Would you willingly go into a care home .

I'm with all those on here who say they would end their own life before going into a home or being a burden to their children.

This suicide idea may be a trigger for some posters

It is a serious issue that shouldn't be treated and mentioned lightly

I very much it’s mentioned lightly. Certainly not by me.

I am 79, and still caring for my severely disabled daughter, aged 58. It has worn me out, to the point where I`ve been told to do as little as possible from now on. I`ve considered a care home, but don`t want to have to spend my childrens` inheritance, there isn`t much money, but my house would have to be sold to pay for the care home. One problem is that my daughter says she is never going into a home, so what can I do?

In an ideal world I'll pop my clogs at a good age but where I've been able to retain my independence and stayed in my home but if not, with our DS in Aus. a care home would be the only option available to me.

Even if he were in the UK, I wouldn't want or expect him to look after me.

CatsCatsCats

I'm with all those on here who say they would end their own life before going into a home or being a burden to their children.

Absolutely this

Like so many of you, I saw what looking after my GM did to my parents and I'd not wish it on anyone, it's not right in these days where we're all needing to work for a living and help with grandchildren. I'd hate it but, rather than burden my kids, I'd go into a home with a smile on my face and tell them I liked it.

If I were on my own, I would not want to burden my only daughter.

I rather go back to my country of origin and hire a live in maid/carer, someone to cook, clean the house and look after me. It is much cheaper than going to a care home here.

DH is much older than me. I only consider a care home for him if he has dementia or if he has a massive stroke and become totally disabled.

I would hate the idea of moving into a Care Home, but the reality is - I have no family to care for me any more.
What little I have will go to Charity (with a few bequests to friends) - so I may have to accept a care home in the end, should I become too frail to manage.
I currently have arrangements in place for my cats, a Funeral Plan all paid for and a last Will and Testament.
I'm hoping to have many years yet to enjoy!

Even though my son isn’t in need of an inheritance from me, I could not use it to moulder away in a care home at vast expense, robbed of dignity and independence. What a waste. Hence my intention mentioned above.

Some Care Homes are very pleasant. The son of a close friend sent me a link to the one he thinks his father will need to move to now his wife has died. It looked so nice, I momentarily considered moving there myself.

Liz46

Calendargirl

GrammyGrammy

Liz46

My mother used to say 'if I ever become a bother to you just put me in a home'. I looked after her when she had dementia and one evening when I was sitting next to my husband with tears dripping off my chin he said 'it is either me or your mother'.
One of my mum's neighbours had said that if my mother ever needed to go into a home I should go and talk to her. I went round and it turns out that she goes round care homes as a hairdresser. She recommended one and it was very good.
I would pop in at different times and always found my mum well cared for.

I hope you got rid of the unsupportive husband while you were at it? Unbelievable. I'm glad you found a good place for mum to be cared for.

The ‘unsupportive’ husband had probably been supporting his wife for years, and had had enough. There comes a time when your own spouse’s needs come before those of an ageing parent.

Yes, my husband had been doing a lot for my mum for years including driving a plate of dinner to her every evening while I plated ours up.

I expect your husband could see you getting more and more tired and frazzled, Liz46 and said that to prompt some decisions.
We looked after my DM part-time for a few years as DB and SisIL did take on most of the care and it does take its toll, particularly if you have other family commitments and/or are still working full-time.
DH said he could not cope with his own DM living with us; we loved her but she wasn't easy.

I don't want my children to have the burden and worry of looking after us so it's care home or GSM's suggestion.

I think we need to move away from the idea of leaving an inheritance/property to our children. Life is very different now from when most of us were young. Our adult children in a relationship are usually both working from necessity and in no position to care for elderly and infirm relatives.
Now we have worked and saved all our lives to provide for our old age so our children can be free from that responsibility.
Our main aim now should be working towards improving the care given in residential homes and by domiciliary carers.

