Equitable/reasonable division of care among siblings

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So complicated. Since you sound like the peacemaker, why do you think bare min sibling is not pitching in? Has anyone asked bare min sib to do X? Maybe they need a specific task. Does helper sib think bare min sibling should just “know” what needs to be done?

The unhelpful sibling never offers to do anything even when it’s obvious the other siblings need help.

When asked directly to do something, they typically have an excuse (too busy with kids soccer/birthday parties, taking kids to/from school, work travel, vacations, their own family’s medical appointments, etc.).

The other siblings have the same busy family schedules, but we take turns and enlist the help of our spouses and sometimes teenagers to cover with family stuff so we can handle the caregiving.

The most helpful sibling is convinced the unhelpful one is just selfish. They only see the impact of caregiving on themselves and their own schedule and cannot recognize the sacrifices the rest of us are making to help our parent and each other.

Re: cutting them out - It has more to do with logistics and planning. While we’ve typically done the big family holidays at a sibling’s house, now the helpful one has suggested moving Christmas to their vacation home or a vacation destination. The elderly parent will be there (since the helpful one is the primary caregiver). The other helpful siblings will be invited, but the unhelpful one won’t…unless I can broker peace.

It sounds like the caregiving is too much work for your extended family to handle. Do you/your "helpful" sibling" really expect the other sibling's family to miss out on kids activities, skip their own medical appointments, etc.?

Of course not.

But the unhelpful sibling has a spouse.

There’s no reason for any of us to miss everything. When everyone takes turns, everyone wins.

The point is this one sibling always has an excuse and never helps.

If our parent has weekly pt plus other random appointments, everyone should volunteer to take a turn…or step up and cover something else.

I mean, everyone grocery shops, right? Why can’t they pick up the groceries once in a while? Why can’t they offer to prepare some meals?

The big thing is respite care. Why not offer to cover a week or weekend?

Because they don't want to. And they don't have to.
None of you do.

And the line about how your unhelpful sibling "has a spouse" is just garbage. They are prioritizing their nuclear family and that is their prerogative.

?

All siblings have a spouse and kids. All but one have figured out how to pitch in and help by adjusting their schedule or relying on their spouse to handle the soccer practice while they spend one evening having dinner with their elderly parent (or whatever).

It’s not like anyone has been asked to cover care 24/7 for weeks on end. Our expectations are really low at this point.

Prioritizing the nuclear family? Whatever. All of us have a family. And this sibling is basically driving us away. I think they will regret it when everyone is celebrating family events and holidays, vacationing together, etc. and they aren’t included. Their kids will suffer.

Why don' you offer to drive their kids so they can visit your parent?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So complicated. Since you sound like the peacemaker, why do you think bare min sibling is not pitching in? Has anyone asked bare min sib to do X? Maybe they need a specific task. Does helper sib think bare min sibling should just “know” what needs to be done?

The unhelpful sibling never offers to do anything even when it’s obvious the other siblings need help.

When asked directly to do something, they typically have an excuse (too busy with kids soccer/birthday parties, taking kids to/from school, work travel, vacations, their own family’s medical appointments, etc.).

The other siblings have the same busy family schedules, but we take turns and enlist the help of our spouses and sometimes teenagers to cover with family stuff so we can handle the caregiving.

The most helpful sibling is convinced the unhelpful one is just selfish. They only see the impact of caregiving on themselves and their own schedule and cannot recognize the sacrifices the rest of us are making to help our parent and each other.

Re: cutting them out - It has more to do with logistics and planning. While we’ve typically done the big family holidays at a sibling’s house, now the helpful one has suggested moving Christmas to their vacation home or a vacation destination. The elderly parent will be there (since the helpful one is the primary caregiver). The other helpful siblings will be invited, but the unhelpful one won’t…unless I can broker peace.

It sounds like the caregiving is too much work for your extended family to handle. Do you/your "helpful" sibling" really expect the other sibling's family to miss out on kids activities, skip their own medical appointments, etc.?

Groceries, medications and other goods can be delivered/shipped to the facility. But, if a parent needs that much help they need an aid or nursing home. This poster could help with the kids activities so that they can go visit. Lots of options here.

It also assumes the parents were good to the child and helped the child when they could with their kids... My mom is so warm and kind to my sibling but both are horrible to me. I'm sure they bitterly complain but refuse to listen to why I feel the way I do and change their behavior.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So complicated. Since you sound like the peacemaker, why do you think bare min sibling is not pitching in? Has anyone asked bare min sib to do X? Maybe they need a specific task. Does helper sib think bare min sibling should just “know” what needs to be done?

