Caring For Aging Parents Support Group
Caring for aging parents can be a difficul time as we become the caretakers for our parents. This broad responsibility can encompass such services as assisted living, adult day care, long term care, nursing homes, hospice care, and in-home care. Whether you have just started caring for your parents or just need a place to talk, we're here.
Hi, everyone. I've just joined, and I'm hoping I can get some guidance for how to cope with my situation. For the past 14 years, my very elderly parents (they're in their early 90s) have lived with my husband and me in a 900 square foot house which my husband and I (and the bank) own. My husband and I live in the basement, since my parents can't manage the stairs. Living conditions are not ideal; we're all very cramped and none of us has much money. My husband has recently been very ill, and hasn't been able to work for some months, so we're living on my salary as a secretary, and my parents live on their old age pensions. I have no siblings and no children, and my husband and I are in our 60s. My husband is heavenly good to my parents, does errands for them (my father recently had to give up his driver's license), buys a lot of their groceries, and generally helps and supports them at least as much as I do. Every day when I come home, I spend at least an hour visiting them and chatting with them. The thing is, they're constantly demanding something from one or the other of us. Today, my mother is extremely upset because she says she asked my husband to buy her a loaf of bread on the way home; he doesn't think she did, but it's a he-said-she-said, so I just gave her our bread, which of course is not what she wanted, so she's still upset anyway. Since his illness, my husband has been stressed and exhausted a lot of the time, and we're both kind-of worried about money. My parents don't seem to understand that we're not their servants. Even when they're not expecting something from us, I dread coming home anymore because one or the other of them is always in a temper about something. We haven't used our backyard in fourteen years because they always have a better idea about anything we want to do. We can't entertain, because there's barely room in our suite for us, never mind guests. I love them very much, but honestly, I'm at my wits' end as to how to make them see that they are using us up. We have no savings, and since we don't have kids, there isn't going to be anyone in our old age to provide any safety net for us, and our netmaking materials have all been used up on my parents. I want to support them and to provide a safe, caring environment for them, but they're poisoning the atmosphere here, and I just don't know what's going to happen. I've tried to encourage them to develop more social contacts, but they refuse every suggestion. They flat-out refuse to give their doctors permission to talk with me.
If anyone has any insights as to how to help them understand they have to be a little more flexible, I would appreciate hearing from you. I don't think I can cope with too many more of their unmet expectations.
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I invited Bill to have dinner with me last Sunday. He wasn't willing to drive 7 hours to mid Michigan and teased me with his beautiful ribs!!! So, of course I ate alone and had cedar salmon
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check out that smoke ring. It tasted really good. I smothered it with Maulls BBQ sauce which is Local to St. Louis and one of the best I ever had.....
In a perfect world, you could sit down with your parents and discuss things and they would work it out with you. But it sounds like that is not your world, so you will need to impose limits and consequences on them. This must be done on your terms.
One thing I have learned in my life is that when setting limits it can be more successful if you come up with simple wording to use when you impose the limits and the consequences. Using the shopping list as an example you could ...
Tell your parents that they need to write things down on a list that is somewhere easy for all to find, and that things will be purchased the next time your husband (or you) goes to the store. If they complain about this a simple statement can be used. Something like "If it is not on the list then it will not be purchased." Say it calmly and without negative body language or intonation. Do not vary the words you use.
The consequences are fairly obvious, if it is not on the list it will not be purchased. If you do not agree to it it will not be purchased. (For example, if they want an expensive bottle of wine, not going to happen.)
Getting on their doctor lists as having access to the doctors can be tricky. If they have last wishes you can use the angle that "if we do not know what you want, we do not know what to fight for, and if we are not on the doctors list we can't fight at all"
Sorry to go on and on, hope some of this helps
PepperMan, that's a very good idea about the list, and I'm going to say that tomorrow when we go upstairs. I think -- and tell me if you think this is unreasonable -- that I'm also going to say we'll get groceries twice a week, on the weekend and mid-week. And they're going to have to plan a little bit better than they have, because we've been stopping every day for one little thing or another.
I'm not sure about that approach to the doctors' access, but I'll give it a try -- they're just very paranoid about their privacy, and while I do respect that, I also worry that they're not taking as good care of themselves as they should be. But I've tried that angle in the past, and they're adamant that it's their business, not mine.
