Is this really what children are for???

There is, as has been said, a big difference between a lively 70 yr old and a frail 95yr old.
My DMiL is 97 and has outlived one DS (my DH) and the others are looking a little weary. They take turns to live with her because during the pandemic, she lost her DH (their dad) to covid and the care package stopped. Now this is admirable and she has no dementia just a willingness to do what she is told rather than be the one to make the decisions.
They badly don't want her to go into a care home though she enjoys trips to a day centre and visits from family.

There is no precedent of this caring. In fact her own mother ended up in a care-home. I wouldn't want my DC to have to look after me and I don't think they will although they are helpful when they visit but that is infrequent.

I couldn’t bear the indignity of having my children wash me, take me to the toilet or worse. They’ve been told that if I get to that stage they must take me on a cliff top walk and let me go ahead with my Zimmer frame.

We don’t have children to help us, not nowadays anyway, but I am often shocked when I see friends struggling and their children don’t try to help.

Obviously it depends on physical distance but where possible surely you would give a hand with gardening, shopping or giving a carer a break?

I certainly did not have my DDs to have a secure safe old age.
After seeing what old age can do to people and how they can change the prime example being my mother. I have told them to put me into good care to make sure I smell good, have new clothes, and show up now and again when THEY want to.

WxcusexthecZ

That's awful. Z
I'm glad she got to live it up a bit, eventually.

A BiL had an aunt, an only daughter, whose sole role, according to her parents, was to look after them as they aged.

They actively prevented her from marrying. Once, when a serviceman she’d met and evidently liked very much during the war, returned afterwards to find her.

She was out at the time, and found out later that they’d told him she was already married.

There was a similar incident involving a doctor - I forget the details but they somehow put the kybosh on that, too - as she later found out.

She was a lovely, sunny-natured person, who’d have loved to have a husband and children, but the family lived in a small village in a more remote part of Scotland, so the chance of meeting anyone else was poor.

BiL thought it significant that her parents’ gravestones had just bare names and dates, not a word about ‘loving’, or ‘missed’, let alone ‘beloved’.
She did manage to enjoy life once they were gone, though - thank goodness.

My son has told me not to worry, he’ll buy me a one way ticket to Dignitas is Switzerland. His cousins have offered to chip in! ?

My father said he has only kids so we would take care of him and mother when they were old and give them grandkids

His look of disbelief when I laughed in his face was legendary

I have no such expectations of my sons though they support me in so many ways. I'm sure my parents did not expect me and my sisters to be at their beck and call, though, sadly, neither lived long enought to need us.

It always falls to the women, it seems, Witzend. Another aspect of some cultures is that disabled people are shunned and cast out from families and have to survive as best they can. Sometimes they are regarded as witches and almost hunted down by others who blame them for misfortunes that befall them.

In many countries, poorer people may well not have the option of a care home, anyway - they just have to manage. In many cultures there will often be extended family nearby to help, but it’s nearly always the women who are expected to do elderly care, isn’t it? Whether it’s for their own relatives or not.

A dd working in Cambodia witnessed the care of a grandmother with dementia in a poor, rural village.

The woman was strapped to a chair outside all day, to stop her a) wandering off, and b) messing in the house, since she was incontinent.
She was hosed down once a day.

OTOH we used to have Indian friends (in Mumbai, sadly no,longer with us) who used to visit the U.K. every year. I told the woman how often we in the U.K. are told how callous and uncaring we are, to ever put elderly parents into care homes, when in ‘other cultures’ people are only too glad to look after their own.

She said that was rubbish, at least for anyone of merely moderate means in India. She herself had a mother with dementia living 100 miles away, who was looked after by two live-in carers.

She said that sort of arrangement was quite usual, while adding that of course such things were a great deal easier and cheaper to organise in India, than they would be in the U.K.

When I was in Bangladesh I was asked if I had children. I said that I had a son and a daughter. They then asked if my son was married. When I said that he wasn't there was consternation,
'But who will look after you when you are old if you have no daughter in law?'
Obviously my own daughter was expected to have her hands full with her own MiL!

Good grief, the last people I want looking after me is my children!

More seriously, I saw the toll caring for aged parents took on my mother and indeed on us as a family, and my Dh had a similar situation in his childhood. It’s not fun.

I think that in societies where it is the norm for the elders to be looked after at home the responsibility doesn’t usually fall on one person, it’s more likely to be shared between siblings. When I lived in W Africa the culture was that it was shameful to put an elder into a home but there, the average life expectancy was 58 so there were very few frail people around. The other side of that was that elders were very much respected as erudite and wise and not considered a burden.

Who would go through all that just to get some help in their declining years

I wanted my children and grandchildren to lead independent lives and they have done this. I now expect to be independent of them that's fair. I agree some other cultures have a totally different approach to family life and I've seen lovely instances of this. Our lives are different but not necessarily better.

I'd hate to become a burden. I certainly wouldn't demand anything from my children - or my grandchildren - they've got their own issues to deal with.

I think people chage as they get older. At 70 my Mum was flying to the Uk and back to Saudi Arabia on her own, as she lived there for 6 years because her husband was a sea pilot in Jedda. He has since died and she is now 90 and has moved to live near my brother. She still lives on her own and is happy to do so, but she is very needy and my brother has to take her to so mny appointments, do her shopping and every day there are so many things to do for her, so 20 years makes a huge difference! He doesn't mind, but doesn't have a lot of time to himself. I don't think he envisaged what it would be like as she got older, but she is adamant that she doesn't want care or to move into sheltered housing.

I understood that the role of children is to absorb any excess money ? left lying around...

Oh paddyann, that's tough- for you both

?for your daughter Paddy and for you?.

I want my children to enjoy their lives free from the onus of looking after me.
I still look after them in different ways. I have happily helped with childcare and money when needed.
I believe the best gift you can give your children is your own independence.

I sadly,have a daughter who is chronically ill .So I still do what I can to help her.I have no expectaion of either of my children looking after us.We are still the go to people for decorating or replacing kitchens or landscaping their gardens .I'm very happy to help .
It would be amazing if one day some real medical help would appear and give her her life back ,seems very unfair that I'm looking 70 in the face and fit as a flea and she suffers chronic pain every day

I agree with FannyCornforth, said with tongue n cheek.
If i need help with anything i can`t do myself and Dh can`t do i automatically ask one of my sons for help and vice versa.

No expectations here. We still help them from time to time and know if we ask for help it would be there if life pressure allowed. They don’t fuss, the understanding is we’re ok unless we say otherwise. Suits us all.

A childless friend constantly tells me how lucky we are, we’ll never need to pay for care as our children have a duty to care for us. Yes, she does mean it. I’ve given up arguing with her as she’s immovable. Now I just smile and say nothing.