The unhelpful sibling never offers to do anything even when it’s obvious the other siblings need help.

When asked directly to do something, they typically have an excuse (too busy with kids soccer/birthday parties, taking kids to/from school, work travel, vacations, their own family’s medical appointments, etc.).

The other siblings have the same busy family schedules, but we take turns and enlist the help of our spouses and sometimes teenagers to cover with family stuff so we can handle the caregiving.

The most helpful sibling is convinced the unhelpful one is just selfish. They only see the impact of caregiving on themselves and their own schedule and cannot recognize the sacrifices the rest of us are making to help our parent and each other.

Re: cutting them out - It has more to do with logistics and planning. While we’ve typically done the big family holidays at a sibling’s house, now the helpful one has suggested moving Christmas to their vacation home or a vacation destination. The elderly parent will be there (since the helpful one is the primary caregiver). The other helpful siblings will be invited, but the unhelpful one won’t…unless I can broker peace.

It sounds like the caregiving is too much work for your extended family to handle. Do you/your "helpful" sibling" really expect the other sibling's family to miss out on kids activities, skip their own medical appointments, etc.?

Groceries, medications and other goods can be delivered/shipped to the facility. But, if a parent needs that much help they need an aid or nursing home. This poster could help with the kids activities so that they can go visit. Lots of options here.

It also assumes the parents were good to the child and helped the child when they could with their kids... My mom is so warm and kind to my sibling but both are horrible to me. I'm sure they bitterly complain but refuse to listen to why I feel the way I do and change their behavior.

Wait a sec? Are you really so dense you think the helpful sibling when they finally get a break from having to deal up the parents are expected to drive the deadbeat siblings kids instead of spending time with her own kids? What crazy world do you live in? You have no idea even being in an assisted living place how much help you still have to provide. And who is going to be paying that aide, arranging for the hours etc. A magic fairy? You are so incredibly selfish and clueless.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think the most common thing is that one sibling does 95% and the other does 5%, under duress.

That’s what I have observed.

And 5% sibling thinks they're wildly insightful about what the parent needs and how well he's (if there's a mix of genders, it is almost always a son who slacks) delivering it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, can you talk to the other sibling? They might think the Helpful Sibling is doing too much, taking on too much, stepped in when it wasn't 100% needed. Some siblings want to step in more than others at early stages.

Yes, everyone has talked with the unhelpful sibling—as a group, and individually.

Nobody stepped in too early/when help wasn’t needed.

The most helpful sibling isn’t controlling or doing anything that isn’t necessary.

I guess we are just stumped as to how the unhelpful sibling can justify leaving the work to the rest of us. I’m trying to get them involved and to realize they might be cut out from the family. At some point I won’t be able to fix things for the unhelpful one. I’m sad that the kids/cousins will be impacted by this.

If you don’t want to do the work, then don’t. No one is forcing you to. Threatening to “cut them from the family” just makes you a bunch of bullies.

This is really impossible to do unless you are completely heartless. I am the closest sibling and when I get called by the assisted living our mother called and is in the ER it’s tough to ignore. It’s also tough to ignore when the old person can’t see because they broke their glasses and need to go to the optometrist, they need to update hearing aids, pharmacy calls about medication, when it’s their birthday and they want you to visit,, etc.

One sibling does nothing. He lives an hour plane ride away and has not visited once in 4 years. He doesn’t bring his tween aged kids to visit either. He doesn’t help out in any way. He has the money to fly in the morning rent a car visit his mother and fly home that night. I am so resentful that I no longer wish to have any relationship with him, his wife or kids. It is completely unfair that I got stuck with our mother when I was never close to her. He used to tell her she could live with him. She has Alzheimer’s and now his kids will never know their grandmother. Meanwhile my teens and husband pick up the slack.

So what are you talking about that people like me are bullies? People who let a sibling do all the work are the selfish a-holes.

He lives an hour by plane and has a wife and kids. It is unreasonable to expect him to do all this "drop everything and go" attending to your mother that you CHOOSE to do.
Yes, you are a bully. You are resentful and now you bully your husband and kids into "picking up the slack." This is on you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, can you talk to the other sibling? They might think the Helpful Sibling is doing too much, taking on too much, stepped in when it wasn't 100% needed. Some siblings want to step in more than others at early stages.

Yes, everyone has talked with the unhelpful sibling—as a group, and individually.

Nobody stepped in too early/when help wasn’t needed.

The most helpful sibling isn’t controlling or doing anything that isn’t necessary.

