What Is Your Take On The Issue Of Leaving Elderly Parents In Old Age Homes?

why you are taking my views personally?? i am also stating my views, why it is bothering you if i am finding her posts preachy without real experience, why you are coming here to judge me and using offensive words as sly?? why you feeling a personal need to defend her??? or you are also one who believe in talking high and preaching others, thats why it is troubling you????
if you think preaching others without doing is fine, its OK. we can disagree, i have just stated my views, if you believe that elder care can be done just by talking and then you can feel you have done enough to judge others...its fine....but i dont agree with you.

 

Thanks Lakshmi. My hugs to you too. I can certainly understand your pain and angst. Ultimately we do whatever we have to do and go along with the flow, but that does not ease the sense of injustice.

 

@armummy If you read OPs posts, she is not planning to host her MIL. She is just saying she will not object her MIL staying with her if the situation comes to her MIL having to go to an old age home and her husband will be the caregiver and not her as her MIL lost the right by abusing her.

I have lived with my MIL and almost had a nervous breakdown dealing with MIL & SIL. After we finish this assignment we will go back to india and MIL will live with us. So for me living with MIL is not some possible event in the foggy future, but will happen in the next couple of years. We take full financial responsibility for MIL even now. When we go, we will take full financial and physical responsibility of MIL. I have no plans to do on the contrary. The point where OP & I differ is emotional support. My husband and I think that we should keep away emotionally from MIL in view of what has happened in the past. If she wanted emotional support, she should have considered the repercussions of what she has done. She has absolute mental clarity. My view is that physical and financial support is the best I can give her. I have personally no issues in cooking and cleaning for her. She can find emotional support wherever she wants. There was a call that keeping away from an old person emotionally is cruel, but according to me it is required to keep our own mental health intact.

After this the thread got deviated. If I want my family to keep away from her, it is cruel. All that I wrote subsequently was trying to give a justification of why I thought so. I have also understood that i have given away too much of information and that nobody is interested in the fairness of my situation or the fairness of what I am willing to do for my MIL. Yes I am a hard nut - but she is my MIL, not someone I know from work whom I want to show that I cannot be messed with. One of the reasons I respect my husband is that no matter how irritated he is with MIL, he is never disrespectful to her - at least never openly. I dont answer her back not because I dont know how to, but because i dont want to. I would hate it if my husband answers back my mother, and im just trying to return the favor. Im not saying i never will - just that i will try my best as it is not right IMO.

 

Thank you for understanding my real concerns. MIL will be staying with us. I cant explain it but there is no way she will live alone or with SIL in the future. But I am also learning to cope up with it. I will not go back to work that is sure. And that was my biggest personal problem. And yes I held it against my MIL. It is the most difficult decision I have made in my life. I had worked so hard for so many years to get where I was. I was depressed. Slowly I am coming to terms with the SAHM role. Trying to crack it now.

I need to be home when my daughter comes back from school to superwise. If I cant bring her up properly, there will be no use of my education or the money that I will purportedly earn. It has also made me more grateful for the fact that I have means to stay at home. I can go out, join some hobby class, yoga, part time teaching - something that will keep me occupied.

Apart from my immediate family and a couple of friends nobody knows that we have problems. Only my sister knows the full extent of our problems. I got very emotional seeing how others would view the choices we have made in our lives. People who have never even seen my MILs face are so sympathetic for her old age, how would her sisters for example view us? It has been a very sobering discussion for me. It does not change my decision, but makes me angry at the unfairness of it. And maybe make me more sympathetic for other peoples choices.

Thank you.

 

If one talks about it, one becomes the insensitive and ungrateful one. Tradition is abused in a way that works for the person. Often against women.

 

Interesting.

A few points:
- Female infanticides and female foeticides were predominant in the 1960s to 1990s. Most parents kept procreating till they had at-least one male heir. It was a widely accepted and appreciated concept that male children should take care of the parents till the end of life. The middle-class parents with only daughters would be a minuscule number then.
- Those parents who did exist, lived within the joint family setup of their own marital home. The probability of such parent living their last years alone would be less.
- Neighbours played a huge role in taking care of each other at that time. Plus a close knit community or village or town was trendy than what we have now.

 

2 brothers of my grandfather were unmarried, hence didnt have any children. My father and My uncles took care of them as their own parents. As joint family culture were prevailed hence people consider father, uncles as same entity in family.
In my childhood i didnt even know who is my real grand father. They all had the same status in the family.

 

Adding another layer of complexity(or the opposite):
The average life span of a elderly parent has increased exponentially over the past decades. The number of years a parent invests in raising a child vs the number of years the child spends (expected to) in caring for the parent are different.
The former case nowadays is a little easy. Parents vs children.
The latter is more difficult now. Parents vs children vs children's spouses vs children's siblings vs children's in-laws vs children's siblings in-laws vs ^#$%%%$$agfy........ .

Its undeniable that the expectations from parents towards children and their spouses have skyrocketed. They want every child to do everything. They spend a lot on education and they need a return on their investment. May be in the form of trips abroad, payment for the house, caring for them in their old age. Plus traditional values are mixed in this mess. A nuclear family is not accepted by many elders but the same is fine by them when it can be used as a show of status.

Most children can afford expensive medical treatments these days. The drama and confusion caused by the elderly is the real issue. Some are just not ready to accept anything. When offered money, they are too proud to take it. When given a choice of a retirement home, the children are selfish. When offered to move in with kids, its a matter of pride and self-respect. When offered an expensive treatment, they are well off to do things by themselves. There is also a constant comparison with ILs. ILs have so and so facility, we need to be on the same page with them.

Yes, the solution differs with each case. But the origin of the problems are the same.

 

You can think whatever you want and judge how ever you want. It is your choice.

I am thankful to know I don't share your views , thanks for letting me know

 

no problem dear...