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The world I know, generations stick together. Kids grow with parents and learn how their parents take care of their parents. They learn to take care of their parents. And so it is done, the right way.
This country was the right way. Then, it was brainwashed into believing, that parents have to be "see above". So that children can "be free and enjoy life". Which added a helluva more business to those who run retirement places. Added nothing to family values and generations continuity. Btw, everywhere else in the world, elders are respected. USA is about the only country I know of, where there is virtually no respect to elders embedded into population. And so you have what you have. Rip what you sawed.
It always kills me when people try to equate having the opportunity to choose one's own path and one's own goals in life with the opportunity to "be free and enjoy life." Whether caregiving or not, nobody is free to do nothing but enjoy life, at least no middle aged person. We are all struggling to pay bills, take care of our own families, stay as healthy as possible, provide for our own old age, and make the most of our limited time on this planet. Life is a struggle for everyone. The need to drop everything else and care for elderly parents means that you must now abandon your own struggle and devote all your time and energy towards someone else's well-being and material comforts, someone with whom you may not even have a meaningful relationship. I'm not looking to be free and enjoy life. I just want a struggle that feels meaningful to me. Taking care of a demanding, self-centered elderly person (who happens to be my mother) sure isn't it.
I discussed this with a number of people with different views it seems majority believes that you should not expect your children to contribute or take care of you when they grow up.
In the South, many kids worked in farms to help the family get and the kids eventually take over their parents businesses for generations. But in the city it seems most kids don't seem to help out or expected to help out. The parents raise their kids, send them to good schools and hope they get a good paying job and then the retire with their own nest egg.
In other parts of the world, the children learn the parents' professions and take over their business or jobs and they in turn keep the parents in the same roof as opposed to sending them away to adultcare.
What do you expect from your kids?
From the title of this post as well as its contents, this clearly is less a question about values and more about economics.
Whether or not children take over their parents' businesses or learn their parents' professions more often than not will depend on how economically advantageous it is to do so. Same goes for the decision to have your parents move in with you and care for them as opposed to sending them off to the old folks' home (or going halfway by having them live with you but sending them off to adult day care or hiring a caregiver during the day).
I come from a culture that is well-known for taking care of our elderly, respecting elders, etc. And yet, people in my ethnic community these days (at least in the U.S.) are turning to adult day health care. Why? Because today, at least in my area, it takes at least two people working to make ends meet. In the past, women were not expected nor were they allowed to work outside the home. For better or for worse, the women were tasked with caring for the elderly.
But this is rarer today. Women are needed equally to bring home the bacon to pay the mortgage. Both parents (and sometimes aunts and uncles) often work long hours, whether blue or white collar. Grandparents are needed to provide free child care, cook meals, and clean if they are still able-bodied. And when they are not, quite often, they are sent to adult day health care (a booming business locally). Such outcomes are less about one's expectations as a parent and more about one's prediction of economics.
Interesting that in fact this is all not just economic but hugely cultural. There are in fact some populations in the US were the women always worked outside of the home until recently and where elder care was done on rotation between family, neighbors and faith group members.
Again, day homes or SNF are a relatively new phenomenon and they haven't always been available to all populations or the working poor.
It always kills me when people try to equate having the opportunity to choose one's own path and one's own goals in life with the opportunity to "be free and enjoy life." Whether caregiving or not, nobody is free to do nothing but enjoy life, at least no middle aged person. We are all struggling to pay bills, take care of our own families, stay as healthy as possible, provide for our own old age, and make the most of our limited time on this planet. Life is a struggle for everyone. The need to drop everything else and care for elderly parents means that you must now abandon your own struggle and devote all your time and energy towards someone else's well-being and material comforts, someone with whom you may not even have a meaningful relationship. I'm not looking to be free and enjoy life. I just want a struggle that feels meaningful to me. Taking care of a demanding, self-centered elderly person (who happens to be my mother) sure isn't it.
This demanding, self-centered elderly person didn't become that way overnight. Working in a LTC/Rehab facility, I secretly laugh at these people who say: I didn't used to be this way! And once certain individuals, who have never really been catered to before, gets a taste of it, believe me! Look for further testing of that!
I get tested everyday in this facility! Any number of things, they can well do for themselves, but with a call light, and a gullible Nurse's Aide, they'll try to get away with it!
I once took care of a woman who had a colostomy bag. Daughter had been taking care of her for 2 years, until her operation, and obviously this daughter was one mean, cruel caregiver: she never forced her to do things for herself! I told her: Some day you're going to have to empty your own colostomy bag or change it or spread lotion on your legs! Oh, the look on her face!!! Selfishly, she said: My daughter is going to do all that for me!
Well, well, well, the daughter had been secretly telling certain Aides: I can't do it anymore! I don't know how to tell her!
I'm sure many caregiving family members have been tricked/manipulated into believing they can only do so much for themselves, and some are such superb actors, you may never know what they're capable of doing for themselves.
I don't have children, but I'm too blasted proud and stubborn to ask for help, not even from a nurse's aide in a nursing home. There's many of these blessed souls where I work at, and it may be once every 3-6 months they may put the call light on!
And others: Call light is on every time you look down the hall!
This demanding, self-centered elderly person didn't become that way overnight. Working in a LTC/Rehab facility, I secretly laugh at these people who say: I didn't used to be this way! And once certain individuals, who have never really been catered to before, gets a taste of it, believe me! Look for further testing of that!
You hit the nail on the head, as far as my mother is concerned. She used to be the most independent, self-sufficient person in her younger years, traveling around the country by herself in her retirement. Now she won't lift a finger unless she absolutely has to.
