Let's be the stress of caring for your elderly Boomer parents!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m the grateful my parents and in-laws were always there for me and family and I look forward to helping them as needed.

It’s sweet that you think it will be something to look forward to. Come back in a few years to commiserate and we won’t judge.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m the grateful my parents and in-laws were always there for me and family and I look forward to helping them as needed.

It's a privilege to help my dad, and I'm very fortunate that he is doing as well as he is at 93. That being said, since my mom died last year, his ability to live independently requires quite a bit of support from my brother and me. The little things can be frustrating, and it helps that all three of us have a sense of humor about it.

[Anonymous]

Oldest Boomers are 80. Most of what you describe is older than that. Not Boomers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Oldest Boomers are 80. Most of what you describe is older than that. Not Boomers.

Right. My mom turns 80 soon. She's a boomer. So glad to have her, and she needs to use hearing aids lol

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm not caring for either of my parents - both 81. They were horrible to me.
DH's mom, OTOH, was wonderful and although doesn't want help, we'd sure give it.

The danger of seniors rejecting help is that they create a huge mess and then of course help is long overdue. My least favorite type

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I truly hope you all reflect on what a-holes you are being when you are elderly. And no, I am not elderly.

LOL. My 80-year-old father frittered his life savings away on three divorces, several Porsches, and a 33-foot boat. As he sees it, he was eternally "screwed over" by business partners resulting in "failed deals" well into his 70s. Now, with no money to his name besides Social Security, he wants his children, one of whom he singled out as the reason for causing his first divorce, to support him as he lives hundreds of miles away from the family (all of whom live in the Baltimore-Washington corridor). I think he's the a-hole. My kids will NEVER have to deal with a parent like this.

[Anonymous]

My dad is pretty docile and relatively independent (can make food and go to the grocery store and walk a few miles) but is so cognitively declined that there’s very little chance of interesting conversation. It’s a petty complaint I know. He seems intelligent and charming to those who meet him but after a couple years of caring for him after my mother died it’s clear that he is extremely limited intellectually. He also isn’t emotionally self aware, or self aware in any sense really.
He loves to keep appearances of being an intellectual though. This combination is extremely annoying though I try my best to be understanding and tolerant.
I try to avoid long conversations with him and only talk about practical things, or I get angry about him pulling the wool over the family’s eyes that he is an intellectual. Extremely self unaware, childish, somewhat selfish, helpless in the real world is what he is. I guess I need therapy but the awakening is pretty rude.
He seemed ok in his 60s but again we didn’t hang out much and didn’t talk about deep stuff so who knows

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m the grateful my parents and in-laws were always there for me and family and I look forward to helping them as needed.

It's a privilege to help my dad, and I'm very fortunate that he is doing as well as he is at 93. That being said, since my mom died last year, his ability to live independently requires quite a bit of support from my brother and me. The little things can be frustrating, and it helps that all three of us have a sense of humor about it.

Your attitude is much better than mine and I commend you for it!
As someone who has to care for my father after my mother died it’s unsettling how helpless he is. He wasn’t doted on, just always told what to do. He now needs me to tell him to do stuff as elementary as turning on the AC or clipping his nails (physically capable of both and he doesn’t have dementia).
It’s the combination of everyday helplessness and pretense that he is full of wisdom and knowledge that is annoying!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm your inheritance being eaten up by greedy nursing homes that fleece seniors.

I'm the inheritance that went to your sibling because they made sure mom changed the will to leave them everything after they moved in with her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m the grateful my parents and in-laws were always there for me and family and I look forward to helping them as needed.

It’s sweet that you think it will be something to look forward to. Come back in a few years to commiserate and we won’t judge.

Ha! So true.
I am someone who was initially enthusiastic about helping the non stubborn parent (the stubborn one was beyond the pale). A few years later it’s such a drag.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ugh my boomer mom completely refuses to plan for her current situation. She bought a huge house 45 minutes from a mid-tier city that’s 2 flights away from anywhere and it’s high in the mountains with a nightmare driveway. She has already missed doctor’s appointments because the roads between her and actual civilization were too dangerous to drive and delivery companies/uber refuse to come down the driveway, but she insists that it’s an excellent place to age-in-place because it’s ranch style! All one level!

She moved there 7 years ago with my now-dead stepdad. He was a nice man and a good husband but he has now been dead longer than they knew each other and she refuses to consider moving anywhere because “this is the house they chose together.”

When asked about the reality that she will need more help, she says her church will do it, which is probably true for a short-term, low-maintenance thing. But when we point out that she will eventually need either live-in help (in her precious home? Never!) or to move to a facility (worst case scenario. Absolutely never!) or to live close enough to one of us that we can come be her daily help (why don’t you move here? If you won’t move me into your own home then what help can you provide anyway?) she stonewalls a bit then starts crying and says she’d rather just slit her wrists than live like that.

I am so worried that she will have a bad fall or illness requiring major surgery and end up in a hospital who will only release her to a nursing home and she will be stuck in her worst case scenario anyway.

I am begging her to buy a vacation condo or house near me (she has plenty of money) that she could airbnb sometimes and come stay in a month or two a year. Then she could start to build community here and if she needs additional help it would be easier to convince her to move here more permanently but the only thing she really wants is to live with my brother except she hates his wife and they live overseas and she is afraid of brown people.

So she wants what’s impossible, right?
Ask her to come live with you (without following through on it of course) and see if she finds an excuse not to.

I think some people are so stubborn that they actually prefer to go in a terrible fashion but not give up their lifestyle. In case of my mother it was mental illness (hoarding), some people are just stubborn and not ill except probably cognitive decline.
I’ve left my mother to her own devices after she declared my brother the enemy of the people when he tried to help her in a pretty dire situation and dared to misplace some of her precious hoard.

I suggest you stop worrying about your mother, who isn’t thinking of you or trying to make your life easier. She clearly knows what she wants and what she doesn’t want. Let her have it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am the expensive private aids who fall
asleep for $30 an hour, and I am also their supervisor who doesn’t reply to phone calls or texts about the situation. (I love this thread, will be back tmrw with more!)

Did anything happen while they were sleeping?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm "only wants to talk about science 24/7 with anyone within earshot" because I am a bored and literally demented PhD. Though I am Pre-Boomer.

Ha! That’s my father except not demented and not PhD but probably on the spectrum. Can’t change a lightbulb (claimed that he did and I believed him and threw away the lamp I thought was the issue; turns out he didn’t change the bulb after all) but will pretend he is an expert on the Russian revolution. It’s literally 90% of what he talks about, plus Marxism. Any piece of news is interpreted from the POV of Marxism and Bolshevism and such. It is extremely strange, especially coupled with helplessness in daily tasks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm your inheritance being eaten up by greedy nursing homes that fleece seniors.

I'm the inheritance that went to your sibling because they made sure mom changed the will to leave them everything after they moved in with her.

Sorry that happened.
Never take the eyes off someone who moves in with an elderly person of means. Very common occurrence

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m the hoarded mess in the unfinished basement of my IL’s house of 45 years. MIL with dementia is allowed full unfettered access to the basement and picks her way up and down these stairs several times a day to “look around.” I’m the scolding, controlling DIL who recommended door locks, alarms and suggesting professional care be brought in … over a year ago.

I mean… maybe it’s all meant to be. I had to let go of so much common sense when dealing with my own parents.
Save your nerves