You need to have a CTJ talk with both parents and siblings. Put down your boundaries. You are moving out. You work and have a family as well. You will be availabe X hours/week only.

If siblings are not willing to take on any burdens, then here are the two choices:

1) You hire paid caregivers
2) you sell parents home and they go to assisted living.

In the meantime, you should pay yourself from your parents money for your caregiving. Even if they get paid caregivers and/or go to AL, you will still be doing all the doctor's appointments, etc. It is not fair for siblings to inherit equally while you do all the work.

signed--sole caregiver who moved parent from west coast to east coast because nearby sibling refused to do anything. Mom is in AL now, with dementia. I still spend 4-8 hours/week on care, visits, etc (and work f/t and have kids and pets; sibling is single with no kids but just not willing/able).

Is assisted living a possibility? You need to decide to move out of your parents’ home, and then everybody has to find a solution. You have to stand firm that the solution is not you doing the lion’s share of the work. How would it be handled if you also lived far away?

OP, I'm the 18:12 poster.

Just walk away. Take a 4 week vacation. Tell your siblings you are on vacation.

OP, When one of your parents ends up in the hospital you need to make sure that parent is routed to a nursing home or assisted living directly upon release.
Be really firm with the hospital social worker.

OP, you have to decide what your limit is. You can ask your siblings for more help, but it sounds like they are not in a position to provide it AND you can't control what they do.

The realistic options are that your parents move into a facility with the level of care they need now, or you move out and let the chips fall where they may (this will likely lead to an emergency situation for one or both of your parents, but they are being obstinate in their unwillingness to accept help).

There's really nothing else you control that you can do, short of continuing to run yourself into the ground.

Anonymous wrote:OP I totally understand your frustration and anger at this situation.

Your siblings are selfish jerks.

If it’s any consolation, having spend nearly a decade in elder care/hospice care, this is a very common occurrence even when all the siblings live nearby - there is typically one adult child who ends up carrying the vast majority of the load of caring for elder parents. It’s typically a female adult child and more often than not the eldest, or the eldest of the females.

It’s not fair and there is no acceptable excuse, especially when you all have family obligations of your own. Your siblings are selfish jerks. They will most likely never properly thank you for the huge sacrifices you are making to take care of your elderly parents, either.

What is wrong with you?
Because they don't want to blow up their career and family life, they are selfish jerks?

The "selfish jerks" here are OP's parents, who refuse to have any outside help in the home or move to a facility, and apparently did no planning beyond expecting their adult children to sacrifice everything and come care for them!

Anonymous wrote:OP I totally understand your frustration and anger at this situation.

Your siblings are selfish jerks.

If it’s any consolation, having spend nearly a decade in elder care/hospice care, this is a very common occurrence even when all the siblings live nearby - there is typically one adult child who ends up carrying the vast majority of the load of caring for elder parents. It’s typically a female adult child and more often than not the eldest, or the eldest of the females.

It’s not fair and there is no acceptable excuse, especially when you all have family obligations of your own. Your siblings are selfish jerks. They will most likely never properly thank you for the huge sacrifices you are making to take care of your elderly parents, either.

What about the parents in that situation? That is the part i will never get: why do elderly parents feel fine being a total burden? Surely they must realize how much their dd is suffering because of them, yet they refuse alternatives. It isn't right.

You made the choice to move into your parents house and take this on.

They are making the choice not to do that.

Both choices are valid.

OP I totally understand your frustration and anger at this situation.

Your siblings are selfish jerks.

If it’s any consolation, having spend nearly a decade in elder care/hospice care, this is a very common occurrence even when all the siblings live nearby - there is typically one adult child who ends up carrying the vast majority of the load of caring for elder parents. It’s typically a female adult child and more often than not the eldest, or the eldest of the females.