Case in point: The other day a letter came in from her homeowner's insurance co., which requested her to respond with a phone call. She shows it to me and says "Will you or "sister" do that?" I said "Here's a novel thought Ma - it's your insurance policy, maybe you should make the call!" She said "I like to have you do those things for me." I told her "Everyone would like to have someone else do all the mundane tasks of everyday life for them, but the world doesn't work that way." She said with a sly grin "When you get to be my age, it does!"
You hit the nail on the head, as far as my mother is concerned. She used to be the most independent, self-sufficient person in her younger years, traveling around the country by herself in her retirement. Now she won't lift a finger unless she absolutely has to.
Case in point: The other day a letter came in from her homeowner's insurance co., which requested her to respond with a phone call. She shows it to me and says "Will you or "sister" do that?" I said "Here's a novel thought Ma - it's your insurance policy, maybe you should make the call!" She said "I like to have you do those things for me." I told her "Everyone would like to have someone else do all the mundane tasks of everyday life for them, but the world doesn't work that way." She said with a sly grin "When you get to be my age, it does!"
I think it's perfectly normal for an older person to be afraid or nervous to deal with homeowners insurance companies.
And in your case you've posted before that your mother is NOT capable of doing MANY things now.
ie:
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The thing is, even with the help of one sibling, my mother's needs have escalated in three years' time to a point where I'm still doing a lot more than I was before we moved here. My helpful sister, for example, handles most of my mother's finances, makes her medical appointments and deals with insurance, etc., but my mother didn't even need help with those things three years ago. I am doing all the cooking and all the cleaning, which are also things my mother could manage herself until the last year or so. Two years ago she could change her own bed and do her own laundry, but not now.
So if she's not capable of doing her bed, laundry, cooking, med appts, financial stuff....WHY would she be capable of NEGOTIATING things with HOMEOWNERS and not screwing something up? So which is it?
The LAST thing I'd be making her do it risking her HOMEOWNERS insurance!
Last edited by runswithscissors; 01-30-2014 at 07:07 AM..
This demanding, self-centered elderly person didn't become that way overnight. Working in a LTC/Rehab facility, I secretly laugh at these people who say: I didn't used to be this way! And once certain individuals, who have never really been catered to before, gets a taste of it, believe me! Look for further testing of that!
I get tested everyday in this facility! Any number of things, they can well do for themselves, but with a call light, and a gullible Nurse's Aide, they'll try to get away with it!
I once took care of a woman who had a colostomy bag. Daughter had been taking care of her for 2 years, until her operation, and obviously this daughter was one mean, cruel caregiver: she never forced her to do things for herself! I told her: Some day you're going to have to empty your own colostomy bag or change it or spread lotion on your legs! Oh, the look on her face!!! Selfishly, she said: My daughter is going to do all that for me!
Well, well, well, the daughter had been secretly telling certain Aides: I can't do it anymore! I don't know how to tell her!
I'm sure many caregiving family members have been tricked/manipulated into believing they can only do so much for themselves, and some are such superb actors, you may never know what they're capable of doing for themselves.
I don't have children, but I'm too blasted proud and stubborn to ask for help, not even from a nurse's aide in a nursing home. There's many of these blessed souls where I work at, and it may be once every 3-6 months they may put the call light on!
And others: Call light is on every time you look down the hall!
That's a very sad cynical point of view of TRUTH.
They DIDN'T used to be that way. None of them.
WHY would you be THREATENING, baiting, and mocking your CLIENTS like that???
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Some day you're going to have to empty your own colostomy bag or change it or spread lotion on your legs! Oh, the look on her face!!! Selfishly, she said: My daughter is going to do all that for me!
And statistically, YOUR time will come like everyone else, where you'll be needing help and saying the same things dependent on the PATIENCE, KINDNESS, and WORK ETHIC of strangers.
NOBODY in my client's ALF would DARE treat a resident that way. She's PAYING for YOU to help her. And YES even the LOTION. Doesn't it occur to you that even THAT Is sometimes difficult or they don't even think of it.
I'm ASTOUNDED that you would even question an older woman with a frigging COLOSTOMY bag asking for help applying lotion to her legs.
No as I don't have children. But I know that my parents don't expect to take care of them. They only expect me to take care of stuff after they have passed.
I think it's perfectly normal for an older person to be afraid or nervous to deal with homeowners insurance companies.
And in your case you've posted before that your mother is NOT capable of doing MANY things now.
So if she's not capable of doing her bed, laundry, cooking, med appts, financial stuff....WHY would she be capable of NEGOTIATING things with HOMEOWNERS and not screwing something up? So which is it?
The LAST thing I'd be making her do it risking her HOMEOWNERS insurance!
They just wanted to confirm some information; there was no negotiation involved and no risk of losing her homeowners' insurance. She sits in a chair by the phone all day, and making phone calls is one of the few things she's capable of. She wasn't nervous or intimidated; she just saw it as something she could hand off to someone else and not be bothered with.
Regardless, there is truth in what tijlover said and it describes my mother to a T. Some people try to do as much for themselves as possible, while others see their old age as a free ride and think everything should be done for them, whether they're capable of doing it or not. I'm not the first person to point this out about my mother or confront her about it. She feels entitled to have all responsibilities taken over by someone else so she can do nothing all day. Sometimes it is hard to tell whether she could actually do the particular task and chooses not to, but the one thing that is abundantly clear is that won't make the slightest effort if she thinks she can avoid it.
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economics
And once certain individuals, who have never really been catered to before, gets a taste of it, believe me! Look for further testing of that!
Selfishly, she said: My daughter is going to do all that for me!
