Hi there. So I'm in a sticky situation and I'm going to lose my marbles if something doesn't change soon. My husband and I have been married for just over a year now and we have a very tiny apartment that we live in. We also both have full time jobs and I'm going to school. With all of that being said, my mother also lives with us. She actually is living on our couch in our living room (which is really tiny).
I had moved out of her house and on my own for a few years when my mom hit a real rough patch. She lost her job because of... Well it is a long story but she wasn't fired. And she couldn't get a new one where she was living because of her age (she's 60) and also because the economy is terrible where she was at. She ended up not being able to pay her bills or any of her rent so we offered to have her move 6 hours to live with us (which we paid for). The plan was to get her here and help her find a job and get her back on her feet enough to where she could live on her own. But everything seems to be going wrong. About a month after living with us with no luck of finding a job, she fell down a flight of stairs and broke her wrist and pelvis. Then shortly after she healed, her very unreliable car died on her so now she can't go to and from anywhere (and she wont take the bus, we've tried). We have become her main source of income and transportation and its been really really hard. We were already struggling before she moved it and its only gotten worse. Not to mention the fact that all of this has really taken a toll on us mentally and gotten between our marriage. Our sex life has suffered because she's literally about 20 feet away from us at all times. I miss having our own space and our freedom. We've only been married for a year and I want to cherish every moment I can with him. We are secluded to our bedroom because it uncomfortable to be around her.
Its also hard because my mother is stubborn, negitive and rude and can be manipulative. It is extremely hard to get along with her. I pretty much avoid talking to her at this point.
I don't know what to do. I need my sanity back and so does my husband. I can't keep forking over money because I have a life that I'm trying to build. But she has no money, no car, nonwhere to go. What should I do?
Thank you for taking the time to read this. Every bit of advice helps.
PS. She already has food stamps and medical. She had section 8 but lost it when she moved in with us.
Give your mom sixty days to make other living arrangements. There's public assistance out there for her. It's not your job to find it.
Sorry if I sound harsh; but your situation is beyond the pale. A 60-year-old woman is young in the scheme of things. You probably don't really think that, but it's the truth. She needs to take responsibility for her own little self.
Sixty days.
And here's Section 8 info for Humboldt County: http://eureka-humboldt-hsg.org/programs.html
Good luck and keep us posted! We're here to support you.
Start making phone calls to social service agencies in your area to find out what services are available. See if she can reestablish her Section 8 in her new location. If you give us your town/state, I'll do some research about agencies you might call. You've done more than enough for you mom. It's time for her to step up and take care of herself so you can live your own life. I'm older than your mom and I can't imagine taking such advantage of my own child.
"Unfortunately, people over fifty, who aren't in the best of health, but not disabled, cannot find employment, not even at Walmart"
Not true, not true! Suzie, in our area Meijer's, a large grocery chain, hires seniors well into their 70's to acta as greeters. Two hospitals hire seniors in that age group to work in their in-hospital stores and gift shops. I've seen seniors working at the big box hardware stores.
Sure, there are some companies and businesses that won't consider seniors in that age group. But others will.
I've been through that process and didn't like it, but I found jobs including one which was actually the best paying (and in some ways the worst job) I'd had.
Temp jobs are scut jobs, but sometimes they're necessary to keep food on the table. When you're desperate, you're a lot more flexible.
I suspect you're thinking of a lof of the folks who worked for years at the same place, then were laid off. They faced an unusual situation - they hadn't been in the marketplace and didn't know how to remarket themselves to find new jobs. Mastering computer technology could also have been a factor. And some folks are just not able to be flexible enough to refocus, reinvent and reinterview at that stage. It's overwhelimg.
But I wouldn't place all the blame on the "government" for allowing jobs to go overseas. Certainly trade treaties and legislation which favors certain countries are at play.
But don't forget the business community makes executive decisions to open overseas plants and relocate jobs there. Check out some of the business mags to see how many Fortune 500 companies have overseas presence. Those are strategic and marketing decisions made by private sector executives, not the government (and given their performance over the last few years it's hard to see that they've made many decisions at all).
There's also the issue that some nationalities have a history of providing if not creating an atmosphere that heavily encourages students to excel and compete, in solid usable subjects and not nonsense subjects like I began to see while I was in college.
Some Asian countries encourage young people to take academics more seriously than ours does. The STEM programs now in existence and hopefully expanding could address this issue, but there are still American students who are going to take subjects and major in fields that aren't going to produce decent jobs, now or in the future.
