Guardian article today that might resonate here

[thedevilinablackdress]

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/mar/28/burden-of-extended-care-for-aged-parents-new-phenomenon

Thank you for sharing. So many people experiencing this. I def feel like my life is on hold, because it is. What a sobering thought.

It affects my children's lives too. I don't know if it's unfair on them or just part of life. Or both

As strange as it sounds i count myself very lucky that both parents had died by the time I was in my 30s.
Looking at my peers that have older children and older parents, boy, they're stressed.

I think it’s a massive struggle for so many people (women!) I’m mid forties and the joys of balancing out helping parents/ teenage children/ full time work. I feel like I have no life of my own it’s just all duty and responsibility.

Yes, that piece resonates well with me. I am exactly the same age as the author (63) and my Mum died only two years ago aged 92. I have a sibling who took his turn with attending to her needs - infact he probably did more than me as he had more patience and was retired - but it honestly was a relief all round when she died unexpectedly. Every Sunday afternoon since, without fail, I have thought how nice it was not to be anticipating an hour long phone call from Mum filled with problems and complaints. I also don't dread the phone ringing in case it's the care home or her cleaner or her nurses. The news was never good.

My brother has felt able to travel extensively and without guilt since she's been gone and he deserves that freedom - he is now nearing 70 himself!

As someone who has worked with the elderly for 30 odd years i've noticed the following important thing.

When someone gets old, IF they are medicated for all their conditions and have them under control, and they receive good paid regular care, then they seem to go on for a very very long time. If you think about it, they sit mainly in their recliner, have their meals and medication brought to them, don't have any stress or strain on the body so they just seem to go on forever.

The only thing I can suggest is getting paid care in for elderly parents if you don't want to do it yourself. Fortunately for me, both my parents went very quickly due to heart issues so I never had to do this but i've seen plenty of it professionally. Don't underestimate how long they will live for, especially once all the care is in place.

I think the miracle of modern medicine is quite often anything but a miracle.
We need to let people die. It's in everyone's best interests including theirs.
Every time I ask my father how he is - it's meant as a greeting - he tells me his condition hasn't changed. He has had suffered quite a few of the same conditions as the author's father in the Guardian article. Of course it hasn't I think. Modern medicine has kept him alive but with little quality of life and now, for a whole host of reasons, there is nothing medics can do but they can't say that, so he keeps having different appointments and treatments, none of which work, and serve only to further stretch the overstretched NHS. It is the very definition of madness.

The medicalisation and extending of old age has a lot to answer for. My now departed mother did nothing but moan about being alive into her 90s yet expected everyone to run around after her. She was on a daily cocktail of multiple pills and injections for years. I mean, what's the point? Just because we can doesn't mean we should.

I completely relate to this piece , i am late 50's with adult kids and one teen who really needs me , a demanding job a home and husband and now an elderly mother who has carers in but still causes me a situation of feeling permanently 'on guard ' with guilt mixed in.
I live with a constant guilt of 'i should really take her out, visit her, do her chores etc ' but i more than often just don't want to , i want to do my own thing , do nothing , switch my brain and body off , re charge from my hectic week but i don't think having an elderly parent/parents with needs allows you to ever do that .
I can see that however much you internally protest that you do not want this responsibility regardless as an adult you end up to some degree in a carers role for them.
I admit to feeling slightly envious of people i know whose parents are no longer around and all the choices and freedom this gives them.
I know that as the writer in the Guardian says i too will feel a sense of relief when i am finally free.
I absolutely agree with how wrong it is to keep the elderly by the use of drugs in a state of stabilised existence ,how unbearably miserable and depressing to 'live' like that for all involved.

I really relate to this article. I think it's really brave and so rarely talked about.

I'm not a fan of extreme longevity. I think it is harming women, young people and society in general.

The constant gleeful announcement by drug companies of yet more expensive medication that will further extend life just depresses me.

It is a whole extra generation that young people are having to support - instead of one retired generation, it is two now.

"Total public spending on education in the UK, as a percentage of national income, has
declined from roughly 5.6% in 2010–11 to around 4.1% in 2024–25. This represents a significant reduction in the share of GDP dedicated to education over the last 15 years, reaching a historic low comparable to the 1960s, 1980s, and 1990s"

Add to that destruction of youth services, surestart centres and spending on youth specific services.

Overspending on the older generations harms the younger ones.

