Follow
Share

I suggested to my 93 year old mother that it was selfish to expect me to move over 150 miles from my home of 28 years, leaving everything behind for an unknown length of time, to be her unpaid carer. She snapped back, 'why shouldn't I be selfish! and I remembered my GP's advice. When it comes down to it, do you think my GP is absolutely correct in his assessment that it is either us or them?

Find Care & Housing
OK, another fall. Alarm co call: says "not injured. Paramedics called for lift assist". Asked "Can you attend? It may be a long wait"

I tallied it up.

Attend, be unable to help anyway, not be appreciated by LO anyway, possible longer wait for EMS as LO not 'home alone', usual refusal of LO to be transported, possible pressure for me to stay for observation. Definately wreck my own sleep. Definately increase my stress.
VS
I stay at home. Stay in bed. Rest my aching back. Get required sleep for my early start workday next day. Worry.. yes, but sleep.

I said No & stayed home. It seemed the lesser worst outcome but it is still upsetting me.
Helpful Answer (8)
Reply to Beatty
Report

Nope, nope, nope, nope, no! Don't you move anywhere. I'm finding out that old people can be some of the most manipulative folks around. Get home care in the home or mom can go into a nice assisted living facility. Some of these places are beautiful.

When my sister couldn't manage any longer, her kids expected me to step in. I hadn't spoken to any of them since my dad passed. When I said no, I got all types of sneaky memes on my Facebook page. They were blocked.
Helpful Answer (5)
Reply to Scampie1
Report
Beatty Jun 3, 2025
Those kids were kidding, right? (Silly pun indended 😜)

My Aunt experienced this, in her 80's. I could understand..
That the POA 'kid' just couldn't help much (very long distance, own serious health concerns). That another 'kid' had no authority to make changes, wasn't close by either. I understood the family needed a solution...

However, I did NOT understand the expectations those 'kids' had. It also took a firm stance of NO.
(1)
Report
See 1 more reply
"In the end it is either you or them."

One of the most profound messages ever on Aging Care.
Helpful Answer (11)
Reply to brandee
Report

Your GP is right. At some point it's either us or them. When it gets to the point where someone can't be left alone and needs you to move in or them to move in, it's time to call it a day.
Helpful Answer (4)
Reply to BurntCaregiver
Report

Your GP is 100 percent right, I hope you don't mind if we use this, when we are reaching out too people desperate for help.

Thank You for sharing this. 🫂😞

Take care of yourself!!
Helpful Answer (2)
Reply to Drivingdaisy
Report
SID2020 Jun 3, 2025
Yes please do use it, it's short and snappy, and 100% truth.
(1)
Report
My husband has been in an SNF for 2 years and before that a Memory Care Facility. Yesterday we talked via FaceTime with our son who was visiting Dad. However, my husband said he doesn’t like it there and wants to come back home. Plus he said they took away his jeans and scissors! Yes, he managed to get hold of a pair of scissors! He said he wanted to cut his hair. But, I know it wasn’t for that as he broke out of 2 memory care centers when he could walk. I know he was thinking of using the scissors to jimmy the door open. He has an ankle bracelet on his leg which I am sure he would cut off. He is wheelchair chair bound but his mind is telling him he can do it. The children are in denial that their father would do something like that. I haven’t been to see him in 7 weeks, that is to save my own sanity. Is it wrong not to go see him, maybe but my needs are now coming first after taking care of him at home for 5 years.

ps, been diagnosed with depression, anxiety and ptsd.
Helpful Answer (3)
Reply to WifeHasHadIt
Report
SID2020 Jun 3, 2025
I am so sorry you are having to go through this, I would think it is a very clear example of needing to put yourself first, for your own survival.
(3)
Report
See 1 more reply
Your GP is 100% correct.
Helpful Answer (4)
Reply to Bulldog54321
Report

I am the only one who visits and sees what needs to change, but I am the only one who doesnt 'need' an inheritance, so my siblings need to be careful LOL
Helpful Answer (1)
Reply to SID2020
Report

Trouble is I can’t be too strict with my mum about helping her because she owns house and if we truly fall out I won’t inherit the nice house ☹️
Helpful Answer (0)
Reply to Kathy7788
Report
Beatty May 23, 2025
A will is formalised legal instructions of how a person wants their assets dispersed after their death.