Thank you, so much, for listening and trying to help. I can't really vent to my husband; he's got enough on his plate, trying to get well in this negative environment. So it really, really helps to be able to express some of this frustration in a non-judgmental forum.
I was caregiving for my parents who moved in with me 13 years ago when dad had a major heart attack at 80 and could no longer care for himself. For the first 6 years they needed minimal care and all I did was shop for them and do the heavy housework. Slowly dad's health deteriorated, but he never told me - that he was struggling to see (he ended up being blind for the last 4 years of his life due to cataracts and being too frail for eye surgery). I shouted at him for leaving things around at the house not knowing this. He was struggling to chew his food and swallow - I didn't know he had aspiration problems - I shouted at him for being picky about his food and not finishing it. He had been assaulted at the nursing home during a short stay while mom was in hospital and his shoulder had hurt since then - I shouted at him for not walking straight on his walker. 3 months before he passed away, I accused him of being lazy and not walking out his bedroom for his meals.
Now he's gone - and I feel so guilty because I didn't know - that he was so ill, and so stoic and so brave and I thought he was being difficult and nasty. I cry and ask for his forgiveness and God's forgiveness for my terrible treatment - I don't deserve his love, I don't deserve a good life because I was so cruel even unintentionally.
I'm caregiving for mom now, and she is demanding because she is frail, she is picky about her food because her dentures don't work properly, she needs the crust cut off her bread because she has problems swallowing. She coughs lot and wakes me up because she had fluid in her lungs. And I get stressed with all the tissues on her sofa, and I get stressed because she asks for water all day. But I know it's her desperate cries for survival that make her do this, not selfishness, not to annoy me.
I learned such a hard lesson with dad, and am trying hard now to not repeat the same mistakes. I know you're trying your best - I'm just sharing here because I really really miss my dad and I will really really miss my mom when she goes home to heaven ... and maybe your parents' bad behavior is not intentional - fear of illness and death, inability to do simple things, and a little dementia can make someone seem totally irrational and utterly obnoxious and selfish - I'm sure they love you a lot ... and are grateful in their hearts for every help they get from you and your husband ....
I think that 2 trips to the store a week is adequate! You can tell them that you will make an exception for emergencies, but it is not an emergency if they forgot to tell you that they were almost out of bread.
Waiting until the next scheduled shopping trip for bread (or what ever) is a good natural consequence of not planning ahead!
Sometimes it is necessary to use the slow but sure method of changing our parents. You may not get them to include you on their medical charts based on one conversation with them. So planting the seed in a couple of conversations, and then waiting for the right moment to reinforce the idea may be the most productive way to go.
It is hard, no getting around that fact.
@lifeiscruel I am so sorry that your dad hid all those things from you. There is one thing to remember, much of that could have been avoided if your father had been open with you about what was going on with his health.
@elle16 you might be able to use that story with your parents, but tone it down a lot. Tell your parents that you have a friend who's father hid his health issues from her, and as a result she was not able to help them the way that they needed. They will likely tell you that they will tell you what you need to know, so you can counter with things like "The day will come when you can't tell me what I need to know."
Gentle hugs for all of us!
Lifeissocruel, I'm very sorry to hear about your experience with your father. I do realize how that must feel -- when my father in law passed away a few years ago, my sis in law was devastated because the last words she spoke to him were angry and hurtful. I am always aware (and particularly now, since my husband's recent brush with death) that we can never know what may be our last words to our loved ones, and I try always to part from anyone I care for with "I love you" on my lips. And though it sometimes feels completely futile, I do try to effect change respectfully and using logic. Although I have to confess, I sometimes feel like I'm in that scene in Apocalypse Now, where the insane colonel is explaining that if you're fighting using Marquis of Queensbury rules and the guy you're fighting has no rules, you're gonna lose.
PepperMan, your gentle hugs are much appreciated, and I agree -- hugs all around.
I just wanted to add imagine how hard it must be when you get to that age and you have to rely on others for things. My parents and the elderly of that age are so proud. When my dad gets dismissive of my ideas around the house i know its because he cant do the things he used to and its just frustration. Your parents are probably the same, thats why they dont rate your back yard ideas, and when your mum gets upset because her bread wasnt bought, its just frustration because its not like she can simply pop to the shops like she used to.
I'm so independent i know when the time comes and i have to rely on others i'm going to hate it, lol, i just hope i remember to be nice about it.