British families should take elderly relatives to live with them - like in Asia

[juneau]

According to Jeremy Hunt anyway.

So, could you see yourself doing this? Would your elderly relatives actually WANT you to? Do you have the space.

I would rather kill myself than have my DM living with me. I could possibly cope with my dad, although he's terribly dithery and likes things done his way. As for my step-parents and in-laws - again, death (either theirs or mine), would be preferable

There was a poster called Suocera Blues who was British, living in Italy with an Italian DH, and her MiL with severe dementia. The state would not provide her with a care home space, as her MIL's behaviour was too challenging, and in Italy there is a legal obligation for an elderly person's children to take care of them. They went through hell

'Why should we take them on and where would we put them?'

I can foresee a time when we will have absolutely no choice.

stubbornstains has said it and I think they will eventually try to do the same here.
"in Italy there is a legal obligation for an elderly person's children to take care of them. They went through hell"

Their spinners will be working full time, we'll be called "feckless", they'll tell us about Asia and they'll tell us about Italy, and they will say that is "shameful" how we are not doing the same and after all that fails to convince us, they will make it illegal not to.

Councils do everything they can to try and get you to pay for your own nursing home care. If, as an elderly person, you live in your house but sign over ownership of it to your offspring, if you then need residential care, councils have the power to force the house back into the ownership of the elderly person and use it as assets for selling to pay for the residential care.

I wonder how it would work if an elderly person sold their home and moved in with their son or daughter (possibly using the money from the sale of the house to extend their son or daughter's house/build a granny annexe/move to a larger property). What if a year later they declined so much they needed to go into residential care? Would you, as an adult offspring, be forced to sell your family home as some of the cash tied up in it came from the sale of granny's house?

Has someone pointed out to that Hunt that the government is busy forcing everyone with a spare room to move?.

Unfortunately neither of my parents are alive. I could have lived with my DF with no problem at all but with my DM I would have committed suicide within two days.

and they introduced the bedroom tax why? I looked after my grandmother in her own home(council bungalow) until she wasn't safe to be left at all. I live in a 3 bed council house, We had 3 DC at home then..we couldn't have her here it was too small. But going forward if my DM needs that type of care in the future, in theory, if we haven't been forced to move it would be possible then. although I really don't want to have to look after a dementia sufferer again

"Has someone pointed out to that Hunt that the government is busy forcing everyone with a spare room to move?."

No, only poor people on benefits.

So they can castigate them for not having the space to look after their aging relatives. And then as Claig says, can introduce a law where even where you have been forced to move, you'll still have to look after your elderly rellies.

I'm being flippant of course - but actually, ten years ago the idea that they would force disabled people to move out of their safe council tenancies into the private sector where they have less space but pay higher rent, would have been unthinkable. Things which seem unthinkable now, may come to pass in twenty years time if we let them.

Agree, BasilBabyEater, we have to speak up and say that we do not want a present or a future like that. Then they will be forced to back off and come up with a better solution, one which will mean that the bankers will earn less and rip off less, and one where where the people will get a really fair society.

If we fall for their concerted spin efforts, and if they manage to divide the public with their "intergenerational injustice" and "intergenerational divide" rhetoric, then they will succeed in playing off one segment of the public with another.

There is nothing so effective as mockery to expose that their Emperor has no clothes. If we see through their spin and laugh at their spin, then we will win.

They can lecture us from their million pound homes and their privileged, cushioned, perk-filled lifestyles, surrounded by moats and duck houses, but if we don't take them seriously, if we don't accord them gravitas, and if we laugh at them when they use words like 'shameful', then they will fall flat on their ass.

It's just another way of keeping women down/in their place, isn't it? Tories. What else do you expect?

Oh, and Satan will be skating to work before I care for my toxic MIL who systematically destroyed DH's confidence and mental health. But she is very good at appearing hard done to - everyone at church thought she was lovely. FIL (who was even worse) had a lovely eulogy whilst I bit my tongue.

My own mother plays games with DB and me. She would live with me (DB lives abroad) whilst telling me how much better he was than me but how hard he had it, whilst not contributing a penny because it is her "turn to be well off after working my fingers to the bone when you were a child". She didn't, btw. Again, she is very very good at the poor-little-me routine!

God, I feel better for getting that out of my system!

I'll try and pick nice care homes though. Mainly to get a bit of moral high ground...

My mother would try and undermine me at every turn. She is utterly toxic, I keep her at arm's length for a reason. She is deeply deeply warped and damaged and incapable of sharing space with anyone in a functional manner.

I suspect there are thousands of people like her around and the reasons their kids move away from them, is because the further we are from them, the better our mental health.

That's something we haven't really discussed on here: that governments never have anything to say about dysfunctional people like that. There's never any acknowledgement of just how common really bad parents are and how necessary it is for adult children to not allow them to come in and disrupt our families which we've built to be functional and happy in spite of the malevolent influence of our birth families. It's not even the money or the finance for many people, it's the effect on their family's emotional and mental health and long term relationships - no way would I risk my appalling mother damaging my children like she damaged me and my siblings. She can fuck off and so can Jeremy Hunt.

Absolutely Basil.

If I was to follow the care given to me by my DF, it'd amount to one poxy Christmas and a succession of Sundays where he sits by the window in vain waiting for me to turn up...