A will cannot guarantee those assets will still exist at that time in the future.

If a person spends, loses, sells those assets, there may be little or nothing left to inherit.

Eg An person needs to move into 24/7 care. Their assets including property/home is sold to pay for care. Happens all the time.

⚠️ Take much care if entering into a *Work now for Pay Later* deal.
(6)
Report
I’m in a similar situation. If you wouldn’t mind sharing, what was her care arrangement from age 91 to now? Was she at home alone? With caregivers? How often did you have to travel the 150 miles to handle her affairs? What were the biggest pain points? Were you called often to drop and run? I’m concerned about this. I live in huge city with everything. She’s 3 hours away in small city with decent support but not a major metro area, like Houston. What is the benefit of having her closer to you? What are the negatives? My mother is 91. I’m walking a similar path.
Helpful Answer (0)
Reply to Beethoven13
Report
Xbox1993 May 24, 2025
I am in a similar situation too, only my husband, mother and one of my children need constant care. Talk about a dilemma. I gave my child and husband top priority and let my siblings stand in for my mother. Now i have found out that she has turned over accessibility to her funds to them and is changing the financial picture. She became very angry that i am not catering to her (she is demanding and difficut) I don't care about inheritance any more, I've survived this long without her money. I believe this woman's GP was right...it's either us or them.By the way, she is 95. Genius GP.
(2)
Report
I am sitting in a chair at my sister’s assisted living facility right now. An aide is bathing her. She had dinner with three friends in the dining room this evening, and stopped to participate in their activity on her way back to the room. There was flavored iced coffee for everyone at the planned event in the lobby today. She has been here two years, and this is her new home. She loves it here.

My mother-in-law and my husband seem to expect that when MIL got too frail she will come live with us. She is 91, and during Covid came to stay at our home for two months. She could not do the stairs, so she sat in the TV room on the second floor and watched TV all day. I had to cook three meals each day because she was there. If she needed to go somewhere, I had to take her. There were no friends, no activities, no one to help with her personal needs, no bus to the doctors and the store. Just me. Anything good or fun that happened only happened if I made it happen. That alone was extremely stressful. And she was mostly still able to take care of her own needs.

I feel so frustrated when people talk about assisted living centers as warehouses for old people, where we just send them to die. I see the assisted living place where my sister is (and where my mom was until she died) as a great blessing. It is a wonderful community where, if your LO will allow it, they can have a life. Care for an old person takes a team.

my MIL will go to assisted living when the time comes, and not to my home.
Helpful Answer (12)
Reply to WearyJanie
Report
JudyTeen30 Jun 3, 2025
I agree with your comment of people saying assisted living are warehouses where people go to die being so unfair to those who cannot mentally or physically continue to care for older people with multiple issues. In the main we are not trained to manage all the problems because the world requires us to now work until we drop. We cannot sacrifice our lives to devote to the elderly who have multiple needs, unless we want to go back to 19th century living where the eldest daughter stayed at home first to help rear their siblings then to look after their parents. It is utterly selfish for a generation to expect to be pandered to in their or our homes and have us as their unpaid help when they most likely never did it for their parents nor did they give any thought to managing their situations as they aged.
(1)
Report
A different thought: "In the end.... none of us usually get exactly what we want, but if we're lucky, we get something that helps"

Just because she feels entitled to be selfish, doesn't mean you have to define yourself as selfish, if you don't do exactly what she wants.

Also, she sounds scared maybe, ...rather than (just)selfish. Might the two of you talk about what her fears are, and then address the fears. It's perfectly normal to fear aging or the loss of independence, but it's overwhelming for some people, I know. That may not be possible.

You might find something that works for you AND ALSO helps her.

How about: I cannot move out to be your care taker, but I can...
Fill in the blank _________whatever works for you_______.
ie
call you every –––––––––.
help you find a Carer
help you find asissted living or a convalecent home
help you find a therapist or social worker so you can I identify your fears about dying.

I told my dad I could NOT take care of him full time,
but I could help him find and move into a skilled nuring facility near me.
Heartbreaking, yes.
Realistic, yes.
Safest choice for us, yes.
Preserved our relationship, yes.

