Grandchildren taking care of grandparents...

Sundaisey, this site is full of people who are doing amazing things to care for their elderly relatives. They often use this site to vent about their problems, because they have no-one else to say it to safely. In many cases, they can’t even get out of the house to talk to anyone! It would be good to look behind the problems, and see what people are actually doing.

Sundaisy, this thread started out as a question as to why it seemed grandchildren were taken care of grandparents alot. It seemed to get off topic. As said, sometimes caregivers need to vent. That's what this forum is about. People helping each other sometimes making decisions. Others with strong viewpoints. In the end, we all do what we feel is right for us.

Although i raised my granddaughter and took care of dad untill he passed. Im having a very hard time doing the same with my mom. She didnt raise me,my father did. He was both mother and father to me
Although i live with my mom and do as much as i can for her (shes physically in pretty good shape) she rarely has a nice word to say to me. She was abusive to me as a child and shes still abusive. This place has been a place where i can see that im not alone. I think alot of others probably feel the same.

It’s a win win. Grandchildren learn empathy, caregiving skills, and can save wasted rental income to start their own business at some point with the capital they create from not blowing it on rent. They don’t become slaves. It’s a scheduled arrangement and not to be the kind where the sole caregivers become the grandchildren and no one else of course. Grandpa can sit in on grandsons Fri night poker games and pass down some hard life lessons. It’s precisely the separation of the generations that cause insensitive adults lacking empathy for other human beings and the aging process. Our culture is clueless on what it feels like to grow old and I’m not prepared and the majority are insensitive. Walk into a nursing home and see how lonely and pathetic it is. If we see the aging process of clothes with more likely to take better care of our health but eating right getting more exercise integrating variety in our lives because we know how the loss of mobility affects us If we grow up witnessing our grandparents decline. There are “Blue Zones” where centenarians are integrated into their families. We can learn a few things from these arrangements. There’s the nursing home program in Finland that combines nursing homes with college student apartments where young adults donate 10 hours a week or was it month of their time to an elderly person in exchange for very discounted rent. It’s all about having money and holding on to it with creative cost effective living arrangements while also learning to become a noble caring human being.

My sig other's daughter after 20+ years still resented how much time she needed to take care of her grandparents in the afternoon after high school got out and later when she was in local university.

She resented that she couldn't be with her friends in the afternoon during her high school years. She resented that she had to go to a local university which cost her twice as much as a smaller college that she really wanted to attend that was elsewhere in the State.

I didn't know her Dad during that time frame, so I am only going by what she had told me. Now that she is 40, she is still an unhappy camper. She loved her grandparents dearly, but thought her parents should have been there instead of her. Her parents did help during the final weeks.

Thank you for sharing freqflyer. I feel like your stepdaughter and a bit resentful for having to pick up the slack of caring for my grandmother. My aunts and uncles all had issues with her, but I tried my best to be a team player and fill in the gap.

I think I was younger and didn't know better. But after 13 years it just wore me down. After she passed, I had resentment as well. It was magnified because I felt she took time away from my own father who needed me too. My father (his ex mother in law) who didn't even like her.