Marriage, children and getting old- is it all a lie ?

[Whoknew24]

So this is a little random but curious to hear others thoughts. My daughter is a student and last week they had visited a few different care homes. To make things fun they did a questionnaire with the residents and one of the questions was the popular one of “what advice would you give your younger self” ? The largest majority from the x3 care homes they visited were don’t get married and a lot said don’t have children. I found this really interesting that the largest majority all near the end think and feel like this. Of course there were a few that were very happy with their lives so I’m not implying is was every person. My daughter also said the staff told them the majority who had families etc often went weeks with no visits etc.

i myself work for a local authority and constantly see elderly people with families, completely stuck in awful situation with no help or support at all from their children, families.

in my own family my gran had 4 children my dad and his 3 sisters, all alive but have zero desire to help my gran so it falls on me. And if im honest it’s a strain I could be doing without (I know I sound selfish) but it’s the truth. My gran was a good mum and a good gran and did the fact she’s alone I step up as no one else will. My other elderly gran also had 4 children and only one of them helps her and she absolutely hates doing it as well.

Im wondering is it just me and my circle who feel this way or is it more common than we think. I read on here so many people will say you’ll be lonely when you’re older if you don’t have children. My experience is those with children are anyway.

do you think we’ve been fed a lie about marriage and children ? I definitely feel that way. If I knew then what I know now I wouldn’t have gotten married and had children. (I know I will be jumped on for this ) I love my children I do and I’ve sacrificed everything for them, but the continuous worry, stress etc I feel outweighs the positives. My husband feels like an additional child and after 21 years of carrying the mental, financial and physical burden I think how did I allow myself to make these choices.

Maybe deep down I’m selfish but I think a simple and easy life where I put only my needs first would have suited me better.

Soetu for the novel I’m just wondering others persepective ? I’ve spoken to close friends who say that in hindsight they love their kids but if they could go back wouldn’t have had them or gotten married and I just feel are we fed one big lie.

I know there’s those on here who adore their husband and life, or is it that just some of us prefer simplicity ?

if you got this far well done 😊

I very much doubt that the elderly people who are now in care home are because of dysfunctional families.

Rather it’s about

• distance (no way you’ll give similar support if you live 2+ hours away)
• CoL - who has a house big enough to accommodate a parent moving in wo it being a struggle (like a granny flat)
• time and energy - again, read MN threads around the subject. No one. Absolutely no one is suggesting that the elderly parent moves in. Every time, posters are told to put themselves and their family first. Because it’s not ther role to become carers for their elderly parents. Even from the most loving parents and adult children.
• Finances: most women are working and can’t afford to reduce hours/stop,workimg. They’re on their own to support their parent (see the distance etc…) and the mix of time/effort/cost just makes it impossible.

I really think that the fact elderly people face finishing their use on their own is more of a societal issue than a family dysfunction issue.

However, fur those women, they had children expecting them to look after them at the end of their life. So yes ot must come as a shock.

I am very sad at not having children. I am an only child and worry so much that I will end up completely alone in the world. I should be able to afford good quality care, but I will have nobody keeping an eye on me. It upsets and scares me. I see a lot of loneliness ahead for me. I try hard with friendships though. And I try to be a good person. Maybe some kind soul will fight my corner if ever I need it.

@Starfish89 I have a friend who lives in a small village.
The old lady opposite had no family and as her health deteriorated my friend and 2 others had a rota. They made her a meal, they checked on her, organised carers when she eventually needed them and at the end found her a good care home and visited often.
She died last year and the friends have helped clear the house and facilitate viewings for the beneficiaries, 2 charities.
None of them want or will get a penny.
There are lovely people out there.

Having family doesn’t guarantee care.

Oh that is so lovely to hear. Thank you for sharing. I hope I can be a good samaritan for others throughout the rest of my life too. It's so easy to end up in the position of having no family, especially if you came from a small family yourself too. I think it's easy to slip I to the mindset that you don't matter or will be alone, but that shouldn't have to be the case if you are a nice person who people enjoy spending time with (I hope!). Thank you again.

If I'd done that survey, I'd be another one who would advise my younger self not to marry (or at least, if I did, marry very differently and after I'd carved out my own career) and certainly not have children.

