Disgusted at daughter's cold heartedness.

My Dad just died and although we were close there are still things I can torture my self over - eg why did I only text him the night before he died and not ring him ?
Unless these children are totally devoid of all emotion they will be haunted when it is too late

I agree with Elysium to an extent. Being a parent is an accident of birth not a lifetime entitlement to respect. How that parent cares for the child etc is the determining factor for this.
It would appear the children are closer to their father for whatever reason. I think the parent who leaves the family is almost always held to blame even though there may be valid reasons for their going.
It's a shame these children can't find it in the hearts to help their Mother now she is so ill.

Regardless of all the facts I know how hard and hurtful this can be. Several years ago I was admitted to the priory with depression and our daughter who was 19 and still living at home never visited me once in 6 weeks. I never held it against her or confronted her. It was still very hurtful as I had a great relationship with her. I hope your friend finds peace...

When I was a young wife and mother it was discovered that my next door neighbour had been laying dead for a week. The local paper had a field day about uncaring neighbours.
What they didn't know about her was that she continuously frightened the crap out of me. My husband worked nights and her 'fun' was to throw something at my French doors late at night. In the middle of the night she would shout and bang the walls between our connecting bedrooms.
We had another one opposite me. She was found frozen to the floor because of burst pipes. Again the paper had a field day. One day there was the most awful down poor, I saw her walking down the road, soaked. I grabbed my brolly and run out to help her. She told me to F off and hit me so hard with her walking stick I couldn't use my arm for a couple of days.

On the other hand I had another neighbour (couple) who were NC with their daughter. One of them died and the other didn't cope and was hospitalised, they were dying too.

The hospital called the daughter, she travelled up, seemed to care. Visited the hospital and ran back and forth to the house fetching belongings/doing washing. Until she found out that her parents house was rented and not owned (a big house worth quite a lot but they were on relatively low rent as they'ld been there for years). She was shocked, she thought it was owned. Stopped visiting the hospital and went home. Was never seen or heard of again up here.

She was obviously a piece of work!

You never know either way.
Which is why it's best to keep out of it
Be a good friend/neighbour, but keep out of the family stuff even if you THINK you know what's going on.

I had a difficult relationship with my Mother. Nothing like the ones quoted here but she was a very hard and judgemental woman. I was an only child and she used me and my H as much as she could because it was my duty. My C were not all that fond of her but did visit on high days and holidays although those were mostly spent with us, well always spent with us until she became to frail to travel. She was in residential care by then. Her home helps and later the carers in the home thought she was wonderful. The sweetest, charming and very amusing lady. It was only family who saw the other side and never in front of anyone else. We lived 60 miles away and when I had BC I could not visit and family couldn't go either. She never told anyone why I wasn't visiting, she would just shrug if they asked her when I would be going. I know this as they told me.

I was reminded of this thread yesterday:

I went out to help an elderly neighbour who wasn't managing to hang out his washing, I did it for him

He's not in a great state, his daughter is a GP who works about 2 blocks away. She doesn't visit him.

He seems very sweet but also not coping great at home.

I also happen to know that his daughter USED to visit, and he was vile to her partner and her kids because he thinks her partner is common. Not many neighbours know that and I don't gossip about him. They think it's awful that his children don't help and we (the neighbours) keep an eye on him.

I also happen to know that even back when his daughter was still calling in on him, his son wasn't. I've heard him be vile about his son on occasion, but most of the time he just says that "son's don't look out for you when you get older" - or at least that's what he used to say when his daughter was still visiting.

I've been here longer than most of the neighbours which is why I've seen the veil slip from time to time. He really has been unforgivable towards his family, including to children in his family, who he didn't treat as "his" because he deemed their father too low class to be part of the family.

I've known this man for years as a neighbour and as I say, 99% of the time he seems very sweet and a bit lost.

His children are not heartless at all, his daughter used to do so much for him.

'heartbroken'

PS .....Wish there was an edit button.

My friend is out of hospital..life goes on. She has to go back again very soon for an operation.Whatever the reasons it's her daughter and son's choice. If they don't want a mother, so be it. It's their loss.
Fortunately she has quite a number of friends who are there for her and always will be.
Friends are not the same as family though.She remains heatbroken.

