Reply to Did you ever feel taken advantage of by your elderly parents

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I wonder if some of what is contributing to the cluelessness/self centeredness of elderly parents is that we have all changed generational/familial structures. Between people living longer and having kids later, we have the sandwich generation.

Neither of my parents had to take care of their parents. For my dad, his dad died when he was young, and his mom died when I was a toddler. It was quick, too. He maybe saw her 1x/year. My mom lost her mom just after she had me, and her dad when I was 12, but again, she saw him 2x/year. He worked and lived independently and then one day had a heart attack and boom.

Now I'm in late middle age with tweens and teens, and we have 3 of 4 parents with us. MIL is 93 and wheelchair bound, partially blind and now getting deaf. Spouse runs errands for her 2-3x/week. Dad has parkinsons and no longer drives. Mom has dementia and heading for memory care soon.  Both DH and I are the only ones to take care of these parents, even though we have siblings. We are flattened.  When my mom was my age, she no longer had either kids or parents to take care of, remarried, and traveled and enjoyed her life. Same with my dad. But we are taking care of two generations, and no extended family.

I sometimes think the transformations in family life in later 20th/21st century has given many people opportunity but also wreaked havoc --there are not many multigenerational communities to help raise babies and take care of old people, and of course nothing is financially supported by gov unless you spiral all the way to medicaid. So we are stretched thin in ways that our elders have never experienced, and that's perhaps why they dont get it and can seem selfish and self centered, like my mom, who complains a lot that I dont take her to fun and interesting things (because we have weekly doctors, I work full time, kds actiities nightly-and sibling calls infrequently and has visited her 1x in 2.5 years but she complains to others about me, how I'm just too busy to care about my mother....[/quote]

Isn’t it ironic, the parents who never bothered with our grandparents (their parents) who now complain that our generation isn’t doing enough? My mom took us to visit my grandfather twice a year even though he just lived an hour away. She expects people to take care of her all the time, nothing is ever enough, and the guilt tripping begins.[/quote]

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