In my late 30’s with no kids, I’d like to know how caring for someone with dementia compares to children/toddlers.
I’ve been in a caring role pretty much my whole life,... one brother has a disability, my late brother got sick and passed and now I look after Mum with dementia.
Her outbursts often remind me of a toddler tantrum and the fact that when things are quiet, typically a mess is being made.
It has seriously started messing with my head and made me question if I want kids and I’d like to hear some perspectives / differences.
I know obviously kids learn rather than forget so that’s rewarding but if I’m burned out now with caring for Mum, will I ever cope as a parent? Or should I take this a clue that maybe I’m not suited.
I'm starting to find even the task of cooking for my mum and prepping her to bed exhausting. As in, I’m so tired that I’ve resorted to part microwave meals and at times I’ve simply nodded off on the sofa before getting her into bed. I’ve then got up to put her into bed and usually she’s been awake the whole time. I’d hate to think I'd be similar with kid(s) where I feed them microwave food and fall asleep before them!
I know it's a silly silly question but I guess not a lot of people tend to have the experience of looking after someone with dementia before they start their own family so they go in kind of blind.
Please tell me kids are a lot easier lol
Additional note: one of my friends has a baby/toddler and while we are going through similar responsibilities (ironically), she seems to still have all this energy to do stuff, go exercise, socialize, keep the house spotless etc. So I find myself wondering if it’s just me...
I've never had to deal with a toddler who literally KNEW how to drive a car and is living in a time period of being in their 30's for brief moments.
I've never had a toddler repeatedly bring up griefs of the past
Dementia? the erasure of skills, abilities, and control
Toddlers? the learning of skills, abilities, and control.
That's a good point about no toddler ever bringing up griefs of the past.
Funny how dementia works sometimes. They can often recall a person's most embarrassing, humiliating, and worst of your life with stunning accuracy yet can't remember their own address or how to use a toilet.
Some differences:
My grandson learns and improves on his behavior.
Mom does neither.
My grandson learns new and exciting things every day.
Mom forgets a bit more, daily.
My grandson is beginning to show empathy towards others.
Mom has zero empathy.
My GS goes through his days with a sense of hope and joy.
Mom has neither.
Please get yourself some help. Save your sanity.
As others have mentioned, with children you celebrate new achievements. With elders, you mourn loss of abilities.
Having done both both at once (advanced dementia mother now 97, have 3 teens) the biggest hurdle I faced was probably attitude. My children seemed typical (they argued with me, and amongst themselves) but were generally cooperative and afforded me some respect. My mother, in complete denial of her own cognitive decline, was uncooperative, insulting, miserable, combative, self-absorbed and demanding.
I found it much easier to redirect a temper tantrum from a tired, hungry, hot, cold, uncomfortable, disappointed, frustrated toddler, than from a defiant parent who was certain she was entitled to tell me off and get her way every time because she was the ruling matriarch and I was just her know-nothing daughter.
Secondly, you can reason with a small child that has some language ability from the first they can learn to bargain. You can't with an elder.
Thirdly we come to the issue of HOPE. I cannot begin to say how many come to Forum hopeless, that being the worst part of it all. With a child there is nothing BUT hope. There is a whole life ahead, and whole future, for the child and for you. When it comes to caring for our elders it is loss upon loss upon loss, grief upon grief upon grief.
I cannot call them similar at all.
Not so with dementia. LOs with dementia are going in the opposite direction as toddlers. No amount of "discipline" and effort stops the relentless decline of their abilities. They lose their reason and logic and memory. They often do things that work against themselves (or you) without understanding or care; they lose the ability to show or express or feel gratitude; they require more and more care, not less and less like when a child grows and matures. They lose control of their bodily functions, and become sicker, not stronger and more vigorous like a child. If you think changin a toddler's poopy diaper is bad, sometimes dementia will have the LO remove the poopy diaper and fling it around. Or they'll openly masturbate in public or grab some stranger's derierre.
Children learn to communicate and can hear you, but often the very eldery can't; they may wish to be helpful but their physical collapse prevents them from it (arthritis, poor eyesight, neuropathy, judgment). Then there's the financial stress and possible loneliness when you can't go anywhere or do anything because your LO is bedbound and there's no one else helping you. Finally, there is the emotional toll that occurs as we have to stand by and watch our loved one disappear and/or suffer in spite of all our heroic efforts. Many elders here in the US have at one point or another said: "Getting old ain't for sissies." And neither is choosing to be a solo, live-in caregiver.
Kids have tantrums and act up and get fussy but they don't bring you down. Kids aren't negative, hopeless, and miserable.
On the other hand, the elderly have already gained their legal rights and independence. It is much harder to have those same rights stripped and go back to being another person's dependent. Not only because of the time, cost, and money that it takes to do so, BUT because the elderly fight the process the whole time!! And if those rights aren't stripped, they take precedence over everything else -- even safety.
Love, and as a parent's commitment to raising a child, will get you through many difficult times with a child. Love and commitment will not do the same for a person taking care of someone with dementia.
Children are learning independence and it is wonderful to.watch them grow and mature.
Caring for elderly.there is no growth, there is no learning to become independent. It is hoping, against hope, that they are able to do.some level of caring for themselves.
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