Reply to How do people do this: caregiving, kids, jobs, etc

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]"Listen - you are not senile. You are a fully capable, grown ass adult. I have my own family and a job I need to take care of. Your job, right now, it to manage your own happiness and your own entertainment. You have money that you earned in your life, at your disposal. It is now there to help you manage your own care needs, and your needs for entertainment and social life. I can help you connect with people, or research things, but it has to be YOUR job to actually reach out and make connections with people and find things that are enjoyable. It can't be me all the time. Again, you are a fully capable, cogent adult. I expect that you can and will manage your own social life."[/quote]

Woah, I hope you're not in my family.  At the end of life, family matters.  To so blithely say use money as a replacement strikes me as insanely cold.  I'd wager your politics are on the left, too.

As for OP, adults have responsibilities to children and parents.  In the modern world, those are hard, maybe impossible, to balance.  An adult's first priority, however, is almost always to the children.  If the older relative did not invest in his/her own family and children, it's quite selfish to expect you to sacrifice the well-being of your children now.  I agree with the budgeting time comments, except you should start by calculating what your husband and children need before determining how much energy you can put into this relative.

It's also worth noting that your own children will be watching and learning the golden rule.  Whatever you decide, I encourage you to talk to them about your decision-making process so they can see you care about so many things.

Good luck.  [/quote]

It is so obvious you are not in the trenches dealing with an elderly difficult relative. I really hate when people bring up -your children are watching so sacrifice your life to the elderly person. No way. I tell my kids I would rather die than subject them to the burden of dealing with me if I get dementia. That kind is used to guilt daughters into sacrificing their lives. No one expects sons to sacrifice. [/quote]

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