Are you going to take care of your parents when they get elderly?

[Catherine Wheel]

I don't drive and living in a city like D.C. I've never really felt the need to. But my parents (ages 61 and 66) are starting to put pressure on me to get my license. And even though I am also terrified of the thought of driving I do understand why they are doing this.

[Toby]

No. My brother is the likely candidate.

[reprise85]

maybe my mom. she's 62

[vixnix]

Probably. I'm the eldest and the only daughter. My father told me that he'd rather I pushed him off a cliff than put him in a rest home and my mum feels the same way. So I'll either be looking after them or making other arrangements.

[obscured01]

I already am. I'm the only child, my mom is 68 and has dementia, that has gotten progressively worse. We just moved her from Lubbock to here (Ft. Worth) and she was living with us for a couple of months, but has been moved into her own house right by my work for about a month. I handle all her business, and go with her to get all of her appointments/business taken care of.

Ex. today, we had an appointment with ADT at her house this afternoon, and then we went to the VA to get her registered locally here and get her an appointment for her yearly physical.

She can drive but since she's new she gets lost very easily. She's learning the area around her house well though.

[TheGirl]

I most definitely would and gladly but my mother is of the mind that she would never want to be a burden to either of her kids. I try to explain that it would in no way be but she's got her mind made up. She saw the way her own mother had to take care of a very sick elderly parent and the toll that it took on her over time and she's just not going to have it.
She's only in her early 50's yet so hopefully we've got a lot of time before that becomes an issue anyway.

[great poster]

no way, that's a job for my sister. i'm gonna be living the dream, baby.

[Order 66]

gonna take great care of my daddy ;-p~~~

[killtrocity]

you don't ask dumb question you fucking guy you

[yo soy el mejor]

my mother just turned 50 last year and my step-dad is barely pushing 54. they have quite a while before i have to worry about any of that. but if i am in any sort of position, i would def take care of them. ew i don't wanna think about this :[

[hnibos]

I seriously hope not.

[JokeyLoki]

Probably. I don't think either of my parents has any kind of serious retirement plan in place. It's either take care of them, or let them be homeless :/

[teh b0lly!!1]

man what a depressing thread

and just today i had a pretty bad fight\talk with my mom
i feel like shit

i don't think i'll ever put her in a home though, or my father.
my gf's grandmother has had dementia for around 3 years before she (recently) died. her son, my gf's father, lives in italy. he put her in a home and when we'd visit her it would just be the most intolerably depressing sight. an 80 year old woman, broken vessel, makes no sense, angry and paranoid, completely dependent on other people even for something like going to pee.
just going through there and feeling people look at me i felt so guilty for being young.
if and when i have kids i would never want to be treated like that. and i won't treat my parents like that

[reprise85]

yes watching people with dementia deteriorate is extremely sad. please shoot me if it starts happening.

i had a great uncle with Alzheimer's who live with us for about 18 months. i was about 11. when he started getting aggressive my mom had to put him in a home.
he lived for about another six months. he had false teeth and was trying to bite people so they wouldn't let him wear them
the night before he died my mom and I went to see him and he thought I was his wife (who had been dead for about a decade) and kept calling me by her name and started crying when i didn't pretend to be her. they gave him a shot of lorazepam, it really upset him, i don't know if he realized i wasn't her or if he continued to think i was and that his wife wasn't responding to him and seemed afraid or whatever.

that shit suck with me hardcore for like a year afterwards, it was really disturbing especially at that age

since then I've had a psychotic person in a hospital calling me Jessie and asking how i could i have stolen "all his money". when the guy stopped being psychotic i asked him who it was and he said it was his daughter but that she had never stolen money from him. but that's definitely different than the great uncle thing of course

[obscured01]

Stress makes things worse, so this move has been hard on her. She is paranoid, and often accuses people who've been in her house for installation/work of stealing something from her. Just today she said someone had stolen all her nails so she had to go to home depot to buy new ones. I said "you're always saying someone's stolen something from you, they're boxedup in the garage" - she got really upset with me for not believing her. But then two weeks ago she'd called the police on the dish network guy for stealing a ring of hers... that she found two days later.

It's a mess. I don't think I handle it well either though because I have a hard time admitting she's getting worse, and just keep thinking/hoping she'll be able to continue to be independent as long as normal people should, even though I know that's not the case. She was on Alzheimer's meds but I'm not entirely sure she is still taking them.

Being that she's my only family that's still alive is pretty messed up. I bend over backwards to try to do things for her and make her happy, but part of her disease is this paranoia and depression and I don't think I really do much good that she can tell.

[reprise85]

it is an unappreciated job for sure. It is very good of you to do all you do for her. I don't know that I could deal with someone sick like that, even my mom.