I guess we are just stumped as to how the unhelpful sibling can justify leaving the work to the rest of us. I’m trying to get them involved and to realize they might be cut out from the family. At some point I won’t be able to fix things for the unhelpful one. I’m sad that the kids/cousins will be impacted by this.

If you don’t want to do the work, then don’t. No one is forcing you to. Threatening to “cut them from the family” just makes you a bunch of bullies.

This is really impossible to do unless you are completely heartless. I am the closest sibling and when I get called by the assisted living our mother called and is in the ER it’s tough to ignore. It’s also tough to ignore when the old person can’t see because they broke their glasses and need to go to the optometrist, they need to update hearing aids, pharmacy calls about medication, when it’s their birthday and they want you to visit,, etc.

One sibling does nothing. He lives an hour plane ride away and has not visited once in 4 years. He doesn’t bring his tween aged kids to visit either. He doesn’t help out in any way. He has the money to fly in the morning rent a car visit his mother and fly home that night. I am so resentful that I no longer wish to have any relationship with him, his wife or kids. It is completely unfair that I got stuck with our mother when I was never close to her. He used to tell her she could live with him. She has Alzheimer’s and now his kids will never know their grandmother. Meanwhile my teens and husband pick up the slack.

So what are you talking about that people like me are bullies? People who let a sibling do all the work are the selfish a-holes.

He lives an hour by plane and has a wife and kids. It is unreasonable to expect him to do all this "drop everything and go" attending to your mother that you CHOOSE to do.
Yes, you are a bully. You are resentful and now you bully your husband and kids into "picking up the slack." This is on you.

Interested what you chose to put in bold. The poster isn't asking her brother to drop everything at a moment's notice. She's asking him to find one day in four years when he could visit. He hasn't bothered, despite his big talk years ago. So yeah, he's a glass bowl, and the poster isn't a bully for noticing.

To the original question: the sibling who does everything is under no obligation to the sibling who does nothing, but overcontributing sibling isn't doing all that work for the sibling's benefit -- she's doing it for their parents. So if the parents want idle kid at Christmas, Do Everything needs to include them to some degree, but not in a way that makes more work for her. "We're having Christmas at Rehoboth, but we won't be able to put you up. Hotels and rentals should be pretty cheap, and I know Mom and Dad would love to have us all togethe for the holidays."

[Anonymous]

I’m going to approach this from another angle. OP, you only have so much emotional bandwidth. Is it really worth expending your bandwidth worrying about unhelpful sibling who isn’t thinking about any of this. If unhelpful sibling decides they want to change something when they don’t get invited to Christmas, then they can do so. But honestly, this just seems like such a waste of your headspace.

And I say this as part of a couple that is likely to be the “least helpful.” When my FIL was dealing with going downhill for three years, the brother who lived next door did the most. We live an hour away. My husband mostly just did financial stuff. In my case, my mom dropped dead out of nowhere so no care needed. My father is a pretty terrible human who is remarried so his new wife and her kids will primarily deal with the two of them. Even if she dies first, I doubt my sisters and I will do too much (other than perhaps keeping him from literally being homeless).

In our particular case, the ability to help is diminished by having our own special needs kid. We have been doing intense caregiving for 15 years already. We still get up in the middle of the night, change diapers, bathe, dress, etc. There is no way we can add physical care and logistics for one more person into what we do. If other family members get upset about this, we basically don’t have the bandwidth to care much. And interestingly enough, not one of those family members who could be upset with us have ever volunteered to change a diaper, babysit, etc for our special needs child. And I’m not mad at them. It just is what it is. We all make our own decisions about what we can do.

[Anonymous]

I'm just so grateful that neither my brother nor sister ever held it against me that I wasn't there on a weekly or monthly basis when we had young kids and lived 4+hours away by plane. I tried to come for long stints when possible and I handled all of the paper work and related logistics (e.g., found the memory care program, etc) except for instances when they had to do so (both had the POA but were not great with bureaucracies so I would tee up what needed to be done, then they would do it). I always covered all my brother's meals when I visited and still send gifts, even when it is not a special day for him. For my sister, I had lent her some money at an earlier time, then forgave it to acknowledge all that she was doing to care for our parents.

[Anonymous]

All of you saying "I'm glad I'm not being judged for not doing more when [I have special circumstances not in play in OP's case/I am doing a lot in a way that fills necessary gaps]" -- you can calm down. The shoe doesn't fit. You need not point out that the shoe doesn't fit. No one is accusing you of anything.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:All of you saying "I'm glad I'm not being judged for not doing more when [I have special circumstances not in play in OP's case/I am doing a lot in a way that fills necessary gaps]" -- you can calm down. The shoe doesn't fit. You need not point out that the shoe doesn't fit. No one is accusing you of anything.