I can also relate to this article.
Having retired six months ago aged 60 I feel that all I’ve done is run around after my mother, lifts to various appointments at hospital, dentist, doctors and to the care home where my father has been for two years with dementia.
I honestly thought he’d be gone by now but a never ending concoction of meds is keeping him going, much against his will, as he is still aware of his predicament and regularly says he wants to die.
What I have noticed is that there’s money to be made from keeping them all alive and it’s so sad to see all these people, similar to my father, just waiting for the day that they can be released from this living hell.
I once asked his doctor whether there was any benefit to him still being on Statins and blood thinners seeing as he now has dementia and was met with absolute horror that I should suggest such a thing.
It seems that dying from a stroke or a heart attack is far worse than dementia.
Personally I’d be doing him a favour if I could remove all these now unnecessary drugs so he could at least die from natural causes.
As for my mother she has dodged all major health problems to now be diagnosed with cancer. Not
life threatening but still has to be treated.
They are both miserable, in their late eighties and I really do think that these drugs they were put on years ago to mitigate the possibility of dying of natural cause have now come back to bite them.
My grandparents, on both sides, lived into their late 70s early 80s then died quite quickly which is the way it should be.
My husband has also recently retired and he also has both parents very much doddering along.
I just can’t see an end to it and all our plans have been curtailed whilst we deal with their needs.
I really do think the whole ‘prevention meds’ thing needs to be looked at for people once they get to a certain age and I for one have no intention of going on Statins and blood thinners because of my experience.

Completely agree with the article and comments here.

I’ve long been saying old age has changed. In addition to the huge financial and caring burden on families, I also think some medical interventions are inappropriate. Firstly, the constant use of (often intravenous) antibiotics - this surely must be driving antibiotic resistance, all those elderly people being on antibiotics 24/7 for years. There is a link between gut microbiome and dementia and I often wonder whether routine antibiotic use is driving the dramatic increase in dementia.

Then there is the dignity aspect: at what point do medical decisions take dignity into account? Is it right that very frail people are forced into endless procedures, tests and medical protocols only to find themselves regularly in hospital on a drip, being tube fed and suffering chronic diarhoea?

This made me feel emotional - the line at the end that said, ‘finally I could turn my phone off at night’. One of my biggest struggles is the feeling of always living on ‘high alert’, stressing whenever an unknown number appears on my phone (doctor? Hospital? District nurse? Or just a cold call?), knowing the minute you book a holiday you also need to immediately book travel
insurance so there’s an option to cancel and get a refund should there be a medical emergency…etc etc.

I love my dad a great deal but he believes he ‘lives independently’. The only reason he’s able to do that is because of all the systems I maintain to make that possible - house admin, care agencies, cleaner, shopping, gardener, slow cooker meals in the freezer etc, always the first port of call to race over if there’s a fall, a UTI, or any other number of things. He keeps telling me ‘go and live your life’ but if I really did that, he would not be able to live his. It’s a tough season of life but we keep muddling through.

I wonder how much all of this costs the NHS, and to the detriment of younger people. I had to wait seven weeks for a GP appointment last year for gynae problems that were affecting my ability to work. If I’d stayed under NHS care I doubt I’d still have my job but work now pays for private treatment.

Yes I agree, my fathers care home has the local GP ( who also happens to be my GP) visit the care home once a week to look at all the residents and tweek their meds if necessary.
The irony is I’ve never managed to get an appointment to see this doctor at his surgery!

Also, giving them fortified drinks to boost calories. The body naturally wants less food as people age and slow down and those who are terminally ill tend to stop eating altogether. Why are we artificially boosting their calorie intake just to keep them going longer?!

Thank you for sharing OP.
Both my parents have now died (I'm in my 40s) but I have spent a lot of the last 20 years either caring for them or my children. I'm knackered. My career is non existent. And so much money was spaffed on bloody care homes.
My dad actually got pneumonia early on in his delince. Once upon a time, he would have slipped off and it would have been sad but done. Instead he was kept alive artificially and miserably for another 3 years. What a waste.

I wish more people would shout about this. I was at a work event this week talking about health and care, and the lack of understanding amongst professionals about the burden of care on the carers and how much (largely) women are having to pick up was astounding. It is not the same as it was in the two previous generations when most of the current policy frameworks were created.

(1) my grandparents generation had pretty good health until they dropped dead
(2) my parents generation benefitted from managing on single salary income, and defined benefit pensions, and a triple lock state pension. While simultaneously seeing advances in medicine extend life, but not the quality of life.

