Anyone moved parent(s) to live near them? How did you convince them if they were unwilling?

[ZackyP]

Sorry if this is a bit garbled.

I'm an only child. My mum's a single parent. We live about 80 miles apart.

My mum's in poor and declining health. Everything is a struggle for her. Her house is falling to bits and not fit for her anymore. She leaves the house once a fortnight for shopping and that's it.

She can't use the Internet beyond watching Reform-esque videos on YouTube.

She needs help. I think it'd make sense for her to move close to me - I could help them but also be better placed to organise other help she needs.

She won't entertain the idea.
It'd be a logistical challenge but do-able.

We get on OK. We're not super close. I see her a few times a year. If she lived close, I'd see her more often in shorter doses. I think she'd get out more. She'd have more human contact, even just with me.

If she doesn't move, if something doesn't change, I'm not sure what the future looks like. Her health will get worse, she'll need more help. I can't be there as much as needed for when it does. It makes sense for her to move close to me.

I can buy the house. I can arrange all the logistics.

Has anyone moved their parents close to them? How did it go? If they were stubborn, how did you convince them? What challenges did you face?

Duplicate post

But it is still her choice .

You are offering her a solution. You are not being unkind or a bad daughter, what you are offering is massive.

We can't be responsible for the decisions of adults.

My mother eventually moved aged 85, to a high end retirement development, Tbh it was fairly disastrous. She hated the place (with some good reasons), was bored stiff without her garden, missed her familiar routines and her single friend in the same area.

Unless she is keen to move, I wouldn’t do it.

I would be reasonably proactive about other help though. Try Age UK. Round our way you can meet with one of their advisers (I’d be there too) and apply for shopping help which it sounds like she could benefit from, interest groups, exercise groups which might help her at least maintain the mobility she has.

It sounds to me as if she needs a cleaner and a carer to help her. you can’t force people to move.

That's exactly it

She's insistent that she's OK.
She's not.
It's very hard to say "Ah well, your choice, I've offered now I'm out" knowing that there's no-one else who'll help and that her life will degenerate without any outside help.

Moving my mum closer isn't to make my life easier at the moment.

My life would get harder if I moved her close. But she'd benefit hugely.

In the longer-term, yes, my life would be simpler when her condition declines and she needs more support. But that might not be for a while.

Whatever you decide to do, I would caution against the idea that you are the solution for any problem your mum has. It’s a slow creep of tasks that end up dominating your life - bringing new meaning for making a rod for your own back.

its really hard to watch a loved parent make terrible decisions which you know are going to turn out badly. Doubly so when you strongly suspect you will be the one called upon to sort out the inevitable mess which could be avoided by the right action now.

I coped by adopting “good enough” standards. Is she safe, warm, fed? Job done. House cleaned to her previous standards? Garden tidy? No. Does it matter? No. Pilot light for the boiler went out? Stairlift stopped working? Neighbour or carer can look at it and call me, for suggestions because I’ve learned a 100 mile dash up the motorway and 100 miles back is not compatible with a full time job.

Good luck.

It’s so hard isn’t it? I’m incredibly close to my mum but I now live 30 miles away with 3 children under 7. She is late 70s with decreasing mobility due to some sort of back issue we’ve never been able to get to the bottom of.
she doesn’t drive, has lived in the same house for over 60 years and flatly refuses to move anywhere near me even though we would all greatly benefit from it.
she now comes and stays with me for a week every month, I’m at work 3 days so she just potters around my house doing the cleaning and washing . It gives her something to do (I don’t ask her to do it) and gives me less to do. The kids absolutely love her week here and on my days off we go out for lunch or do garden centres.
I’m going to have to bring up her moving here again but I know she won’t. She’s used to what she’s used to… we will just have to adjust to what she wants. Her visits might have to change to be every other week. I might have to change my dining room downstairs to be a bedroom for when she visits.
But this lady has literally gotten me through my absolute worst days so I will do anything to make her later years easier.
everyone’s situation is different. I’m struggling with an elderly mum, small children even though I have siblings who are useless and haven’t seen her for years. I absolutely could not be happy with “is she warm and fed” but they probably could without a second thought because they are selfish.
We’re also in the situation where she doesn’t now know many of her neighbours, the ones she does know are also elderly and unable to help her.

I've tried and tried OP and failed. She's in a village with no bus service and no shops. She is 78 and refuses to entertain the idea. She won't even move into the nearest town. She basically can't be bothered, content in the knowledge that my sister and I will have to sort it all out when it becomes a crisis.

We have an awful relationship anyway due to her emotional abuse, and this is making it worse. I don't know why she thinks it'll be any easier in her 80s than her 70s. I am not going to be able to drop everything and drive four hours to her every time she needs something and neither will my sister.