Should we be resentful about becoming a carer?

JaneJudge

People are allowed to talk about how they feel if overwhelmed, whatever the issue

You just have to listen

Quite.
I shall care for my husband because I love him. I absolutely shall not be caring for elderly parents. My mother in particular was a terrible parent and I feel no obligation whatsoever. She has dementia and needs professional care, anyway. Stepdad hasn’t sought any because she’s been in denial since the beginning. His life is awful now but that’s up to him. He has money and choices, just won’t make them because of the ructions it will cause in the home.
I think we’re good parents, we have very close and loving relationships with our children and grandchild. No way on this green earth would we expect them to care for us. They have their own lives and we won’t burden them.
The idea that children, who had no choice in their creation, should be expected to care for elderly parents “in return” is beyond selfish.

As Witzend said, I hope that my daughters don't need to care for us. One daughter lives 5 minutes away, but is very busy with her work, and the other is 3 hours away, so caring for parents wouldn't be feasible.

We could, at a pinch, afford to pay for careers, but I hope we never need to.

I fervently hope my dds will never have to support me, or will feel the need to, and I’ve told them as much. There should be enough money to pay for carers, if needed.

Having had to do a lot of elderly parent care myself (Dm and FiL both with dementia) I most certainly do NOT want that for dds.

Might add, that I think parents who expect their adult children, who usually have very busy lives nowadays - to spend much of their time caring for them - if they can afford to pay for care - are very selfish.

We moved my Dad in with us and I spent 11yrs caring for him. There really was no expectation or resentment, just relief really that he was safe and looked after.
It was very hard physically and although I once sought help, a different carer was sent over the course of four days and it proved too distressing for Dad. So I didn't carry on with that.
I am so glad to have done this for him but would find it overwhelming to provide that level of care without a lot of help and support to someone at my age now.
Hugs and much love to GNetters who are in this position

MT62

I think care from the SS goes on sliding scale once you are under £23000

Casdon

I think care from the SS goes on sliding scale once you are under £23000

People are allowed to talk about how they feel if overwhelmed, whatever the issue

You just have to listen

I cared for my very elderly Mum for 14 years. I don’t regret it at all but it was very hard work. Like Tenko I did all her admin, took her to hospital, doctors, dentists, hairdressers, opticians etc, took her on holidays. I simply could not do her cleaning on top of my own so got her a lovely local girl twice a week who was great. I arranged for a stairlift and a wetroom as her wish was to stay in her own home. She came to stay with us every Friday to Sunday night and loved it but had to stop that when she could no longer manage the stairs.

Now I am caring for my husband which is twice as hard as at least Mum had working hands and legs albeit very old ones!

Judy54

Yes being a Carer is hard work but the reason we do it is a four letter word called Love. A friend of mine has become a Carer to her Mother but as she puts it "I am caring for someone who never cared for me" She apparently had a very fractured childhood with both Parents being Alcoholics. Today she says she would probably have been taken into care. Unfortunately not everyone has a childhood where they felt loved, cared for and protected. I feel so much for her as she is struggling with this role out of a sense of some sort of duty rather than love. She has she says ended up like this because the hospital her Mother was discharged from and Social Services have told her in no uncertain terms that her Mother is her responsibility. I have advised her to talk to them again to see what care is available because she need support to.

Daughters, especially if single, are often slotted into the role of Dutiful Daughter, ie: their life is no longer their own.

Are there such things as Dutiful Sons?

I’m a carer for my mother , she’s 90 and housebound. I do her shopping , laundry, take her to appointments and home admin .after a spell in hospital due to a fall she now has carers twice a day for personal care and meals . At the hospital I had to be adamant about what I would and wouldn’t do , both to my mum and SS .
I’m there 3-4 times a week and now I’m retired , I really don’t mind caring for her . It can be stressful and frustrating as she’s got some cognitive decline . But I don’t resent it.
What I do resent is that my two siblings do very little for our mum , due to both still working and not being local . Brother in Ireland and sister a two hour drive .
But I have friends whose siblings are local and still don’t help with elderly parents.
OP it sounds like your FA was having a rant, and I totally understand that .
We’re all living longer and needing care , which my mother’s generation often didn’t need to do . I’d lost all 4 of my grandparents by the time I was 25 , so my mother would have been early 50s .

The person needing care has to have more than a certain amount in savings to need to pay, I think it’s £23,000ish this year, and my parents do pay for the Social Services carer therefore. The attendance allowance is used to supplement the care they receive, so they have a private carer at lunchtime. If they had less than that in savings, the state would pay, but they would still be able to use the attendance allowance to pay for extra input on a private basis. Social Services will provide up to four visits a day depending on individual circumstances.

Will it not come down to money though, as regards personal care? For you or others? If the State does not provide?
How else could younger family be still independent from the situation?
Assuming someone is not left to fend for themselves.

I am sorry for what you have been through.

It has done in my experience fancythat, and I have some, having lost my husband to cancer and providing support now to my parents in their nineties, who still live in their own home. Pressure is put on the family to provide all the care, and it’s necessary to be strong and say what you cannot do quite adamantly from the outset, and as they become more dependent. I don’t think you do yourself or the person who needs care any favours by committing more than you can realistically provide, it makes you resentful and ill yourself. It’s very difficult, and you feel you are perceived by Social Services as uncaring, which could not be further from the truth. There is a difference between loving somebody and sacrificing your own life for them, and I don’t want my children doing that for me.

But dying and caring doesnt tend to work like that.

Unless a family has oodles of money.

I think it depends very much on the nature of the care needed. Helping parents with specific tasks they can no longer do is a reasonable ask I think, but not personal care, or a multiple visits daily scenario. I couldn’t bear the thought of my children being tied to me in that way and disrupting their own lives and commitments to look after me, that’s not why I had them, I want them to be independent and as worry free as possible.

It depends on the circumstances. My parents needed little care and support but I did care and support two sets of childless aunts and uncles. Both sets were particulalry dear to me. I did not resent either.

However, I can see that if someone's relationship wth parents orothers has always been difficult and the people being cared for are difficult and demanding, yes, then I can understand people resenting it.

Yes being a Carer is hard work but the reason we do it is a four letter word called Love. A friend of mine has become a Carer to her Mother but as she puts it "I am caring for someone who never cared for me" She apparently had a very fractured childhood with both Parents being Alcoholics. Today she says she would probably have been taken into care. Unfortunately not everyone has a childhood where they felt loved, cared for and protected. I feel so much for her as she is struggling with this role out of a sense of some sort of duty rather than love. She has she says ended up like this because the hospital her Mother was discharged from and Social Services have told her in no uncertain terms that her Mother is her responsibility. I have advised her to talk to them again to see what care is available because she need support to.

I didn't really reply tbh.

Sounds as though this person is under a lot of stress and just needed to vent. Unprofessional? Probably but we are all human. I hope you were not openly judgemental.