Aged Parents - have 'no rights or responsibility' to them

[Corygal]

Over the years I've posted, sadly and wearily, about mum and dad. Just discovered that they've taken out power of attorney naming my brother in control of their health and welfare, plus finances, even though he lives abroad and comes to UK rarely. I have no say in anything.

Worried for them, as they are getting on and really need someone around to keep an eye, I broached the subject today when I took them out to lunch. Dad snarled 'What do YOU want' and started talking about his will (in which I feature in a weird manner, and not weird in a good way). Mum dodged the subject.

They've both made comedy unpleasant/wrong accusations toward me in the past; stealing things from the house was the most recent - I haven't been there for 2 years, to give you an idea of how reasonable these accusations are.

They've both been tested for dementia, and to my horror, been given the all clear.

As it is, they're already making mistakes eg turns out today Mum is driving uninsured. Obv my oblivious brother has no idea or ability to fix things from abroad. But do I persevere trying to do the right thing? They need looking after.

Well, on the surface it's been fine but a therapist I saw told me they didn't love me that much.

All the suggestions about talking to my brother are great - but he's not admitting he's the one who's been given power of attorney. Not sure why, but it's probably not a good reason.

Are you suspecting that your parents have, in some way, manoeuvred your brother into believing some bad stories about you ? (I'm thinking back to your OP.)

That's very strange about your brother. You could check with the Office of the Public Guardian?

I think your brother is going to struggle if he has to do all this from abroad, Maybe your parents think that he'll come home...

People sometimes make very stupid decisions based on how they would like things to be rather than how they are. In my family my brother & I share POA for my mum and its a nightmare. We don't get on. Her reason was that she wanted to be 'fair'. My brother is greedy, lazy and as narcissistic person as I've ever met so you can only imagine how horrendous this has been.

Families are the weirdest things!

They may be difficult people already but this does sound like the early stages of dementia to me. It's often not detected in early tests, especially if the sufferers are in denial as they can be very convincing.

There is little you can do if they don't want your help and take it as a blessing, particularly if they've never been kind to you anyway. I've recently been through over four years of dealing with someone with dementia who was also in denial, it was hell on earth, particularly in the early stages when it was impossible to get a diagnosis even when I knew something was very wrong.

Cory, how horrible for you, but it sounds as though it always has been.

It sounds very harsh, but I think you should just leave the three of them to get on with it.

The Will thing is a real slap in the face and shows how much they think of you. I don't mean that we look after our aged parents to get a money reward at the end, but yours are just plain nasty and are making your life very unpleasant.

Cory you need to stop enabling their behaviour. They have made it perfectly clear that they don't want you in their lives. Respect their choice and let your brothers deal with them.

The problem is that if they do have Dementia they are ill!

Dementia is a horrible illness and does bring about some odd and destructive behaviour, and as others have said, people who have it can be very convincing.

However, you do need to protect yourself. Older people can be extraordinarily selfish and can completely take things and people for granted. As their daughter they may feel they are safe giving you a hard time. Don't feel guilty about leaving them to it if they are rude to you, or just pointing out in a calm way that they are behaving badly. Saying something like 'that's a very unkind thing to say' in a very calm way then changing the subject might work.

They sound a horrible pair.
Your sensible brother is keeping a distance from them and probably always will regardless of their needs. He will leave it to Social Services.

It is your choice to keep 'helping' them.

See a counselor to deal with the hurt their behavior causes you.

Personally, I wouldn't give up.
I would view this behaviour as signs of ageing and possibly dementia. And in this context they need your support more than ever, even if they don't recognise it.
Elderly adults can be like small children. They can resist help, throw tantrums and be horrible. And like little children, they still need our love and care. It can be really difficult providing it, especially when they resist and are ungrateful. However, I think we do have some kind of duty towards our parents. I know it is an unpopular word nowadays, but I believe it is true. We all just have to work out what that will look like practically in our situation. We wouldn't abandon our children when they are in need, because they are awkward,mu grateful and annoying. I ink the same needs to apply to our parents. It won't always be easy and it will involve some level of sacrifice....but that is what love involves. And you won't always feel like doing it either. And that is what love is about too. It is a choice, at the stage of looking after parents, rather than a feeling.

