Reflections on two generations of elder care.
My grandmother’s mom died suddenly from a blood clot after surgery when my grandmother was 17 (1932). Her father lived with her and my mother for a while when my mother was growing up, but mom said he always worked and that her mother never provided care for him. I’m not sure what happened to mom’s grandparents on her father’s side because he died very young. My grandmother offered to sell my parents a small house at a cheap price with the agreement that she could move in at any time. They declined. From that point forward my grandmother always accused my parents of “wanting to put her in a home”. I mean even when she was in her 50s.
My grandmother’s second husband (who I knew as grandpa). Lived at home with my grandmother until he was almost 90 and died after a short hospitalization. At that time her dementia became apparent to the rest of us, and I made every attempt to maintain her in her home, which was a nightmare. My first child was about 2 and she lived over 35 minutes away. She was ultimately hospitalized for pneumonia, released to a nursing home (because she wasn’t competent to go home) and died about 6 months later after a stroke. My mother visited her almost daily, but didn’t do ANY hands on care. I also managed my grandmother’s finances, which my mother inherited 100% when she died.
My paternal grandfather died young of a massive heart attack, and my grandmother had severe dementia (and I believe alcoholism), and was placed by my father’s older brother (his wife really) in a nursing home that was an awful old hospital. Just beds in a room. Nothing to do, no memory care like they have today.
I never heard word one about my grandparents taking care of their parents. In fact, it’s my understanding that before antibiotics in the 1940s elderly people usually died of pneumonia (as in, grandma didn’t make it through the winter.)
Why then, do my mother and so many others’ parents on this board feel absolutely entitled to full time care provided by their children? I thought I was the “norm”, the sandwich generation with kids still at home and an elderly parent. But I’m learning that a lot of you caregivers out there are senior citizens yourselves.
When I was in my 20s and my mother was pressuring me HARD to have a baby I asked her why she was SO adamant about it. She said something to the effect of, children give you comfort in your old age. What she really meant was “children are your retirement plan”, which is exactly what her mother had planned for her. She got out of it because my father was sick and my husband and I stepped in. But now she has me wrapped in the F.O.G. Everything I’m currently doing to put more caregivers in place she sabotages. And no matter how much I do, she’s never happy with it.
I guess there’s no question here. I’m just seeing so many posts where adult children either feel obligated or just think caring for parents is the right thing to do. But I don’t know of previous generations providing LTC to their parents.
Leo Tolstoy also famously said (I paraphrase) that some people have the ability to talk for hours without actually saying anything.
I think this really fits you to the letter.
There are plenty of "sane" people posting here. Myself for one.
What you think may be "undue kerfuffle" is often decent and regular people being tormented by a host of feelings about a situation with a needy and sick person because they inconveniently have a conscience. This also applies to people who were caregiver's to a LO that's passed. They don't understand the feelings they're having or how to process them.
So they post here in a forum for caregivers. People also post because they have experience in caregiving and share it with others who are seeking advice.
I agree with you about some of the people posting though. This site could do a better job filtering out people who come here for the wrong reasons.
It helped me remember all the Adult Children of Alcoholics material I read years ago. It reminded me about the overblown sense of responsibility and need for approval. I wish I had discovered this website 2 years ago when mom started her steep decline. Maybe I would never have gotten in so deep.
I took care of my parents for 12 years . My ( late) father was reasonable . My (late ) mother felt I owed her something for being born . My mother never took care of her parents and had no problem putting her own mother in a nursing home after a stroke . However , even before my grandmother’s stroke , my mother extracted a promise from me not to put her in a “home “, when my mother was only in her 50’s. I ended up having to break that promise when she was near 90 and put her in AL . The grief my mother gave me over placing her , finally prompted me to tell her. “ MOM, I DID NOT MAKE YOU OLD .”
My grandparents did not act like this. They were well aware of their limitations as they aged , made adjustments , and did not expect anyone to help them to prop a false independence .
My divorced in laws did not take care of their parents . My FIL blames us for taking away his independence because he needed to go in AL and we won’t take him on cruises , or out to dinner 3X a week . He wants us to help him maintain his retired lifestyle .
I told him that age has taken away his independence not us .
My mother in law is in such denial about how she’s so stooped over . She thinks she stands up straight . She needs to use a walker but refuses .
