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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My 70 yo mom is very active and still works full time in a demanding field.
She doesn't drive and takes public transit to work and grocery shop.
However, she is very dependent on others to get HH repairs done, as well as attend social events. I'm her only child and it's becoming increasingly difficult to navigate because I live 45 minutes away, have two small children with active schedules, and both DH and I have demanding careers.
However, my mom is not handy at all and [b]has had handymen take advantage of her for very basic tasks ie $60 to unjam the garbage disposal[/b] because I wasn't able to get to her until the next weekend and couldn't talk her through inserting the little screw to unjam it. Similarly, she's been without tv/internet for 2 weeks because she couldn't figure out how to reset the router and it took Verizon forever to come out.

Similarly, since I started driving at 16 I was her personal chauffeur. I drove and accompanied her to all social events and was usually the youngest one there. When I went away to college she started getting rides from her friends. And when I came back, it became a mix with me accompanying her places 85% of the time. It was definitely an area of contention in my 20s when I debated with her about socializing with my peers vs taking her to a mature adult function. It seems as though many of her friends (who also all live at least 20+ minutes away) are tired of giving her rides and have begun either saying no or meeting her at the nearest metro station when feasible.

Now the challenge is managing her schedule with my own and my kids and feeling guilty when I can't travel to her house to help with an errand or accompany her to one of her friends' social events. 
I've been begging her to move closer to me for 10 years. Moving closer to her is not an option for at least 5 years because of DH's job.
 
Is anyone else in a similar boat and/or have creative advice?[/quote]

This really isn't "taking advantage."  It cost the handyman time and gas to go out to her house.   $60 is actually very reasonable.  Do you expect strangers to do these things for free?[/quote]

No. That's a good point. It's just hard to swallow that she has to pay to get things done that are routine. But I realize that her threshold is different. [/quote]

I have many friends who pay people to do routine things that they could easily do themselves like mow the lawn or clean their houses.[/quote]

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