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[quote=Anonymous]Yeah, we’ve all been there. In my experience two older people together are much more resistant to having in-home care than one alone.
Home health aids can be hired from agencies. There is a four hour minimum. It’s not a big deal to get somebody in.
But my parents never accepted such help. All the stuff around the house, laundry, vacuuming in large part had become their life. That’s what they spend their time doing, just kind of puttering around. So they didn’t want somebody else to do it! They were happy making their own meals, or barely wanted to eat anything. They didn’t have much laundry, and did it in tiny little loads.
It is extraordinarily frustrating to look at someone else’s life and see how changes could make it better, but maybe they may feel the same way looking at our lives.
My parents puttered around alone until there was a health crisis that rendered one basically unable to walk and the other could not care for them (Social worker would not let them just go home together because it was unsafe.) and so at that point they had to accept care in the home unless they were going to go to a facility, which they liked even less. Until that point, they excepted zero help, despite my entreaties. And honestly, it got really bad, they persisted in living alone even though they could no longer manage their medications, etc. etc. There was *nothing* I could do about it.
If your mother is a caregiver your best bet might be posing this as a way for *her* to get some time to herself, to go get her hair done, all that stuff while someone is at home with her husband. And you could say since the person has to be there, they might as well do some laundry or something…Pitch it to her as a way to help her husband. And then separately, pitch it to her husband as a way to help her… “She’s wearing herself out doing laundry” or whatever.
That’s what I tried but honestly I had no luck with it.[/quote]

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