I wish I knew how this denial and entitlement came about , and the expectation that we were going to be their dutiful chef, nurse, housekeeper, personal shopper , laundress, and entertainment , while they insist that they are independent .
I wanted to use their money to get them the best care possible in the nicest environment possible. I never wanted to be applying for Medicaid on their behalf, what for???? I would have if the need arose, but it did not, thankfully......mom passed about 6 months before her funds to private pay ran out.
I feel it IS the right thing to do to make sure our parents are properly cared for, either in managed care with us being their advocates, or in our homes if such a thing is possible w/o any lives being ruined. And with in home caregivers coming in for relief.
It's what love does....it cares for and about the people who raised us in their old age.
I managed my parents lives for them for nearly 11 years. It was a long tough road. Moms dementia had her saying a lot of horrible things to me. But I had always set down my own boundaries and got out of Dodge when necessary. I didn't have a great childhood and mom and I were oil and water. But she (and dad) deserved good care, dignity, and love from me till the day they died, dad at 91 and mom at 95. I'd do it all again in a heartbeat, too, if the opportunity arose. When they died, I felt no guilt or remorse for what I hadn't done, just a sense of peace that the end of their lives were as good as possible. Don't we all deserve that, as human beings?
OP, caring for your mother does NOT have to be inside of your home. The elders, like my mother, who are never satisfied with what we do for them wind up faring much better in AL in the long run. As WE do. Check out Barbs website about FOG. Good luck!
On both sides of my family, the only caregiving that has ever taken place is my grandmother caring for my grandfather who died at 80 years old when I was 10. But I remember that none of her children - my mother included - ever stepped in to help her, even when we were over at their house.
When you outlived your usefulness, someone was going to put you into a nursing home because "I have a life" couldn't be bothered with caregiving.
My mother especially never sacrificed anything to help, even when she had the opportunity. When my father was dying of cancer, she pushed most of the load onto my brother and to a smaller extent me, because she just couldn't deal with it all and her job was just too important to her.
Another problem, for many posters here, is that they all want a deluxe country-club “Place for Mom” (nod here to the for-profit organization that runs this show)…for a bargain price. Well, news flash: if you are lucky enought to slide your aged parent into a Medicaid spot, you ain’t getting Michelin-starred meals and fresh, scented warmed towels brought daily. And yes, those nasty diapers may not be changed with lightning speed.
Getting old sucks, no two ways about it. Plan, plan, plan, whether you are the old one, or the child of one.
https://outofthefog.website/
Caring for our parents is expected nowadays, and I have resentment about that. Not only was I responsible for doing or arranging day-to-day care for both, but Dad stayed in business until he was 92 and died. The problems evolving from that were mindshattering, exhausting and long-term. He apparently assumed that everything would be easy to execute in order to provide for mom, but he was wrong. He'd assumed he'd live forever. He claimed to have more money than he did. His business was in a shambles due to very bad decisions.
If I had it to do over, I'd insist on a conversation about his need to retire before he screwed everything up. Which he did.
That's the answer. Honest communication between the generations. But I'm quite sure it will never happen in my lifetime. One reason: we give too much respect to our elders. We grew up afraid to question them. We want them to preserve their independence. It's all a bunch of malarkey. We should be more forceful, insist that they make a plan other than us, and just plain refuse to do a lot of things that cause us grief.
Tolstoy famously said that “All happy families resemble one another, but every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” I can easily see how someone who was quite happy growing up would be a bit more easy-going about dealing with an old needy person, more willing to do more, spend more, stay more involved, etc.
What puzzles me is how so many posting here didn’t like their parent(s), had a pretty crappy experience as minors under their roof, but STILL run themselves ragged dealing with the old folks, who in so many cases act like perfect jerks to those adult children at their beck and call. And as you observe, many, if not most, of these “caregivers” are getting quite old themselves! Crazy, crazy…but that’s people for you.
My theory: those adults who have no trouble setting boundaries, who have sanely chosen to stay at a reasonable distance from their parents (at whatever age or stage of need), don’t have any need to join a community like this, so all you get are the nutcase stories. I suspect there are plenty of ordinary folks who maybe visit the nursing home once every couple of weeks, then get on with their lives without undue kerfuffle. Those sane people aren’t posting here!
Nobody, nobody can “make” you do anything. “No” is a complete sentence. Seems pretty straightforward to me!