M0nica, I've often said that evil b*****ds don't suddenly turn into dear little old gentlemen/ladies.

When I worked with older people I was once asked to visit a sad and vulnerable old man. He had been devoted to his wife and her death had left him inconsolable. Social Services were concerned because he was taking in lodgers and there was a fear he was being exploited by them. He had 6 children but none were able to help him (that did ring a few warning bells). I went and visited, he was frail and shaking and walked with a stick and clearly desperately missing his wife but in the end I had to say that there was little my organisation could do to help him.

About six months later I had another client on the same estate. As she came to the door she looked over my shoulder and said, 'Ooh there's that horrible Mr XXX'. I looked behind me and there was this gentleman, shuffling along with his stick. I obviously couldn't say anything about knowing him, but remarked he looked just like a sad old man. Nothing loathe she told me all about him.

Far from being devoted to his wife, he was a domestic abuser who regularly physically abused both his wife and children. He had a reputation throughout the estate, where he had lived for years as a nasty piece of work. Even in extreme old age he had been banned from his local pub for attacking another customer with his walking stick!! No wonder his children didn't care what happened to him and were not prepared to help.

This incident, and other less dramatic ones in my case work always make me very cautious now about making judgements when I hear stories of old people being neglected by selfish children.

& I wonder how much elder abuse there was in the past amongst adult children who felt socially obliged to be carers for parents who made their skin crawl.

I don't know why adult children who don't like or see their parents should make an exception and spend time with them when their parents are ill? Gosh when I've been ill in hospital I've felt vunlerable enough even when I was surrounded by people who liked me, I certainly wouldn't be up to being visited by people who I didn't get along with when not ill!

Who does it benefit? not the sick person, not the adult child.. just the onlookers really..

I agree it's not new at all, can think of 2 (now sadly deceased) elderly neighbours who I was close to growing up who were not close to their own families

One was disowned by her own family for wanting to marry the wrong sort. She didn't elope and marry him against their wishes, she just wanted to. And they disowned her for putting the question to them. In an effort to heal the rift she married the man they had origionally chosen for her and had a loveless marraige until he died in old age… but by then her family had washed their hands of her for just liking someone they didn't approve of . The man she loved died relatively young, and once he died she was in so much grief that he died without them having a life together that she resolved never to see her parents if they reached out to her.

Another was more complex, in that she was in the wrong (elder abuse). Her parents forced her into a marraige with a controlling abusive man who they always defended when he was abusive towards her (their own daughter) because they were so proud of his standing in society. She never fell out with her parents, but when her parents got older she was her carer for a bit until someone found her to be abusive towards them.

I think there can be a lot of rose tinted about how families were there for each other in the past, but I don't buy it, only difference was that in the past people were ashamed to be open about it so would say their parents were dead if asked about them, rather than admitting they just didn't get on.

My mother was the same, Missf. She was a bitter young woman and remained so all her days taking her spite out on all but one of her children. At the end of her life, only her favourite wanted to attend her funeral. But to the carers in her care home she was a gem. Outside of the home she put on a great act. There are two sides to every story and sometimes people only every see the sweet little old lady side.

Hi, my mother is 87 and does not mellow with age!
She was an appalling mother always putting me down, occasional physical abuse and she would incite my father to become very violent toward me
As a nice middle class family in the 60's and 70's this behaviour was never challenged, today I would be in care.
I do very little for my mother as I dislike her so much and I'm sure her few friends and neighbours think I'm a horrid person.
She tells lies about me to family and is very cold
There are two sides to every story.

Every time I hear the phrase, " Two sides to every story", I think of my father, who always said there were, in fact, three sides to every story, your side, their side, and the truth, which was probably somewhere in between.