Our generation are often still working, often with older parents with multiple complex conditions, children at home or still reliant on us financially, mortgages and a requirement for a second income, comparatively poor pension cover, and often end up with the burden of our own parents plus our in-laws all at the same time. We are also increasingly being expected to manage care conditions at home (to take pressure off hospitals) through remote monitoring and virtual wards, social care is non existent due to ongoing under funding and we frequently live some distance away from older relatives due to needing to have moved in our younger days for work. Carers allowance is laughable due to cost of living pressures and not feasible for most.

Exhausted. Scuppered. Under valued as a whole generation.

My husband and I have had 4 parents between us, all of whom have had protracted final years with residential or live in care needed for at least four years each. This began with my father in 2006 and is still going on twenty years later, with no break as they have overlapped during this time, with DH's mother, who is immobile in a five bedroom house she refuses to leave at the age of 94, with a live in carer. Both fathers had dementia. Both mothers remained lucid but trapped within crumbling bodies. On my side, the care cost £500K - all the money they had, except the £20K they let you keep. On DH's side, it's cost over £400K so far. I tried to care for my mum myself at one point, for nearly two years, but it was unsustainable.

Our lives have been overshadowed by this for two decades and counting, and we are now in our early sixties ourselves. Every single one of our parents has had to experience a long decline with terrible quality of life. The mismatch between extended quantity of life without matching quality, and the burden this places on families, is a dreadful phenomenon of modern medicine, and yet so little discussed. I completely get the relief this author describes, although I miss my mother desperately every day. The whole situation is awful and I don't know what the answer is.

I think the moral of this story is to make a living will. Remember, we dont have to take medication, its optional.

I can see this happening with my FIL. He’s 82, frail and doddery but won’t use a stick so he doesn’t go out at all. He goes between bed, bathroom, reclining chair. He has carers three times a day, plus SIL popping in, plus a cleaner. Any time he gets a sniffle SIL calls the Dr.

he is miserable and anxious. Living alone since MIL died, he’s lonely. He has the beginnings of dementia so the only way is down. But there are so few risks in his life and he’s medicated for everything that pops up so he’s unlikely to be carried off by natural causes for a long time to come. Meanwhile SIL organises her life around his needs.

I think we really need to have a conversation about death as a society. How much time and resources are spent talking about birth? Yet death is unspeakable. No one wants to address it , talk about it, challenge norms...

Old age has existed forever but now we are extending life on and on with no regard to quality of the burden of support people at extreme age need. nor do we talk openly about planning death.

For many people caring is a burden. Some people rise to it through duty or love, but lots don't. Others can't due to distance.

At the very least all people approaching old age should:

1. if you can, move to manageable home when you are able. Something low maintenance with no stairs and get rid of your junk.
2. Sort out power of attorney before you loose capacity
3. Plan and accept that care may be required. Why would you want to burden your kids? This May eventually be a care home but might also be smaller things like a cleaners
4. sort your finances out.

There area also real issues over dementia care. It's shocking that families are left trying to care for people with this disease. My dad has Alzheimer's and won't accept care. So i speak from experience and the burden this has put on my mother in particular. I live very far away and am of limited help. It's bee ridiculously hard to get control of his affairs. All the support workers ever say is that you need to respect his wishes and not challenge him. My mum has needed to make financial changes and has had to go though massive conflict with him to get him to agree to very necessary decisions. Like letting a toddler make the decisions for a household.

Hello Gloriousgardener11 same stage here with mum, who has dementia and is disabled. She hasn't wanted to be here for about 4 years. She's hardly eating or drinking and now refusing her meds. We've been trying them in liquid form to make taking meds easier, but she's not interested. Speaking to nursing team today about what is essential to keep her comfy and maybe ditching the rest. Your Dr sounds as if they've never had to care for any elderly parent. They would understand your dad's, and yours, position if they had. No one can force our parents to take medication if they don't want to. As long as my mum is as comfortable as possible, let nature take its course, if thats what she wants. We should not be keeping people going at any cost when they are suffering and it is against their will. Do you have a DNR/DNAR in place? We have to be pragmatic at this stage, but it doesn't stop it breaking your heart.

I really resonate with the article as well, and it’s really brave of the author, but so important that it is said. It’s depressing having the same conversation over and over with DM about her wanting to die rather than live out a protracted decline in a crumbling body and dementia riddled brain. I agree with her that death would be a release for all, but the only option is to have my life on hold and increasingly prop her up until the day eventually comes. I will do all I can to not put my children through this

GG11 Even though mum is in a nursing home, there is still a lot of looking after her by us, plus admin, so understand how you feel about the time taken in looking after your mum, as well as your dad. I hope you find some solace in your garden. I am this morning.