So it goes when it comes to siblings and elder care. Not always, of course. I was fortunate in that, though I was the primary caregiver to all of our many family elders, my sister was only 40 miles away and she did her best to come in to visit once a week. The fact that I didn't take time off when she did visit was my problem, not hers.
One thing I've finally learned is that it's the caregiver's responsibility to ask for help, and I wasn't very good at that. Asking early on is best, before everyone is trained to believe you have nothing to do but be the caregiver. However, given the sneaky way of slowly expanding in scope that caregiving has, it's not always easy to know when to let your need for help known.
Also, asking doesn't always bring results. I interviewed 20 caregivers when I wrote "Minding Our Elders: Caregivers Share Their Personal Stories." A full two thirds of the people I interviewed had sibling problems. And of those, many complained most bitterly about the siblings who were always too busy to help, but then when they did visit, often during the holidays, they would spend their time criticizing the decisions you made for your elders and how you did things for them.
Here they were, fresh from home, telling you how you should be handling Dad's medications. You didn't even get a chance to explain that Dad would play a shell game with the daily pill box you set up, putting one pill here, another there, until no one had a clue what he'd taken and what he hadn't. Yet, when you mention that maybe it's time for assisted living and/or some in-home help, they start screaming about the cost.
The last you heard, the money belonged to your parents. If your parents are agreeable to assisted living, then maybe that's what they need. But it saves so much money to have you shoulder the whole responsibility, so the siblings, with an eye on inheritance, often like that idea best.
Even if they would agree to assisted living for your parents, you'd still be responsible for emergencies, for bookkeeping, for setting up or providing yourself the "extra" services such as medication monitoring, doctor appointments and shopping that aren't covered by most assisted living centers.
It's made you wonder for the last couple of years. Mom and Dad get excited about the assisted living center that some friends live in. There are things they'd miss about their house, but there are so many things that are a nuisance. They see their friends taking part in activities and having a great social life, while their own neighbors have all moved on or died, and now they are surrounded by young families. None of their old neighbors are around anymore.