+1

The unhelpful sibling doesn’t have SN kids or young children. Just a couple tweens.

[Anonymous]

I am estranged from my large family and my mother is in her late 90’s. Long story short, I was my mother’s whipping boy. I lived my life trying to get her to like me. As she aged I would travel from a significant distance to spend time with her and help her. She turned around and accused me of stealing from her. She has been doing this my entire life, so my siblings naturally believed her. I am the only one of her children with significant medical issues.
I am sure I am judged by most people. My mother has plenty of care from her kids. I will always crave The mother I never had. These are not simple conversations and I would question the sibling who complains. They are privileged.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, can you talk to the other sibling? They might think the Helpful Sibling is doing too much, taking on too much, stepped in when it wasn't 100% needed. Some siblings want to step in more than others at early stages.

Yes, everyone has talked with the unhelpful sibling—as a group, and individually.

Nobody stepped in too early/when help wasn’t needed.

The most helpful sibling isn’t controlling or doing anything that isn’t necessary.

I guess we are just stumped as to how the unhelpful sibling can justify leaving the work to the rest of us. I’m trying to get them involved and to realize they might be cut out from the family. At some point I won’t be able to fix things for the unhelpful one. I’m sad that the kids/cousins will be impacted by this.

If you don’t want to do the work, then don’t. No one is forcing you to. Threatening to “cut them from the family” just makes you a bunch of bullies.

This is really impossible to do unless you are completely heartless. I am the closest sibling and when I get called by the assisted living our mother called and is in the ER it’s tough to ignore. It’s also tough to ignore when the old person can’t see because they broke their glasses and need to go to the optometrist, they need to update hearing aids, pharmacy calls about medication, when it’s their birthday and they want you to visit,, etc.

One sibling does nothing. He lives an hour plane ride away and has not visited once in 4 years. He doesn’t bring his tween aged kids to visit either. He doesn’t help out in any way. He has the money to fly in the morning rent a car visit his mother and fly home that night. I am so resentful that I no longer wish to have any relationship with him, his wife or kids. It is completely unfair that I got stuck with our mother when I was never close to her. He used to tell her she could live with him. She has Alzheimer’s and now his kids will never know their grandmother. Meanwhile my teens and husband pick up the slack.

So what are you talking about that people like me are bullies? People who let a sibling do all the work are the selfish a-holes.

He lives an hour by plane and has a wife and kids. It is unreasonable to expect him to do all this "drop everything and go" attending to your mother that you CHOOSE to do.
Yes, you are a bully. You are resentful and now you bully your husband and kids into "picking up the slack." This is on you.

You are really DENSE. The closest sibling doesn’t get to CHOOSE. You get dumped on. If Deadbeat sibling can go to Europe, Disney, Beach weeks etc. then you can come more than once every four years to visit a parent who wasn’t abusive and was supportive to you. If not then don’t expect to be part of the extended family.

No one is talking about if a sibling has other pressing issues like specials needs child, low income and can’t afford it, parent was abusive, etc. Or even if the sibling who is distant if they are at least trying to do things like handle finances, order things online, or even just be be supportive. This is about deadbeat siblings who completely bow out, never visit, and let others pick up the slack. They are selfish and deserve to be shunned.

[Anonymous]

I think it's unrealistic to expect all siblings to contribute "equally" to elder care. It will never happen. All siblings have their own different relationships with parents, and all siblings are of different age. It's always easier for an older sibling, whose kids are out of the house, to take care of an aging parent than a sibling who has tweens at home. Tween years are very time and money consuming, and nobody should be expected to neglect their own kids on the account of a parent. It's also strange to expect a spouse to take charge of the family life, they may simply refuse, it's not their problem. I think if your elderly parent needs so much help that everybody has to chip in so much that it needs daily contribution from 3-4-5 people, it's time to look for an assisted living facility or a nursing home. It sounds like your parent had no plans for their elder years and this is not something you should take out on a sibling.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So complicated. Since you sound like the peacemaker, why do you think bare min sibling is not pitching in? Has anyone asked bare min sib to do X? Maybe they need a specific task. Does helper sib think bare min sibling should just “know” what needs to be done?

The unhelpful sibling never offers to do anything even when it’s obvious the other siblings need help.

When asked directly to do something, they typically have an excuse (too busy with kids soccer/birthday parties, taking kids to/from school, work travel, vacations, their own family’s medical appointments, etc.).

The other siblings have the same busy family schedules, but we take turns and enlist the help of our spouses and sometimes teenagers to cover with family stuff so we can handle the caregiving.