It’s not fair and there is no acceptable excuse, especially when you all have family obligations of your own. Your siblings are selfish jerks. They will most likely never properly thank you for the huge sacrifices you are making to take care of your elderly parents, either.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They can take their vacation and come to your parents. Give you a break. A break for a week. You go somewhere -away- for vacation. One idea.

Thank you for your response.

I've suggested this before, and they say their family needs a vacation.

Also: one week a year isn't too terribly helpful. Neither is coming in for a visit over a weekend. I need them to come more frequently, work from my parents' home (like I do), and actually handle everything so I can be off the hook.

They tend to point to things like their holiday visits and short overnights when they are in town for other family functions (e.g., weddings, showers, baptisms, etc.) or work (conferences/meetings) as "helping," but it isn't helping when we are all together for Christmas or Easter or cousin Larla's wedding. Why? Because I don't get to check out and relax...I'm still the one doing all the grocery shopping before they come.

I guess I'm wondering why siblings think it's okay to dump all the responsibility on one person? Why don't they realize that simply picking up 6-12 weeks/year is the least they could do when their sibling is covering the rest of the year?

Realistically no working person with kids is going to be able to take 6-12 weeks out of the year away from their life, for any reason. I think you need to focus on solving the unfairness of your situation rather than try to have them step up, because they will not.

This is one of the times when you need to figure out what your limits are and stick to them no matter sibs response.

Say you can cover every other month and that they each have to figure out X number of months. Tell them and your parents that you are in danger of burnout. They will need to step up, your parents will need to accept strangers, or they are going to fall and they will need to deal with the consequences.

Anonymous wrote:They can take their vacation and come to your parents. Give you a break. A break for a week. You go somewhere -away- for vacation. One idea.

Thank you for your response.

I've suggested this before, and they say their family needs a vacation.

Also: one week a year isn't too terribly helpful. Neither is coming in for a visit over a weekend. I need them to come more frequently, work from my parents' home (like I do), and actually handle everything so I can be off the hook.

They tend to point to things like their holiday visits and short overnights when they are in town for other family functions (e.g., weddings, showers, baptisms, etc.) or work (conferences/meetings) as "helping," but it isn't helping when we are all together for Christmas or Easter or cousin Larla's wedding. Why? Because I don't get to check out and relax...I'm still the one doing all the grocery shopping before they come.

I guess I'm wondering why siblings think it's okay to dump all the responsibility on one person? Why don't they realize that simply picking up 6-12 weeks/year is the least they could do when their sibling is covering the rest of the year?

I think they feel okay with it because they don't want to do it and are glad not to have to do it, since it's awful. They probably love you and your parents but not enough to burden themselves if they don't need to. You should not have to do it either. Do you have kids at home?! Do they actually need care around the clock? My grandma lived in her house but had a nurse come for an hour each day, and my mom went once a day. It was a good balance.

They can take their vacation and come to your parents. Give you a break. A break for a week. You go somewhere -away- for vacation. One idea.

I became the default caregiver since my siblings live out of state. It was fine when my parents were relatively independent, but now that one requires more care (fall risk and forgetful), I had to move into their home.

There is no money for round the clock care or even PT help (plus, they don't want "a stranger" in their home).

They refuse to leave their home.

I can't move them into my place (too small).

My siblings always offer to help in very empty ways ("Let me know if there's anything I can do to help.") The reality is they can't help because they aren't here. And they won't kick in money to pay for PT help (plus: our parents don't want strangers in their home).

Has anyone successfully navigated this and somehow come up with a solution?

I would love it if my siblings would take turns visiting for a week or two at time so I could have a break. They both work from home so they could easily do that from my parents' house (it has wifi). They both have school-aged kids, but they also have spouses.

I'm wondering why they feel it's okay for everything to fall on me...and why they think it's okay for them to use their own family and work responsibilities as an excuse? I mean, I have a family and work responsibilities, too.

PS - Please don't say that everyone should chip in for hired help. My siblings won't (they both say they can't afford it), plus my parents are adamant they won't have a stranger in their house (they know people whose hired help stole from them).