I suspect that the extent to which adult children will support their aging parents likely correlates significantly with how much that adult supported them as a child.
I am wondering how much this resonates with others?
Has your parent supported and raised you during your early life and that has caused you to do the same for them?
Conversely have you been poorly raised and been unsupported or abused by your parent in early life and now do little to support them as they age as a result? Or do you still support them anyways due to blood ties even though they did not recognise this as a duty themselves in your early years?
I sometimes point out that if the parent was so wonderful, why did the sibs want nothing to do with them now? The poster doesn't see that they had been groomed from early on to become the eventual caregiver.
You repay your parents' love and support by loving and supporting the next generation.
I guess abuse could be a dominant factor. If your parent violently molested you as a child then you wouldn’t care to help that parent later in life.
For me it boils down to cost, family size. Dad lives in Hawaii, ($$$) has no savings, no home, has no family outside Hawaii except me. I’m an only child, unmarried, no children, high school educated, travel for a living. I couldn’t care for him there, bringing him here would be cruel.
Parental caregiving level probably has too many variables to simplify down to if we like how mommy and daddy treated us.
Now we are the only ones caring for her in her senior apartment with part time caregivers.
Two brothers are estranged due to family issues with mom & dad. Mom has mild dementia, health issues @ 85 and has no one else.
Dad passed last year but we took care of him also.
Why are we killing ourselves to make her quality of life as good as it can be?
Because of personal integrity and agreeing its the right thing to do no matter what.
Because we will have no regrets.
Once we leave our parents home, we really can't go back. (I had to and 1 year was enough) We change. We grow and mature. We have different experiences than our parents. Our views are no longer the same. We are now adults with jobs, homes and our own families. But as we age so do our parents. They need to rely on someone and it should be their children. And as children we should at least make sure they are safe and cared for. Help find them resources. Set them up in a care facility. You can then walk away.
In a perfect world the child graduates from high school and maybe college. At that point, the child starts a life of their own. Marries, at that point that family becomes #1. Once the nest is empty, the parent should be finding things that interest them, get involved. New stage in their life. Neither child or parent should need to rely on each other. But that's not the real world. We have children who rely on parents to live and visa versa. Both spending money they don't have. Drugs and alcohol go both ways.
Its a shame that there is abuse in families and those who did the abusing then expect that child to care for them in their old age. And its a shame that that child feels obligated. In that situation a child needs to know its OK to walk away. We all need to set BOUNDRIES. What we can do and what we can't do. And it would be nice if our parents excepted this and did what needed to be done to be safe and cared for. Can't keep your house up, then you downsize. Need 24/7 care, then you go to an AL or LTC. You don't ask ur children to give up their lives so you can continue to live in a dream world. Its not being independent when you expect a child to do all the work and sacrifice so you can stay put. We stop needing to use the phrase "We want Mom/Dad to stay in their home as long as possible". If that means the child doing all the work to keep Mom/Dad in their home then its not possible.
I had just about the best parents in the world. They raised me to be independent, to know that the world would require that of me, to go out on my own and make my own life and family, to care for THEM in the best way I was able. They made themselves safe and comfortable by moving into a village in which care could progress for them as needed, allowing them first a duplex, then into apartment, then onto different levels of care when needed. They saved all their lives so as not to be dependent on their children. They taught US, my brother and me, how to save.
It is the eagle story, you know. The eagle's nest is on an island and there is a terrible storm and the eagle must try to save it's eaglets as the waters rise. First the father takes one eaglet across the raging waters. During the flight he asks the babe "And when I am old and tired will you save me alike" and the chick replies "Oh, yes, father; I WILL" and this eaglet the father bird drops at once into the raging waters where it quickly perishes. The father goes then for the next and last babe, and while crossing asks the same question of it. The baby answers "Oh, father, I am so sorry; I cannot promise you this. But I promise you I will carry your lesson for life and I will do all I can to save my OWN babies". This chick was carried to safety.
The way of it is that our parents have children, whether by choice, happenstance. They do all they can for them given their limitations. And the children should pay this forward.
Sadly it is not always how it works and we daily see families destroying themselves and their own children for parents who spent their lives as abusive to those same children.
i think there are so many combinations/situations/possible answers...
let's start with possible reasons people help:
--had a great childhood, reciprocal love
--or had a bad childhood, but feel it's the right thing to do
--or want inheritance, calculated cost-benefit analysis
--or would prefer not to help, but there's no one else; no real choice; don't want the LO to be totally abandoned
--or pressured into helping (for example, for sexist reasons: female).
--or was the scapegoat/the one who normally was exploited anyway, so the pattern continues. although this isn't always true, it's true sometimes: that the scapegoat is often the nice, sweet one, surrounded by some mean family members. the mean family members, jealous of the kindheartedness/sweetness, tried to destroy those good qualities.
possible reasons people don't help:
--extremely selfish
--or had a bad childhood, and cut all/or almost all contact
--there's no money to be gained ("oh say can you see, what is in it for me?"), no inheritance.
