We've just been down to see my parents, with my toddler daughter, my brother, and his children. We go perhaps every two-three months, as it's a two hour drive. It really brought home to me how much they are struggling.
My mum's always been the cook/cleaner in the house. She hates cleaning and her standards are pretty awful, and in recent years things have got worse as an old knee injury means she can't easily get down to the floor. When her grandchildren were crawling babies it would be utterly filthy and she had no sense of it. She also tends to have off food in the fridge, and her food hygiene is getting worse and worse (cross contamination, filthy surfaces in the kitchen, etc.). Nothing is washed very often, towels and clothes and so on. Some of this is just unpleasant but some of it is a health issue. We children have all had a go explaining/trying to persuade her to get a cleaner, but she is pretty reluctant.
My dad grudgingly did the cooking while she was laid up with a broken leg earlier this year, but he is an old-fashioned misogynist (though he wouldn't want to think so) and objects to the idea that he should do anything. He has a few tasks, such as washing up after dinner, but refuses to understand that anything needs to be put in the fridge/covered. For example he'll leave meat out on the side until the morning, and mum will put it in the fridge then expect it to be eaten, or he'll leave an uncovered bowl of stock or rice out and think it's fine to eat. When mum was unable to walk, he simply refused to believe anything needed much cleaning (eg., he thinks you mop a kitchen floor 'once or twice a year' and therefore he had no need to do it).
He is physically capable and could perfectly well do chores she can't manage. They are both coming up to 70; dad is apparently 'very busy' with the second career he started after retiring and mum works a very few hours a week. But they live in a very large five bedroom house with a big garden, and I can see why mum is exhausted just trying to keep up with that, especially as it's obviously an effort for her just to move around now.
What's very sad is that, frankly, going to see them is so stressful. My old solution used to be to dash round the kitchen like a mad thing, cleaning it so that it was fit to use, then cooking dinner with my mum. This makes her happy as she enjoys cooking and likes to chat while spending two-three hours making a meal (and I could keep an eye on the food hygiene). Increasingly, the level of filth makes this harder, and I'm also trying to keep the toddlers away from cleaning fluids/filthy surfaces at the same time. It's also thankless as both parents take cleaning up as an insult. While it's true my mum is very reluctant to get a cleaner, my dad could insist, and certainly could persuade her, and he point blank refuses, and instead pretends it is all her fault (both not having a cleaner, and the fact it is messy). This makes me incandescent, to be honest, and it is another reason I find it hard to visit.
Any ideas?