I'm pension age now. In my day it was very much the expected thing to grow up, marry and have children. I never really questioned it. I did go to university and I did go out to work but stopped when I had children, only working again when the children were in their teens. By then I was really questioning everything I'd grown up to believe.

I did change; I learned to drive, I retrained and began working again, I matured a great deal in terms of my views and understanding of the world; eventually the changes became too much and we divorced. Single parenthood, even with older children, was very hard.

To answer your question, yes, marriage and parenthood isn't all it's cracked up to be at all. But in my later single years - once the children had left home - I have done so many wonderful things which I would never have done while married....interesting jobs, travel, living overseas, meeting people I'd never have met otherwise.
Above all I value the independence, the freedom to choose and be myself. I shall never be lonely in my old age (and never as lonely as I was in my marriage), there's too much to do, too much still to learn, and too many people still to meet.
When I'm in the nursing home I shall be content that I did so much with the second half of my life; pity I didn't know this when I first started out!

I love this and this gives me hope that I too can experience those things. Well done you and I’m glad you’ve got to now experience these things.

The problem though is that a lot of the 'keeping people alive' is administering things like antibiotics for infections such as UTIs. You dont know until afterwards whether you would have been better not administering the antibiotics because the patient has lost so much quality of life.

We do look at the past and see elderly relatives being looked after by their family but forget this was often only short-term as pre-antibiotics many people would be carried off by an infection. Pneumonia used to be known as 'the widow's friend'.

My mother has been telling me and my sisters from a very young age that she's looking after us when we are little and we would have to look after her when she's old.
She's been complaining of all sorts of health issues since her thirties (all my life). She's done the bare minimum of parenting.

As soon as I was working the very clear expectation was that I will be giving them a big chunk of my money (because they paid through my schooling...). My dad literally told me I owe all the money they spent on me since my childhood. They keep telling me that if I'm a decent person i will need to look after them. That everything they have is mine, that they have worked so hard for me...
I have young dc. My parents are in their 70s (and old for their age). It's all stressful and sad.

I can never do that to my dc. He owes me nothing.

"I’ve sacrificed everything for them"
Why?
Did they ask you to?
Maybe the lesson to our kids is
Do not "sacrifice everything"
Be selfish sometimes!

To make things fun they did a questionnaire with the residents and one of the questions was the popular one of “what advice would you give your younger self” ? The largest majority from the x3 care homes they visited were don’t get married and a lot said don’t have children.

So these were likely baby boomer women. As women far outnumber men in care homes. Most baby boomer women were screwed over by poor education, almost impossible to get a degree or a high paying job, sacked once married, unemployable once they had kids. Apart from menial “pin money” jobs. Many women married for financial security thinking they could then try for a career- and then were up against an establishment where women were always secretaries and assistants and general dogsbodies.

Only the swots who stayed unmarried and childless had a chance at a high flying career. So for their generation, yes marriage and children totally a screwed then over and killed any dreams they might have had for themselves. The exception being the very rich who would have had a nanny and connections to get into a good job and lift them up the ladder.

Totally agree with this.
I was thinking the same the other day when I was visiting my Dad in the care home. A fast concoction of drugs is keeping him alive and he’s as miserable as sin.
He'd be happier if he was allowed to just pop off!

👏👏👏

I think a lot of these baby boomer women do feel frustrated with the lives they led, and that's reflected in their answers. They were still very much expected to marry and have children, and other ambitions and dreams were sacrificed to that; their jobs were, as someone else said on here, often under their skill level and done for 'pin' money.

I don't think this is a very representative sample, I saw some research (perhaps on here?) that about 1/4 of parents regretted having children. I don't and I'm pretty sure quite a lot of my friends don't either- one definitely does and I have heard a dad say this as well and he had four children.

It's easy to say I regret having a particular marriage or that children are stressful, but there's no ideal world, people regret not going to university, not having children, not staying with their first love, not listening to their gut- I would be surprised if you interviewed all the single and childfree people and they were all very happy with their decisions, they probably feel wistful too.

