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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My practical advice is to start small. If she’s not use to help, get her a weekly cleaning service. That may turn into more frequent helpers-with shopping, cooking, help around the house. But since healthy people have cleaners too, it can be a start.

Then, when you can visit, start touring assisted living options, just to see them. Also start working on organizing important documents or cleaning one room of the house. Each trip have one specific goal. Anything you can do to prepare will help later. [/quote]

Ugh. That’s the thing. Even the two items you mention involve trips across the country. This poor woman is going to spend $1000 to get on 1-2 flights to clean a room for a weekend and probably get scolded. And then repeat it how many times and how often? Every month for a year?

The last thing I want to do after working all week is to go straight to the airport, fly across the country, get in a rental car
at midnight and clean/get yelled at for a weekend and then go straight back to work on Monday.[/quote]

I agree with this - I know I have a moral obligation to help my aging parents, but when my mom refuses to take any advice, makes bad choices, fails to face reality, then things go badly and she expects me to swoop in and clean it up?  And then calls me a bulldozer for trying to help her solve obvious problems?  And implies I don't respect her?  This is like beating my head against a wall and reliving what it has been like to be her daughter.  Seems like a tall order.

As for moving away from your parents, isn't that what we want to encourage our children to do?  Move away (if they want) and follow their own path/dreams?  As the parent of adult children, I believe it is on me to move near my kids as I age if I expect to have their help.  I have offered to move my parents close to me, and they have said no - literally calling me selfish for suggesting it.

So where do I go from here?  I'm going to detach a little and wait for a crisis.  Then I will solve it like the bulldozer I apparently am.[/quote]

This is me, almost verbatim. Except the word I get is bossy. Fine, stay in your house with the steep stairs in a rural location. Enjoy[/quote]

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