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I posted about a month ago about mom needing a new bathroom sink. She always lets my middle age brother pick any appliances needed for the house. She has for many years. He has personality disorder and has to find the right one which takes time to research. With the bathroom sink, I had to threaten my my mom that if my brother didn't get her a sink in a reasonable time period I would show up at her house with a plummer and a sink. I even ended up paying for the sink to get it as soon as possible. My brother did get the sink.
Now the dishwasher just burned out and wont work. Of course, mom says she has to let my brother decide on the new dishwasher. She has let him control her for 20 years.
Mom is on a walker, 88 years old and sort of frail. She rinses the dishes and pots and puts them in the dishwasher and takes them out. My brother won't do it. There is a woman that comes once a week to wash clothes and clean up. But it only once a week. No one to help her with the dishes any other time. I don't want to go through a bunch of phone calls threatening mom and waiting and worrying each day did my brother order the sink yet or not. And I'm not paying for the dishwasher. I'm sick of my mom and the problems. I live an hour and a half away from her. My brother lives 20 minutes away.


Barbara

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Lol over the vision of the dirty dishes flying thru the air being blasted to smithereens! Love it!
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my dishwasher divorced me 15 yrs ago . cant say i blame her but id sure like to have retro pay for the thousands of great meals i cooked for her and the ingrate boys .. i buy yard sale dishes now . when theyre dirty i sling em in the air and practice skeet shootin with em . its all glass or ceramic , legal fill for the ravine ..
my boys just got the whole wheat bread recipe . between that and my home and property im worth more dead than alive to them .. you can easily see why i need to stay in practice with the old shotgun , eh ?
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How about taking a week off from being in contact? If mom is simply frail but still very much in control, then it's HER problem, not yours. If she calls to complain about the dishwasher and your brother, remind her that it's her choice how she's living. Don't allow yourself to be drawn into family drama.
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Mom is old school and will never expect brother to do "women's work". But I bet she will expect you to.
The way we avoided conflict was to also separate the responsibilities. Electrical problems : son #2 who is an electrician.
Heating and Cooling: Son #1 who is an HVAC tech
Meds and MD's : Me, the DIL
Shopping: daughter #1, who loves to shop.
So stick to what you are good at, and if she thinks only a man can buy appliances, so be it. If she complains, tell her to talk to HIM.
There is a remote chance she likes to see you bicker. It's called "Divide and Conquer" and makes her feel in control. Don't buy in to it.
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Let's not forget that your mother's generation, the women always depended on the husband or a grown son to make all the decisions when it comes to making repairs or replacing appliances.

Sounds like your Mom is using her old dishwasher as a drying rack... that's pretty clever of her :)

I wouldn't keep worrying about these things, they aren't a life or death situation. My parents have been without a dishwasher for the past 3 years. So Mom [96] hand washes all the dishes, and Dad who is on a walker [93] towel dries them. They grew up without dishwashers, and the first couple decades of their married life, so it's no big deal to them. They could afford one, but are being too cheap.

Just let it go.
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