Good luck to you and your mom.

B




Good luck.

B
Helpful Answer (5)
Reply to Bobby9
Report
SID2020 Jun 2, 2025
Thank you for your thoughtful reply. I have tried to talk to her along those lines. I will try again. I ask her where it's all going to end and she shouts, 'the graveyard!!'. I was widowed at 51, she has outlived my husband by 26 years. I have no children and so sometimes I think people expect me to just fall into the role of care slave, because they think I have no other purpose. That may just be my perception though.
(0)
Report
I have a son so maybe I’ll just have to let relationship with mum go if I’m going to have any life left
Helpful Answer (2)
Reply to Kathy7788
Report

Someone a social worker said to me move out. Then she’d have to get help herself. Trouble is I’d lose a relationship but maybe So WHAT ! if I have a life to live
Helpful Answer (4)
Reply to Kathy7788
Report

I think my mum is being selfish. It looks like from this forum a lot of elderly may be being selfish to consider their adult children to be sole carer. Why do they do this to us
Helpful Answer (7)
Reply to Kathy7788
Report
SID2020 Jun 2, 2025
I think maybe it is driven by fear, especially if they have not put anything in place. They see our strength and relative youthfulness, and of course they think a few years caring isn't going to hurt us. The problem is that we aren't all going to live 97 years, so spending our middle age caring for them could mean the end of living our own dreams. They don't want to think about that, but it's true. The generation born in the 1930s are sometimes outliving their own children!
(2)
Report
My mum must be selfish then too. I thought it makes me a bad person not to meet her needs. But now I’m beginning to see from this forum that if she loved me she wouldn’t be making this much demand on my life. I have a son and think she’s had her life and now is determined to ruin mine if it makes her more cared for
Helpful Answer (5)
Reply to Kathy7788
Report
SID2020 Jun 3, 2025
Kathy7788 no you must not get stuck caring for your Mum forever. What if something happened to you and you weren't able to care for her. Another way would be found. You are not it. I tell my brothers that it will not be me. She has to be placed in a situation where she will be ok if I die/move abroad/stop visiting. You were not born to be her care slave.
(0)
Report
Definitely. I moved from a home/city/friends that I loved 10 years ago and fell into caregiving for my 94-year old mother here. It finally ended in November when she moved into a retirement home (in another city, 5 minutes away from my sister).

After this gruelling marathon, I am emotionally exhausted—I make daily, intentional efforts to get my life back—it is arduous work, but for my own sake, I need to re-claim it.

I wish, though, that I had just stayed put 10 years ago. The path was too hard and took too much from me. I feel like a shell of myself, but will re-build myself and my life.

Your GP was absolutely correct.
Helpful Answer (7)
Reply to Danielle123
Report
Kathy7788 May 22, 2025
I’m scared I’ll get stuck caring for my elderly mum forever !!
(1)
Report
Thank you everyone so much for your replies and support. I know now that I will not be changing my whole life so that she doesn't have to change any part of hers. She won't be happy, but she is not in the position to call the shots is she?
Helpful Answer (5)
Reply to SID2020
Report

Save yourself..best advice I got was from my counselor…she said “your job regarding your mom is to make sure she is safe, has food and shelter. It is not your job to make her happy”. Wow..such great advice I have learned to live my life, visit regularly… I placed my mom in a LTC facility {NH} . I applied for medicaid……she and I are BOTH happier!
Helpful Answer (8)
Reply to Sadinroanokeva
Report

Your GP was absolutely correct. Save yourself!
Both my parents are gone, but I have an aunt with dementia and it was expected of me to leave my home and all of my familiar surroundings to go and stay with her for God knows how long.
She was adamant that she didn't want help in the house unless it was someone she could trust. Meaning me. My other cousins were all expecting me to give up my life, my job and move in and take care of her. I will never forget it or forget how little they all thought of me.
I did a lot for her, but it was more, more, more. Mind you, I was spending my own money, at that. Family decided tag, I was it. Aunt got rid of the caregivers I got in for her.
I came here for advice from the wisdom of others and a few other close friends/coworkers, and I gave up my POA and I stopped visiting altogether.
Aunt has written me off. I don't hear from that side of the family anymore who tried to trap me and I am much happier.
You can really get yourself into a mess of a trap trying to help others, and it will never be enough. The more you give, the more they expect until there is nothing left.
Your GP was absolutely correct in his assessment. Hats off to him.
Helpful Answer (9)
Reply to Tiredniece23
Report