On a personal level, it's the difference between paying vast sums to some institution to prolong our lives and keep us clean, where our children maybe feel under an obligation to come and see us at the weekend at the expense of their own limited free time, and sparing them doing that and watching us very expensively slowly disappear, physically and mentally - not something that I, as a loving parent, would wish upon them even if that should be at the expense of my immortal soul.

Having nursed my husband through vascular dementia, incontinence, Parkinsons for over 11 years, and Heart Failure in the last year or so, I could not be that kind of burden to anyone so yes, I plan to go into some form of sheltered accommodation when I can no longer keep my home to the standard I currently do, and then a care home if necessary. Although I would willingly do it all again in a heartbeat for him, because our situation evolved very gradually, I did not realise quite what an effect, both physically and mentally, this had on me and it is only in these last six months I think I have actually got myself into the right frame of mind to enjoy the rest of my life, which is what he asked me to do. I think becoming his full time Carer was my total occupation and priority and when that role ended, I have had to rebuild a new life completely and it has taken some time!

I have discussed the inheritance question with my adult children and they understand that the money I have may run out before I can leave it to them. I know people this has happened to, when the parent lived to be over a hundred years old, and needed care for a great deal longer than they or their relations had expected.

An interesting thread.

Like most I wouldn't willingly go into a care home and at 67 still think of them being for 'old people', not me! But who knows what the future holds.

The thought of indifferent staff, sing-a-longs, miserable food and a TV on all day fills me with dread, compounded by it will cost me a lot of money. Gawd.

My MiL was desperate to go into a care home. She was miserable and lonely at home despite our best efforts. She was a very sociable wee lady and longed for the company. She was very happy in a hospital ward where she made friends with the ladies in the next beds as well as everyone's visitors. She cried all the way home from hospital. I found a nice care home but the GP said she was immunocompromised so couldn't mix with others. It was very sad .
Home care is not for everyone.

Riverwalk

An interesting thread.

Like most I wouldn't willingly go into a care home and at 67 still think of them being for 'old people', not me! But who knows what the future holds.

The thought of indifferent staff, sing-a-longs, miserable food and a TV on all day fills me with dread, compounded by it will cost me a lot of money. Gawd.

I think you have an over-pessimistic view of care homes. Some may be like that, but plenty aren’t. I don’t think the ‘activities’ are compulsory.

I currently have this dilemma with my own mother, she is in a sheltered housing flat with carers going in twice a day. She isn’t really coping, often falling, is in and out of hospital etc. She puts on a front & lets them think she is ok & they seem to believe it despite our concerns. I think moving her to the next stage, residential care, is going to be problematic. The carers are lovely girls but are so busy, some days it is gone 11 am when they arrive to get her up!! In an afternoon they often turn up at 3pm to make her tea!! My mother is constantly saying she doesn’t want or need these carers and often cancels them at weekends telling them her family will be visiting. Well yes we will but we are going there to sit and have a chat or do her a bit of shopping not shower her or empty the commode etc which is why we have carers. The trouble is resentment builds up, me & my sister are in our sixties, we feel this constant pull to be dashing up to check up on her even if we are feeling unwell ourselves and tbh she has begun to expect it, she gets very demanding if we don’t go for a couple of days. It does spoil your whole relationship and you start to dread visits instead of enjoying your time with them. My mum has even accused me of caring more for my grandchildren than her because I was looking after one of the younger ones and couldn’t go running up to sort out a problem. Like others have said it can be very stressful but you want to try & do the best for them, you try and remember the way they were I suppose but you still need to have a life of your own. This is where a residential home would come in, we would know she had company and we could just visit once or twice a week without feeling guilty or constantly worrying about her. Home care is good up to a point until they aren't can’t coping between visits.