The idea that not having children and not marrying is going to deliver life satisfaction is about as suspect as saying it will. Life is hard and as you get older you get more negative. I think happiness peaks in 30's and then again in 70's.

@Whoknew24 I really relate to everything you say in your post 100%

Really interesting thread. Bookmarking to read in full when I can keep my eyes open.

The problem with saying "don't do [any particular thing]" as life advice is it's assuming the alternative would have been better and it wouldn't have been. Not that it would have been worse either, it just would have been life. With just as many joys, disappointments, difficulties and boring parts.

Something like 70% of care home residents have dementia. Many won’t recognise their own families.
Lost in their own minds rather than thinking clearly I would think.

My parents had three of the four grandparents living with them until I was 17, when they started dying. I loved loved loved having them around but for my mum in particular it was very hard. So my parents told us we were not to care for them. They saved their money carefully so they were fully independent until the end, which was a one year care home stay for mum and a year of live-in carers for dad. We visited and strongly advocated for them as necessary, but they took pride in their agency. My plan is to replicate their approach as far as I’m able. My children know this.

My Gran is 91 and lives independently. She has four children who all provide varying degrees of input and support but she won't have daily in-person contact.

She'd probably say she feels lonely at times but short of living with one of her DC, which none of them want nor think it would be good for any of them, then that's just life. People might or do feel lonely at times, people who live with others can still feel lonely.

I think a factor of this is 'old' people expecting things to be different because they're old.

I'd imagine a lot of those saying not to have kids, etc, say that because they're bitter that they're not getting visits. The question is, when they were younger, more able, more 'coherent', was the frequency different? When you're younger, you have energy, interests, partners... you're probably busy and to see your grandkids once a month is fine because you have things to do. Then suddenly you're in a home and that once a month feels 'box-ticky'. It feels infrequent and forced, when in reality, it's no more or less than before. You're just 'more' bored.

@Cantabulous I would hope to emulate this. Having an adult child to advocate for you in the current overwhelmed and underfunded system helps enormously- if you don't have active assertive advocates when you face the NHS or social services or the council, you may get very little and be treated badly.

That doesn't mean your children have to do hands on care. I wouldn't want my children to do hands-on care for me, I'd want them to arrange and buy in people who are great at that stuff, but be there to help with money and advocacy as needed, if they can.

That's what I shall do for my parents, I would do hands on care for my mum but not my dad, but I would make sure he was well-cared for at the very least.

Friends can do the same, but friends are a) often less invested than family and b) often the same age as you so got their own old age and ill-health to manage. I have told one of my very dear friends, though, that I will help her as much as I can as she has no family and this is one of her biggest worries.

I have already done this for one relative for ill health and care in old age, and for younger family members who need support- being an advocate is one of the most powerful things you can do for someone else, and doesn't require you to do hands-on care.

That's very kind of you to promise that to your friend. I have similar worries as I am an only child with no children of my own. I worry about it every day actually (and I am only late 30s!).

@Ginghamsheep my friends have had to step up and help me a couple of times in my life. I am a bit worried though as well all age- my mum still does quite a lot for her friends but it is hard when, say, two 80 plus years people are looking after each other, and their friends are all old too. I do think knowledge is power, though, if you are anxious- there are ways you can shore things up (e.g. make will, leave instructions for everyone, understand pensions and investments and save accordingly). I haven't done it all perfectly- life is also for living and you may drop dead at 80 of a heart attack, so there's no point 'borrowing worries' too much, it's true that half of the things (or more) that you worry about never happen!

I feel the same way. Mine are late teens and older and I really love their company. They’re the funniest people I know and we all get each other’s quirks so we’re happiest together.

I’ve had some single times and kid-free weekends honestly felt lost and adrift because everyone else was busy with their families or partners. I did learn to be independent and now I love alone time but I have the option of not being alone as a kind of safety net.

When I think about my children’s futures I half hope they’ll stay independent and live through themselves because being responsible for little lives is harder than anyone can explain - gut-wrenching at times. Especially for mums.

But the other half thinks of those lost and adrift feelings - I want them to have their own “tribe” like I have right now.

But then there’s no guarantee that your partner and kids will be easy people to be around.

I just go around in circles.