I think you have a lot of compassion for this age group and the difficulty of adjusting to a changing workplace dynamic, and I respect you for that. There have been a few occasions when I interviewed and was obviously not considered because of my age, even though it is illegal to discriminate on the basis of age.
Job hunting often reminds me of those bison seen in the beautiful Yellowstone winter documentaries...big, heavy, plodding along, spewing vast quanities of steam as they lumber through heavy snow. Job hunting in old age is much like that.
I'm just trying to share a different perspective, not criticize your beliefs.
Enlist the help of your landlord to evict her, your apartment is overcrowded. i did that for one of my tenents. the young couple were desperate to get her mother and druggy BF out and they did not budge. Leave of i call the sherif for trespass. They were gone!
i have also had experience of finding work at an older age. i had been a stay at home mom and run a home business with not profit when hubby became sick. having been a nurse in the UK forty years prior that was my choice of field. At the age of 59 having been out of school for so many years I had to take the NCLEX and then find work never having worked in a US hospital. Hospice took a chance on me and the rest is history and I finally retired at age 68.
It is possible but for some people it just is not possible for them to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and that is where society has to step in and help. Kaye's mother may be one of those but it is not he responsibility of her and her husband to make life easy for her and destroy their owm marriage. They are out working all day and she has the run of the place all day but when they get home and need someown time there she is sitting like an elephant on their couch waiting to be fed. Kay start by telling her to have dinner ready when you get home and the housework done. She is not even being pleasant to you, there is no excuse for that behaviour.
There is no reason for the rest of the population to be that broke, it is poor money management. I have seen capable employees with good paying jobs run themselves into debt because they can't stop using their credit cards. Never could understand why the rest of us taxpayers are paying them not to work. If you get welfare and food stamps, why get off the couch? I bet if it was up to the rest of the family to house/feed that person they would be pushing that person out the door to look for work. Even if it means going to school to learn a new trade.
As for outsourcing of U.S. jobs overseas.... there are just as many insourcing of jobs coming into the U.S. Good news rarely make the headlines.
Kay, darling, if your mother isn't depressed I have no idea why not. Boy! - has she hit a rough patch. You said it. But here's the thing: it's her rough patch, not yours. There is a HUUUUUUGE difference between asking your nearest and dearest to help you, and expecting them to solve everything for you. Your mother, in case I wasn't clear, is erring towards the latter. And you're letting her get away with it.
The advice above is great about where she can find help. The bit I'd like to reiterate is that SHE needs to find help: you don't do it for her. She's far too young to be dependent on you, and you're far too young to have your life taken over by family responsibilities like this, it's just crazy.
I can understand that she would be prickly and defensive when sensitive subjects that equal "hey mother get your act together" come up; but however harsh that sounds it is what she needs to do. One way of getting her to voice the beginnings of a plan is asking her how she'd like things to go from here. What are her hopes? How is she feeling? What kind of help would she like? Listen, don't talk. Stop solving her problems. [And definitely stop giving her money!]
Bottom line: she can't be any happier with the current situation than you and your husband - you poor babes - are. If you really want to help her, help her start getting her finger out. Good luck, let us know how it's going.
I spent 20+ years in human resources for all kinds of companies all over the US. Do most companies want to hire seniors? Probably not. Why? Because a lot of them (not all, but a lot) are slow, stuck-in-their-ways and not willing to do what it takes to succeed in a job. I have recently volunteered with a local agency helping folks who are out of work to hone their resumes and cover letters and practice their interview skills. The demands/requirements that many seniors put on their job search made their ability to find a job impossible. I'm 63 and know that if I'm searching for a job, I need to keep up with technology, I need to be willing to work evenings and/or weekends, and need to start at the bottom and work my way up. A lot of the people I dealt with didn't have that attitude. Will they be successful in finding a job? Probably not. It's sad our economy is where it is, but it's there and you have to adjust your attitude and behaviors to make it work for you.
As someone else said, volunteering is an excellent way to get your foot in the door of an agency and/or to get some good stories about working and helping others. It doesn't sound like the mom in this case is doing anything to help herself, despite her "young" age. So my sympathy is limited to her daughter and husband, who have gone out of their way to help mom out. Let mom do her fair share to help herself.
My significant other retired at 58 after 35 years with one company, and a year later found a new career and has been with the group for 10 years now.
A few years ago, a company where I worked for over 20 years was eliminating jobs. My job was gone. I was out of work for a year and half, and found a new career at 65.
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