You do need to find a way to do it which works for you and gives you some protection too, but don't give up in them.

Hi Cory two things have crossed my mind. One. Presuming you are in the UK. Power of attorney has changed and it is not given to just one person any more, there is a second person that has to sort of 'sign off' on the person with POA to reduce financial abuse. Two. Early in my DDads dementia he was so close to normal it was only me that knew something was up and other people couldn't see it. Within a year he was in need of 24hr care though as he was really quite poorly by then. At the early stage he could tell you what day it was, what year and who the prime minister was but there were odd tells to his behaviour. If they have always treated you like this though, cut them loose, let your DB have the pleasure.

I'm interested to see that most people on this thread are advising the OP to back off and leave the parents to it.

I just wondered if people feel that we, as children have any responsibility for helping care for our aged parents? Do people think it is just something for the good times? Or when parents are co-operative and appreciative? Or when it is convenient?

The thing is, that old age and the health issues which often come with it, are not always easy or pretty. Often parents become awkward, difficult, ungrateful and very difficult to look after,with complex needs. They don't always find it easy to accept they need help, nor to respond to their children well. Their needs can be inconvenient and involve sacrifice from us as children. They will often not be thankful for our efforts, but instead critical. And it often comes at a time when our own families have great needs themselves.

I just wonder about what our society is like, if we are so quick to tell people to give up on our parents and to see no level of responsibility towards them.

I'm not suggesting 'back off' largely because I'm dealing with an elderly parent with dementia and realise that ideas like backing off or calling her toxic are simply not appropriate. She says hurtful things that have made me angry or even had me in tears on several occasions but I'm pretty sure, as a teenager, I treated her to a few choice insults of my own.

The OP is being told that her parents are not suffering from dementia so maybe they simply are nasty pieces of work and there is no medical excuse... that's obviously a possibility. However, again from my own experience, a long time prior to my DM being diagnosed her behaviour was certainly challenging and increasingly irrational.

If there is a history of not being on great terms with your parents I see this latest incident as a continuation. While both are still unified in rejecting you their DD they won't welcome your help. (Duty is all well and good; I don't think honouring our parents is very easy when they spend most of your life playing favourites).

Clearly they can't help themselves if physical conditions affect or distort their reasoning and judgment. But equally sometimes existing quirks and behaviours are further sharpened by decline.

DB may have felt awkward about having PoA bestowed on him realising that being abroad it is you that is most likely to take on the donkey work. We don't automatically stop offering support when it's a thankless task but finding a middle road so we're not subjected to ongoing unpleasantness seems sensible.

As however suggested, you can be his eyes and ears. Definitely draw official attention to driving uninsured. Later on, depending on health, whichever parent survives there may be a change of heart.

My DH and DSIL had POA for my FIL.

They didn't agree with what was right for him all the time but they did what they know he would want whatever their own opinions. It's hard but that's why he was right to trust them.

Wombat I do understand what you're saying about care and dementia. My nan could be a difficult character all her life. But no-one in her family was ever in doubt that she loved them. When she got dementia she was loved and cared for during the good and bad times by us all.
If my parents were to start acting oddly then yes I'd be wondering and I would do my best because I know they love me and I love them.
Cory isn't operating from that place of certainty.

just wondered if people feel that we, as children have any responsibility for helping care for our aged parents? Do people think it is just something for the good times? Or when parents are co-operative and appreciative? Or when it is convenient?

Perhaps we have experience which informs the advice we give to the OP. I see my father (82) every day, for a couple of hours. He's active and alert. Until March this year I spent a couple of hours a few times a week with my mother, who was bedridden and had a number of physical and mental problems, to give my father a break. This is despite being officially estranged from my parents because of the horrible ways they have treated me over the years.

When parents reject their adult child, there is little you, as the child, can do. The OP's parents are behaving unreasonably and unkindly. She isn't obliged to keep going back for more.

The OP's first responsibility is to herself, to protect herself and to find healing.

And once again I didn't preview the bold. Sorry.

ChocolateWombat "Often parents become awkward, difficult, ungrateful and very difficult to look after,with complex needs."

I think the vitally important word in that sentence is become. If your previously decent parents in later life become awkward, then yes of course you still have a responsibility to try to care for them, to the extent that you can without endangering your own mental health or the care of the rest of your family.