That GP most likely had real world experience with being a caregiver.
Helpful Answer (5)
Reply to Geaton777
Report

Your GP is a brilliant human being who speaks the truth. Assisted Living keeps everyone sane and if funds are not available for AL, Medicaid for LTC is available. In home care works too. Nowhere is it written that WE have to do hands on care for our parents.
Helpful Answer (6)
Reply to lealonnie1
Report

I'm impressed by your GP.
Helpful Answer (4)
Reply to brandee
Report

Listen to your GP!!! I agree with them 100%!!

I wish mine had given me that advice. My parents lived across the street from us, and while I don't think they did it intentionally, they treated me like their personal 911 service for 4 years...24/7/365. Anytime they had a real emergency--or thought they did--they called me and it didn't matter if it was day or night with the expectation that i would come over and take care of things. On many occasions, that included multiple calls over night before finally deciding it was time to go to the ER at 4am. I spent Christmas Day 2023 with my mom in the ER and missed spending the day with my own family because Mom's pinched nerve in her back was acting up, missed Thanksgiving Day with my family because Dad had chemo on Wednesday and kept falling all day on Thanksgiving and couldnt get up by himself, etc.. Between the two of them, they had 47 ER visits in 4 years and I took them every single time, along with all the routine visits, check ups, procedures, cancer treatment, hospitalization follow ups, etc.

My health finally broke last year when I had RSV, bacterial pneumonia and viral pneumonia simultaneously. I was sick for 6 weeks. My GP said it was the result of the culminating stress and depleting my immune system thanks to the non-stop phone calls all night, every night with supposed emergencies.

It forced me to step back. I wish I had done so years earlier.
Helpful Answer (14)
Reply to JRwornout
Report

Love your GP's bluntness. Would have helped me a while back..

I remember back when the demands were growing & multiplying.. (I called it the bottomless bog of needs).

I need ABC-XYZ. I want YOU to do ABC-XYZ.

I said "I hear you. You need ABC-XYZ. I will do A. You will need to find OTHER people to do all the rest."

You get the LOOK.. of What!!??
How Dare You. 😂
But in time, my LO saw the truth of it. They did in fact hire & arrange OTHER people.
Helpful Answer (11)
Reply to Beatty
Report

I fear our doctors have too often seen the consequences of one choosing to be basically enslaved to an unreasonable elder out of misplaced obligation or guilt
Helpful Answer (14)
Reply to Daughterof1930
Report

100% agree!
Helpful Answer (5)
Reply to MeDolly
Report

Agree with your GP.
Helpful Answer (6)
Reply to brandee
Report

What he said sounds harsh, but in the end, that is what it comes down to. No matter how much you do, you will not be able to make everything o.k. or pleasant for the aged and terminally ill. You can kill yourself in the process of trying and it won't change the outcome. My own Mother went to rehab after falling and breaking 3 ribs at age 92. From there we transitioned her to assisted living where she was for 4 years til she passed. It still took a lot of time, effort and tears. She was mostly a sweetheart, too.
If I had tried to manage it at home, I would be dead by now. It still took a toll on my own mental and physical health. Her gp said to me when she fell and broke the ribs "I think this can be a turning point for you both", meaning it was time for the situation to change.
Your Mom needs the help, the changes/relocations need to be made by her, not you.
Helpful Answer (12)
Reply to Pjdela
Report

Your Mother is allowed to be selfish, but only with her own time, her own finances, her own home, her own assets. With that, she can get the care she needs elsewhere.

She does not own any part of you or your time.
This is not a piece of pie you both need to share, she has her own pie. You have your own life.

Why this is an argument with her escapes me. She can ask anything she wants but this one qualifies as a big, firm "NO".

Your GP's advice is unique and maybe it speaks to you in a way that you can relate.
It sounds like the best advice ever, are you going to follow it?
Helpful Answer (12)
Reply to Sendhelp
Report

Ask a Question
Subscribe to
Our Newsletter