The most helpful sibling is convinced the unhelpful one is just selfish. They only see the impact of caregiving on themselves and their own schedule and cannot recognize the sacrifices the rest of us are making to help our parent and each other.

Re: cutting them out - It has more to do with logistics and planning. While we’ve typically done the big family holidays at a sibling’s house, now the helpful one has suggested moving Christmas to their vacation home or a vacation destination. The elderly parent will be there (since the helpful one is the primary caregiver). The other helpful siblings will be invited, but the unhelpful one won’t…unless I can broker peace.

It sounds like the caregiving is too much work for your extended family to handle. Do you/your "helpful" sibling" really expect the other sibling's family to miss out on kids activities, skip their own medical appointments, etc.?

Groceries, medications and other goods can be delivered/shipped to the facility. But, if a parent needs that much help they need an aid or nursing home. This poster could help with the kids activities so that they can go visit. Lots of options here.

It also assumes the parents were good to the child and helped the child when they could with their kids... My mom is so warm and kind to my sibling but both are horrible to me. I'm sure they bitterly complain but refuse to listen to why I feel the way I do and change their behavior.

Wait a sec? Are you really so dense you think the helpful sibling when they finally get a break from having to deal up the parents are expected to drive the deadbeat siblings kids instead of spending time with her own kids? What crazy world do you live in? You have no idea even being in an assisted living place how much help you still have to provide. And who is going to be paying that aide, arranging for the hours etc. A magic fairy? You are so incredibly selfish and clueless.

You are selfish. Not everyone can drop everything or wants to caretake. If you helped them, they could go visit. I was a full time caregiver for a year and then handled everything with the nursing home. I know far better than you. Try being a 24-7 caregiver with young kids and no help. If they need that much help, they need to go into a nursing home, not assisted living and assisted living is the wrong placement. You are selfish and clueless to demand others drop everything at your whim when you are choosing the wrong level of care.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, can you talk to the other sibling? They might think the Helpful Sibling is doing too much, taking on too much, stepped in when it wasn't 100% needed. Some siblings want to step in more than others at early stages.

Yes, everyone has talked with the unhelpful sibling—as a group, and individually.

Nobody stepped in too early/when help wasn’t needed.

The most helpful sibling isn’t controlling or doing anything that isn’t necessary.

I guess we are just stumped as to how the unhelpful sibling can justify leaving the work to the rest of us. I’m trying to get them involved and to realize they might be cut out from the family. At some point I won’t be able to fix things for the unhelpful one. I’m sad that the kids/cousins will be impacted by this.

If you don’t want to do the work, then don’t. No one is forcing you to. Threatening to “cut them from the family” just makes you a bunch of bullies.

This is really impossible to do unless you are completely heartless. I am the closest sibling and when I get called by the assisted living our mother called and is in the ER it’s tough to ignore. It’s also tough to ignore when the old person can’t see because they broke their glasses and need to go to the optometrist, they need to update hearing aids, pharmacy calls about medication, when it’s their birthday and they want you to visit,, etc.

One sibling does nothing. He lives an hour plane ride away and has not visited once in 4 years. He doesn’t bring his tween aged kids to visit either. He doesn’t help out in any way. He has the money to fly in the morning rent a car visit his mother and fly home that night. I am so resentful that I no longer wish to have any relationship with him, his wife or kids. It is completely unfair that I got stuck with our mother when I was never close to her. He used to tell her she could live with him. She has Alzheimer’s and now his kids will never know their grandmother. Meanwhile my teens and husband pick up the slack.

So what are you talking about that people like me are bullies? People who let a sibling do all the work are the selfish a-holes.

He lives an hour by plane and has a wife and kids. It is unreasonable to expect him to do all this "drop everything and go" attending to your mother that you CHOOSE to do.
Yes, you are a bully. You are resentful and now you bully your husband and kids into "picking up the slack." This is on you.

You are really DENSE. The closest sibling doesn’t get to CHOOSE. You get dumped on. If Deadbeat sibling can go to Europe, Disney, Beach weeks etc. then you can come more than once every four years to visit a parent who wasn’t abusive and was supportive to you. If not then don’t expect to be part of the extended family.

No one is talking about if a sibling has other pressing issues like specials needs child, low income and can’t afford it, parent was abusive, etc. Or even if the sibling who is distant if they are at least trying to do things like handle finances, order things online, or even just be be supportive. This is about deadbeat siblings who completely bow out, never visit, and let others pick up the slack. They are selfish and deserve to be shunned.

Most parents treat each kid differently so they could have nice and kind to you and abusive to him. My parents were like that.