The Bodach was very seriously abused by his mother, but kept in contact because he was still afraid of her, even when he was an adult and she was an old woman. I know all her friends would say what a good mother she was, so I'm with Petra, you just never know.

annsixty ?

annsixty this isn't new. Families have always fallen out. It is just that in the digital age people are more aware of each other's problems and the British stiff upper lip is beginning to loosen.
For what it is worth my mother left my father when I was 23, married and pregnant, and I have struggled with my relationship with my mother ever since.
Eventually she returned to my father and is now caring for him in old age and many people where they live are unaware of the 35 years they were apart.
She has reinvented herself but I still struggle with our relationship.

I have experience of a similar situation within our extended family. Mother /father split up with adult children . Mother did not want to live permanently as expat. Son/daughter v angry with dad and supported mum. Mum it turned out was an obstinate and cussed sort of person not anle to compromise etc. Son/daughter soon realised mum was not as cuddly & kind in an adult relationship as in a parent/child situation. They understood why dad made his choice. They now have a warmer relationship with dad than mum as they understand, as adults, how hard he had worked to maintain stability for them as kids. From the outside it looked like a different picture.

I have only just read this thread. I think when we are young we have ideas about our own future lives and we just know we are going to have perfect families who all love each other dearly, are always looking out for each other and nothing will spoil that.
When reality sets in it is a huge shock. Both of my C's marriages have broken down, my D lives 300 miles away, my S lives a dysfunctional life and only comes when we ask for help. Neither give me the support I would really like in dealing with their father who has dementia. The early dreams of Sunday lunches all together, Christmas gatherings are just that, dreams. Modern life is changing all the time, the matriarchal life many of us grew up with has gone and we will do well to recognise that.

I feel I must post here today I am a daughter of a mother who was quite self centered.and manipulative,she has parented me at a distance and has chosen to live a fair distance away.I have to work to keep my life together.visit when i can a,few years away from my pension and yet she is still fit drives and is lazy about her social life .I think we are known as the sandwich generation .So my dilemma is a sense of duty opposed to limited energy resources and her needs .Also knowing I was the less liked child which she now admits .My mother is . Not a,bad person I feel that she never grew past her own needs.I have to take care of my own resources and finances and yet feel very misunderstood .
...

I think by now that it's more than obvious that there is more to this situation than 'meets the eye'. This is not just a case of two adult children simply not caring. Even Path20 has admitted to the fact that she doesn't really know what happened. It's all incredibly sad, but it's clear that something serious happened in the past that led to this situation.

BlueBelle and I have noticed that the daughter did offer her mum support but she didn't take her up on it. The daughter told mum 'to text if she needed anything', but as an ADULT, mum CHOSE not to text. If mum is choosing NOT to accept that offer of support, then she has no right to complain when she doesn't get the support.

I had a friend who split up with her abusive husband when her children were teenagers. They stayed with her and all was fine for quite a long time. Eventually, once the children were over 30, the daughter stayed close but the son became very distant from my friend and close to his father. My friend felt her son was mainly interested in his inheritance from his father and was sad about the loss of her relationship with him.

Horrible isn't it ! I feel for you having been there, done that ...daughter not spoken now for, it will be, 10 years in May next year ...have racked brain to think why, what happened > No arguments, no problems ...literally one day received message from her saying coming on holiday to see you ! Replied Brilliant, look forward to that...no further message. Ever ! text, phone calls, e mails, all went unanswered except one from her to say 'Do not try to contact me again !' talk about puzzled !!! No explanation, no discussion ....instant cut off ! Wish I knew what happened but don't suppose I ever will ....got used to it now, but still wish I knew why ! Your friend is lucky to have such a supportive friend as you !

Path20 your last message has been revealing, you say they are both lovely children well brought up, their dad was always there for them and you liked them both you also say the boy and mum had a good relationship, but earlier you said they hadn't spoken for 6 years, SO something, obviously you don't know about, must have happened 6 years ago which has turned both the children against her, and because it's both children who have removed themselves it must have been something significant.

Of course you must be there for your friend and give her your love and care but I don't think you should judge the children because of a situation you don't know about

I definitely don't think you should be involved in talking to the children or husband and lastly why didn't your friend answer her daughters text and just say ' thanks for texting I don't need anything but I d love to see you even if you can only manage half an hour' if she just didn't answer then the daughter won't know she's wanting and missing her