DH and I don't have kids - fuck knows who the government is expecting to look after us.

agreed basil. there is no way i could take it and given she barely conceals that she can't stand me (for as long as i can remember) i doubt she'd want it.

the thing with this government is they want it both ways - this is the generation they sold the whole private pensions, financial investments, prepare for your future so you can enjoy your retirement and have a better old age than your parents and live independently etc and now they're trying to pull this one.

i have always opted out of pension schemes - reckless some would say but i'm glad i did because i've needed my savings for when things hit the fan, i got ill, i had to cover a mortgage on a flat i couldn't sell due to a recession etc. if the money had been in a pension fund i'd have been way more stuck when life got complicated. i also don't trust pensions - i was born mid 70's and saw all the disappearing pension funds, endowment funds sold on spin not pay off etc. i don't believe in the kind of financial products offered to the proles as they are mostly shite and can be re-written, changed, etc with little consultation. i've also watched my dad work out that his money would have faired better in a building society account than it has in some of his pension pots.

god knows what people like me will do or be like - when i have money i have save it, stash it, whatever and when the rainy day comes it gets used. maybe as i age, and ds grows up, there'll be more opportunity for saving and less rainy days so i'll be able to provide for my old age. won't happen if i'm still supporting an adult child with no job in his 30's whilst simultaneously providing care for my elderly parents though will it?

Wasn't this concept comprehensively explored in King Lear?

Just about everyone deaded by the end, but that's Shakespearean tragedy for you.
:o

My DM went on for years about keeping her independence and not being a burden to anyone.

She then decided she wanted to move in with us and I let her, thinking it would be good for DD to have a relationship with her. Wrong.

I was horrified when I realised she had no intention of contributing financially but now I think it's just as well we have no financial ties with her.

I bitterly regretted letting her move in. We now cope most of the time but I still regret it four years later. The relentless fault-finding grinds me down. I can never get away from the dynamics that made a misery of my childhood and adolescence. Living with her seems to have killed the last of my residual affection for her and the resentment is damaging my relationship with my sisters, which used to be close.

And she is horrible to DD fairly often. Trying to repeat every mistake she made with me.

I only wish there was some prospect of moving her into a home but she has now given most of her money to my sister, so I would end up paying for it.

This really annoys me. The majority of people who go into homes in my acquaintance have dementia. This is a whole different ball game to general old age. Families with jobs and children and no downstairs , adapted bathroom can in no way cope with caring at home. This is what we are facing with an ageing population. We need proper solutions. Dementia is an illness. We don't expect family to do all the care for other illnesses. These dementia sufferers need proper dignified care.

Excellent put, SprinkleLiberally. My mum recently died from dementia in residential care, there's no way I could have looked after in my home.

In a word, no I'm sure I could do it. For a multitude of reasons but mainly:

My dad and I are not close. He's more like a distant uncle than my dad. I dont dislike him but I don't really "know" him well enough to. My mum is... hard work as it is and she's 60. I'm already pushed to the brink of telling her to fuck off out my life, as is my sister. I might just be able to cope with my inlaws [gulp] but mainly because if I decide to hit the bottle after a tough day they wont (and dont) judge me as harshly.

We can't afford to look after any of our parents. We can't afford to not work. You can not claim carers allowance if you are a pensioner which imo is disgusting. financial help for caring for a family member is already low. It's a pittance anyway but not being able to claim carers allowance is a pisstake.

People are living longer. 3 of my 4 grandparents lived to 80, 92 and 90. DP's 2 grannies lived to 96 and currently nearly 90. I'm currently in my 20's and fairly physically healthy so if push came to shove I could summon up the strength to look after any of them. If however I live to my 90s like my granny and grandpa did my DD will be in her 70's and might not be in the best health herself. that's a massive burden for her and her brother, not mention their families if they presumably have them. Add to that 2 of my grandparents and 2 of DP's have had/do have dementia there's a chance we and our parents might end up that way too. I would never, ever expect my DC to look after me. It's hard bloody work.

Oh god Alto that sounds horrific.

I really hope you're getting support to cope with that, either here or in RL or both.

I really tried hard to look after my Mum, but I couldn't lift her as she was then a very big woman and not good on her legs. she could not get out of a chair or bed without being lifted. My son came every night to help put her to bed. She was 83 when she came here, I had been retired a year. She could not get to the loo on her own and we did not always make it. She could not clean herself. I was at breaking point cleaning her bed, floors etc. I washed her, and did everything for her. She refused to eat as she thought she would not have to go to the loo. Then we both got the Noro virus - sad to say a blessing in disguise. Mum went into hospital for 3 months. I had no choice but to find a care home. I couldn't do it any more. She is now 90 and now in a lovely nursing home. She had another 3 months in hospital this year. I went and fed her every day. So please Mr Hunt do not make me feel more guilty than i feel now for not having my Mum here. If I could afford a full time carer I would. If I had a downstairs bathroom I would.

BasilBabyEater, I do have support, thank you. Just needed to vent today more than usual (lack of sleep)

MIL has lived in the same village that she was born in all her life. She never wants to leave it. She lives 150 miles away, so living with us is an option she won't consider. Also, she can't manage stairs and the design of our house means that a stair lift couldn't be fitted.

pudcat Please don't feel guilty, you sound like a wonderful daughter and should be proud of everything you have done and continue to do for your mum.

I don't need Jeremy Hunt to tell me what to do. I've always said I'd look after my Mum in old age. I've been trying to get her and DSF to move closer so I'm able to do it as they're both getting older.
I couldn't live with DSF again, but I'd happily have my Mum move in on her own. He is ten years older than she is so in all likelihood she'll end up with us.
I worry about this a lot. Having worked in a nursing him when I was a student, it's the last place I would want them to be.