For myself I would really rather stay in my own home until they carry me out in a box but if I can’t manage I’d rather go into a residential home than be a burden & a worry to my AC. I want them to be free to enjoy their lives without stressing about me. They all work very long hours and have stressful enough lives. I know it still happens in some cultures but in general gone are the days when granny moved in to the front room to be waited on hand and foot by frazzled daughters or dil. My own GM did this for her mum (& her dad) as did my Mil, the care was shared between daughters homes. It was hard work for them and disruptive for the rest of the family but at the time it was almost seen as an expectation. Wouldn’t be for me I’m afraid.

Of course they aren't compulsory.

Callistemon21

Liz46

Calendargirl

GrammyGrammy

Liz46

My mother used to say 'if I ever become a bother to you just put me in a home'. I looked after her when she had dementia and one evening when I was sitting next to my husband with tears dripping off my chin he said 'it is either me or your mother'.
One of my mum's neighbours had said that if my mother ever needed to go into a home I should go and talk to her. I went round and it turns out that she goes round care homes as a hairdresser. She recommended one and it was very good.
I would pop in at different times and always found my mum well cared for.

I hope you got rid of the unsupportive husband while you were at it? Unbelievable. I'm glad you found a good place for mum to be cared for.

The ‘unsupportive’ husband had probably been supporting his wife for years, and had had enough. There comes a time when your own spouse’s needs come before those of an ageing parent.

Yes, my husband had been doing a lot for my mum for years including driving a plate of dinner to her every evening while I plated ours up.

I expect your husband could see you getting more and more tired and frazzled, Liz46 and said that to prompt some decisions.
We looked after my DM part-time for a few years as DB and SisIL did take on most of the care and it does take its toll, particularly if you have other family commitments and/or are still working full-time.
DH said he could not cope with his own DM living with us; we loved her but she wasn't easy.

I don't want my children to have the burden and worry of looking after us so it's care home or GSM's suggestion.

My husband was VERY supportive luckily. But it got so bad that I was barely doing anything around the house or with the kids. He was always picking up my slack and he worked a full time job.

It got so bad that Grandma would tell the in home carers that she had nothing that needed to be done (she did) and would call me 2 minutes after they left to have me do everything.

I set up Amazon deliveries for OTC meds and tried to set up grocery delivery, including grocery delivery while her carer was there to help them be put away. She would just shut it all down and since she did not have dementia and she was paying her carers, they had to do whatever she decided.

She would tell me she wants to go to a care home but then would find 1,000 excuses why she couldnt.

The burden she created was life changing for me and my family. It was, honestly, selfish and despite how much I love her, I feel resentment towards her for expecting that this scenario is OK.

My mother is now on the verge of needing care after my father died and despite the fact that we had been estranged in the past, I am finding it falling on my shoulder again. One sister wont do it because of estrangement and the other will do it, but only if she can not work and spend thousands of moms money each month. That one would empty my mothers accounts and leave her homeless if she thought she would get away with it.

Here in the US, we can buy Long Term Care insurance, which is what my grandmother did. It is paying for 100% of her LTC costs for the next 2 years. After that, I have put her money safely away and it will be used to continue to pay for her care.

I think that, unless you have been in the position to have to care for a family member, you really do not understand the impact it has.

I would never, in good conscious, ask my children to do what I have done.

Like many others, I can’t say I look forward to spending my last years in a care home but I definitely do not want to be any kind of burden to my children/g’children.
Through my job, I visited quite a few care homes and wasn’t impressed with any of them. But a friend’s Dad went into one in another town and I visited him a few times with her. It was absolutely lovely, no offensive smell (unlike many other homes I’ve been in), good quality furnishings, well trained and friendly staff, beautiful grounds. Yes, it was expensive (to say the least), but her Dad was very happy for the nearly two years he lived there up until his death and actually appeared to enjoy life a lot more than when he’d had to depend on carers visiting him in his sheltered flat.

My mum had no money, but I wouldn't watch her struggle as she did simply for the sake of "my" inheritance.
I would never enjoy having it, if it was at the expense of her comfort in her last years.

imaround

I think that, unless you have been in the position to have to care for a family member, you really do not understand the impact it has.
Yes, this exactly.