Considering taking care of my mom for pay. Have any of you done this?

Don't quit your job at your age to take up being your mother's caregiver 20 hours a week.
You're 59 years old and have been at your job for 20 years. Put in a few more and take an early retirement at 62. Or start looking for another job while you're still working. Everyone here is right. It's easier to find a job when you're employed. Don't become your mother's caregiver. What will happen is you will become her full-time 24/7 caregiver. This is what happens when an adult child takes up part of the care for an elderly parent. They end up doing all of the care for the elderly parent. The parent/son/daughter relationship ends when you get the caregiver title. At best most adult children become an employee with the parent as their boss. At worst they become caregiver slaves 7 days a week and the elderly parent is master. Hired caregivers don't have a history with their clients. We leave at the end of our shifts. We walk away if we don't want to stay on an assignment. Sons and daughters have history. When they take up the responsibility of caregiving they can't just hand mom or dad's case off to a supervisor or put in their two-week notice. Keep that in mind.
When a person has had a loving and caring relationship with their parent it gets wrecked when they become caregivers to elderly parents. If the relationship wasn't great and there's abusive history, it will wreck your life. Take it from me, I've been living that dream or should I say nightmare for a while now. Leave the hands-on caregiving and the hour after hour of companionship/sitting work to homecare staff. Stay employed and continue having a parent/child relationship with your mother with some distance.

Exhausted, I am so puzzled by your dilemma.

You moved to be closer to a mother who didn't provide good care to you as a kid. You are resentful and burnt BECAUSE you gave up a life, job and place you loved to provide management and oversight and now your are thinking about quitting your job to provide MORE care????

How about using mom's more than adequate funds, move her into a good assisted living facility place and hire a geriatric care manager locally? Or move mom to an AL near where you WANT to work and live?

How about you give yourself and YOUR wants and needs some consideration?

PS, if mom can go into AL for respite for a month, then she can do that while you mount a job search somewhere.

If you think you hate your job now wait until you make taking care of mom your job.

Waiting 2 years to get back into the job market at your age is a fools errand. Let's face it age discrimination in regards to employment is very real and none of your employers are going to care that you took off for 2 years to take care of mom. In fact that 2 year gap will be more detrimental to you.

If you hate your job start looking for a new one while still employed. It is easier to find a job when you are employed than when you are unemployed.

Exhausted, don't do it. You are exhausted now, just wait.

Establish boundaries, back away from care for mom. Spend that time finding a job you will enjoy more.

I was 61 when mom had to enter a facility. I found a job and was able to return to my profession. But, to be able to do that I had to be willing to move to a community about 600 miles away, a rural community, where it was impossible for them to find.anyone with the experience they wanted. So, off I went. I hated the location and thankfully was able to find a position in my field, closer to home, a year later. Now I am 67, just started a new position, an hopefully will be financially able to retire in another five years. That four years was a financial drain, without it I could retire now.

After caring for mom that four years employment in my field.was very hard to find. I could have found a job as a caregiver making $10-12 an hour with any agency. I was asked a couple of times. I was so terribly insulted, all while being under the stress of trying to find something that paid decently.

Exhausted, that is what it was for me. Yes after a court order, I was paid a ridiculously low amount for 24/7 care of mom. Yes, court! I had been accused of financial exploitation by twisted sissies, investigated by APS (lawyer time) that led to an excruciating couple of years, with attorney fees, followed by another stressful time looking for work, something I wanted to do. APS closed the investigation because, in their determination nothing of the sort was occuring. There was nothing to investigate.

So, exhausted, ignore what others here are telling you. They are only trying to show you another perspective of what could easily happen. I will repeat once more, back away from caring for the mom you have so much resentment for, look for a job you will like while still employed, in a location that you will enjoy, and make the change now. There are so many positions and employers looking for workers there really is not a better time to make a change that will be good for you.

And my mom still toileted, dressed and bathed (with oversight) herself during the time I cared for her. Though she had frequent explosions that I would.need to clean up.

I was a few years younger than that when I moved in with my mom "temporarily" when she needed some extra help and I was between jobs. I'd always worked a mix of low paying part time work so my room and board plus a modest salary $1000/month was plenty for me, plus as the alternative would have been mom going into some type of care facility I figured it was a win for both of us. What I didn't count on was how much my mother's health would deteriorate, and how long she would live that way. My advice is to plan for an end point, and also understand that finding work at out age after several years away may not be easy.

No, not paid, occasional gifts for service: food, cash for fuel that sort of thing. Call it a 'social contract'.

You are talking about a formal employment contract, with wages. Can think of many pros: obviously income for you, employment history, varied routine & hours plus also dignity for your Mother to pay her way (important to some).

Cons: 🤔 Mission creep is the biggest I think. Being a relation means you literally have more 'skin in the game'. You will be automatic backup to any other aide, delivery or service. Needs will increase / change, but you sound capable & accepting of this. (Some folk seem to imagine a cruise type existance of cocktails on the porch or something!)

I found the *blend* of roles too.. um... much. While I was happy to lend a hand, I was pulled in up to my eyeballs & nearly drowned. It would not have mattered if paid or not. It was not sustainable as boundaries were not clear or kept. I had to keep resisting which was energy sapping.

If you are clear about your boundaries & role, it may work well ☺️.

But (always a but..) I am concerned you talked of not being free until such a distant time in the future. Living where you don't want for a long time.. you could get stuck (unless the city/town/people grow on you?)

Leaving a job is big - but you want to anyway. Take 3-6 months & reassess?

At 60, I too was burned out at my corporate job and, when my company offered early retirement, I made the decision to move in with my parents as their 24/7 caregiver. I thought relocating to a small island community would be a welcomed change. That was three and a half years ago. At the time, my father had mobility issues but his mind was sharp and my mother was mobile but with early dementia. With a small pension, a $1500 “gift” a month from my parents and free room and board, my financial needs were met. While my dad was alive, I could leave the house for hours at a time and created a new life here. My dad passed in March and now things are difficult. My mother’s dementia has progressed and she can no longer use a phone. She doesn’t wander or try to cook, but she is a fall risk and gets anxious quickly when I am out of sight. I cannot leave for more than 30 minutes for simple errands, and there is some risk in that. Elder care companions are available at $30/hr for longer times away. If mom goes into MC, which she does not want to do, I can’t afford to stay alone in the house without drawing on my SS and a small annuity, both of which are 3 years away from full value. That would affect income for the rest of my life. I could try and find a job, but now I’ve been out of the workforce for over 3 years and I’m 64 years old. What a prospect!! So, it looks like I am going to stay trapped in this house with my alcoholic mom for the foreseeable future. At least the gilded cage has a water view! In retrospect, I probably just needed to take a month off and deal with the burnout. Ideally, my parents would have been better served medically and socially to have been moved to an AL facility. They were/are very isolated here but just didn’t want to leave their home by the ocean.

Biggest disadvantage I see is the possibility of having less/zero income in those years just before you apply for SS that could reduce your monthly SS when it starts.

Since you already have people in place to care for mom, use the flexibility of your current job and vacation time to apply for other jobs. The other option is to look at working a few more years where you are and think of the time is the last few feet to the bottom of the hill. Any job has downsides and people who work alongside you who make it miserable.

Don't want to sound likea negative Nellie but none if the folks I know in your age group who have left a job for an interval have ever found one comparable to their previous position (if they found a job at all).