modern life and technology. My MIL loves using parking apps, for example.

In the absence of dementia etc, there is no need to do stuff for elderlies that they can do themselves, and if they won’t engage with how things are done then I don’t see why the younger relatives should suffer for it. I like to spend time with them enjoying their company - yes a little IT or household troubleshooting is often required but that’s fine. I appreciate the efforts they make for us, too. So it’s a relatively equal relationship.

My 96yo Dad can't manage tech. Not the computer, nor mobile phones bar opening it to answer a call, nor the fall alarm watch we tried.

But he can still use his war ministry lathe and is still buying new drill bits etc.

It would have been so useful though if he could use a camera phone and send WhatsApp pictures for me to help find things.

Probably not the right place to ask but DF struggles hugely with understanding his SKY TV package. He needs all the channels he gets (likes to watch golf, documentaries about WW2, and old movies) , but the interface with his TV is dreadful and often defaults to a scenic picture and none of us, apart from my 20 y.o DS (who is rarely available), can get it back again. I like the idea of a simpler remote but that alone would not solve the problem. Grateful for any ideas!

I think for an awful lot of relatives, interpretation of ‘a little bit of time’ varies.

Techwashing is a genius term.

Sometimes there are low tech things that work better than the high tech version. And sometimes the high tech is genuinely life changing. I have seen pendant alarms and iPads promote independence.

It’s very hard to predict what they will use.
We bought MIL an iPad years ago thinking she would enjoy face timing with her grandchildren. She was adamant she would never do anything online involving money because of the risk of fraud.
These days she happily does internet grocery shopping but still hasn’t got to grips with FaceTime or zoom.

Sometimes the best thing, if you can afford it, is to buy whatever might possibly help and see what sticks.

I buy the tech. They (Elderly person I care for - EPICF) pay for it.

We have a rule. They have to get tech I know how to use. So iDevices essentially as it's the only way I can troubleshoot from 400 miles away.

Pre dementia the ipad kept them at home as they did their own online shopping.

The transition from an ipad with a home button to one that you flick up from the bottom of the screen wasn't entirely succesful. But I managed to get EPICF online via their ipad (I phoned them to do this) to join the Victorian Society's online lecture last week (Philip Webb) and we are intending to do Gertrude Jekyll this week.

These are relatively academic lectures and right up EPICF's street. Gave them a huge sense of normality and a reminder that they are someone with interests / capabilities beyond their dementia diagnosis/ residence in a care home. Also probably something to talk about. Some of the other residents are really switched on and EPICF really strives to hold their own at meal time conversations. I think this is so much better than the endless diet of QVC they were on at home.

All in all it was definitely worth the 30 mins of my time it took to sort it out and the outlay on the tech.

I have offered to EPICF join me on the twentieth century society's forthcoming lecture series (High Tech architecture). For some reason they seem much less keen than on the Victorian Society's Arts and Crafts series.... (I fully acknowledge my own interests are niche).

Oh and APPLE if you read this PLEASE PLEASE introduce a feature whereby I can remotely take over the device and upgrade apps etc remotely because not being able to do so makes being a distant relative really hard. Sometimes I have resorted to paying a friend's teen to go in and do it for me as they live locally to EPICF.

But he can still use his war ministry lathe and is still buying new drill bits etc.

This is so real, as the kids say.

I know exactly what you mean OP.
My dsis did this. Never visited but sent stuff - self help books he never read, gadgets he couldn't use, clothes that didn't fit and itched. She took the money out of his bank account.

It would have been much better to occasionally visit, bring some food, spend time with him and buy what he needed.

My MIL now owns an Alexa, bought by her DS 'for phone calls.'

She can't use it, we don't have an Alexa and neither does her DD. We've all had a go at trying to make it do something, anything, and it's now just sitting unplugged in a cupboard.

I do sometimes think we do these things because we react to our EP moans and groans. For example during COVID mine spent every FaceTime or phone call telling me how bored they were. I live an hour away and when we couldn’t travel I did send things like books, magazines, jigsaws, games and DVDs in order to address their boredom. They refused to try anything. Yes they wanted company but that was not possible. When it was possible every visit was spent moaning about everything so I tried to suggest things that might make things better for them. Negativity towards simple sensible solutions. Some people do not want solutions they just want to moan. And before I am flamed I did not take any money off them it all came from my own pocket.

Yes they were/are lonely but there is only so much negativity some of us can take. If nothing is ever going to be what they ‘want’ where do you go from there? When asked what they ‘want’ the answer seems to they ‘want’ to not be old, in a house not fit for purpose, alienated from every neighbour and relative due to their own poor attitude. As the adult children of people like this it is draining. So yes we do chuck money at it. I have a holier than thou sibling who seems to think I should miraculously have a sweet cosy relationship with my mother. I have never had this so why he suddenly thinks that will happen baffles me.

I’ve spent a lifetime trying to ‘please’ my parents. time spent with them - all they do is moan - trips away - ruined because they act like they have never left their village and the big city is ‘too much’. Tickets to events and meals when they were able to travel abroad, think lovely meal all paid for overlooking an Italian landmark. Their only take on that treat was how scruffy American tourists were.

For some of us we have tried the ‘spend time with them’ but when that time is nothing but a monologue about how rubbish everything is it becomes exhausting. So every now and then we chuck more money at things maybe to assuage some guilt.