But what I think the OP is describing here is a situation where she has always been the less-favoured child, the one who isn't considered important, the one who isn't shown a normal level of love (If a therapist says something like that, then I think it's usually pretty cut-and-dried, they don't just say that the way a friend might!)

Sometimes you just have to step back and stop allowing people like this from hurting you any more than they already have. And part of that can be allowing them to reach a point where it is social services and not a loving child who have to take on the main responsibility, becasue they are not emotionally invested in a situation that is only going to get worse, and from a pretty bad starting point.

What a mum in Scotland said. Bang on.

They have disinherited you, been horribly rude to you, preferred your brother over you, accused you of theft when it seems there is no mental health issue- I would stay well away.

My mother has always been unbalanced and nasty. Old age has simply made it worse. I do what is fair and practical. No more. I certainly won't be getting involved in hands-on care. Over to social services, thank you very much!

There's an elderly parents thread you might want to look at op too.

I've seen 'responsibility and duty' used as a whip to beat a decent and kind person with until they were on their knees. They'll never be the same again.

There is duty and there is responsibility but not at the price of life-corrosion for the carer.

I agree that the life of the carer shouldn't be totally ruined. People caring for elderly relatives need to think about their own children and spouses and they need to decide what they can do and what they cannot do. And the amount people do will differ and it will alter as the needs of the elderly change.

The fact is that any kind of caring is likely to involve some level of self-sacrifice and that will cause some impact too on children and spouses. I think this is inevitable and has to simply be accepted and it is the right thing to do.

It is a difficult one. My husband and I discussed a variety of issues before we got married,such as how we felt about having children, money etc. we also discussed our attitudes towards our parents and how we felt about things like having an elderly parent to live with us or caring for them. Of course it was all theoretical back then, but we felt we were basically on the same page and had similar attitudes to these important issues. Although the care now falls mostly to me as child, My DH is also committed to supporting my elderly mother and does a lot for her. We do it together and I am glad, because he is helping me to carry a load which is not always easy to bear, but which we think we should carry. Sometimes we feel a bit resentful about the impact on us and things we cannot do as a result, but mostly we are happy to do it.

I guess that it is true, that if a parent really wants doing to do with the child, the child cannot care for them. All they can do is to try to keep communication open. Most people are not in such an extreme position however, but instead face difficult and awkward parents who are finding their growing frailty and dependence on others hard to adjust to.

With my mother, when she is foul (and she can be really unkind and cruel sometimes) I try to think of it as dealing with a stroppy teenager. I clearly tell her that she is being unkind and I don't like it. But I keep going, as we do with our stroppy teenagers......because I love her and because I think that at this time it is better for her to receive care from me, as well as getting support from outside services. As time goes by, it maybe we need more outside support, but I will continue to be there for her in whatever form is needed. It's not the easiest phase of our lives, but I know it won't last forever and it's something I view as important and would be disappointed in myself if I wasn't prepared to make some sacrifices for her.

I think your issue is as much with your brother. Can you talk this through with him? Explain that as things stand he'll be on his own?

Yes, makes such a difference if siblings can work together, or if you have a partner to help carry the load.
The trouble is, the bulk of the burden often falls on one sibling. It is usually (although not always) the one who is nearest, and can generate huge resentment between siblings when people are seen as 'not pulling their weight'.

I had enormous respect for a friend of mine, who on discovering her mother had terminal cancer (hut a type which could give her a couple of years) moved her whole family across the country to the area where the mother and a sibling were. It was a decision made with her husband and with the children too. The mother went on to live for 9 years, the last 4 with my friend, who finally gave up having a living room, as her mother needed to be downstairs. They had a very hard couple of years, but the sibling helped out lots and they did it together. I'm not sure if I could do the same and I'm not saying everyone should do this, but I have enormous respect for that friend.
Incidentally,of course they all built new lives in the new area and are very happy there.

If it were just a recent thing I would suggest that OP goes to their GP to express her concerns even if they cannot talk to her in detail.

There is clearly a massive back history of OP being scapegoated and treated shabbily for a good number of years and I would guess most of her life from what she says.

That is why I said to leave them to it.