--inheritance has already been distributed in part (i heard that often, elderly LOs who for example transferred their house years ago to their adult children, are the least likely adult children to help later, because they already got the house) (there are always exceptions) (but it seems to be correlated, sometimes).
--inheritance. there is something to gain. cost-benefit analysis: if they help less, or sabotage, their LO will die faster, and they'll get the inheritance faster.
'Blood ties' have nothing to do with it, in my case, b/c these are not my biological parents but my adoptive ones.
Personal integrity has a lot to do with who steps up to care for their parents in their old age, too, regardless of how they were or were not raised, I believe. We have to overlook many things in order to do what's necessary for them as they age, get sick, need help, medical attention, doctors, living arrangements, etc. etc.
So again, at the root of 'why' is Love, in my opinion. Nothing else really matters, at the end of the day. If I love you, I will do whatever I have to do to make sure you are properly cared for, safe and as happy as possible. I have a 'duty' to MYSELF to take care of business for the people in my life whom I love. That's how I look at it.
If we did it out of reciprocal love and care, this wouldn't be an issue.
I think many of us do it because we love our parents, regardless of what kind of parent they were or are. Which can be the same or two entirely different people.
I agree with JoAnn that an abused child should not be a hands on caregiver. Making sure they are getting the care they need is the only way to not stay triggered all the time, especially if they haven't changed. I think it is also a dangerous situation for elder abuse to occur, particularly when the parent treats the adult as a child that is under their authority and needs to be submissive.
For me, I help because they need(ed) it and I am the only one willing.
If I treated them the way they treated me, that's means I am no different than them and have no room to talk or be hurt by their actions. I, also, believe that vengeance is not mine. I am only answerable for my actions, not theirs.
Good boundaries are vital when we decide to help our elder parents or anybody for that matter. That keeps a whole lot of resentment out of the picture.
Life comes in all walks and with many various drivers. I hope we can all make the choices we need to make (be that placing our loved ones in organized care settings, handing this a your own home solo or w/a flotilla of outside support) that we can refrain from judging each other.
No one walked in my shoes; dad died when I was a kid, only child and went into foster care because my mom widowed at 35 was not capable of handing any of this. She was sadly broken at an early age. I tried to do the care at home solo, but after a few years it was not feasible. I moved my mom to a wonderful nursing home. She has not adjusted (it has been 16 months - she is 85, has dementia, depression, OCD, COPD, diabetes, and basically can no longer walk or do many ADLs/IADLs.
It will take years for me to cover from all of this, I know the same is for all of you. Nothing really prepares one for this "adventure" and we each have to travel this road as best we can and hopefully without others judging us as we try our best to get through this.
Prayers to all who come to this site for venting, advice or help.
I know that I said yes to my dad’s request to move in because it felt right. Having a good relationship prior surely factored into my answer but it’s a completely different dynamic when an aging parent moves in. There hasn’t been a handbook. This forum helps when I read about the dementia, privacy, siblings, need for breaks etc. I am thankful it exists.
hug!!
wishing you, your father, your whole family, well!!
Also, there is the factor of circumstances and the parents' wishes. My husband and I are currently caring for his mother in our home - she has terminal cancer and is in hospice. As you all know, it is very difficult. At the appropriate time, I plan to discuss with my three children that I will absolutely be going to assisted living if the time comes that I'm not able to care for myself. I won't take any chance of stealing their health and their retirement years to take care of me when there are paid professionals that can put in an 8-hour day and go home. I want to be independent as long as possible but honestly don't understand the "I'll never go to a nursing home" attitude.
Have had no contact with my father for over 17 years. He's on his much younger third wife. Have no idea how he is doing-quite content with that.
The over all family dynamics is not good at all. Not normal, and has been this way for at least three genrations-both sides. Seems like crazy attracts crazy.
Another part simply refuses to behave the same cold and selfish as they did. As if I wanted to prove to myself that they did not win in destroying my soul. Giving them more that they ever gave me is a triumph, though a sick one. Nevertheless I really hope that this situation will be over rather sooner than later.
Also, to a certain extent, I felt it was on me to be her caregiver, because 1) she lived with us and 2) I was the only one of my siblings (at the time) who was retired and would not have to "choose" between work and care.
I am also the one in the family that tends to feel guilt over things which I have no control - I think that was the influence of my mother's mom, with whom I was very close as a child, but hooboy, did she ever enjoy laying on the guilt. She was really a professional at it.
To my mom's credit, she never, ever took advantage of me, even knowing I felt all of those things that I listed. She was also not physically difficult to take care of; she didn't have any sort of dementia, so mentally she was always my mom. It was the CHF that left her so weak that she needed help with some ADL's; others she was able to handle with no problem.
I don't know, honestly, how I would have done if the time had come that I had to place her. While taking care of her at home was incredibly hard, in an emotional and mental sense, I am grateful that her health never got so bad that we had to make a hard choice about placement. I have such sympathy for everyone who has to make that choice, even when it's clearly the only option (of bad options) left to them.
I think for 99% of the people who are giving care to a loved one, love is the driving force behind whichever decision is made.