I moved back to my hometown last year after a breakup. And a benefit of this is that I’ve been able to see my Mother more, and we’ve grown quite close.
She is approaching 70 and lives on her own after my step dad died several years back. She is seemingly gaining more and more ailments, its always the main topic of discussion with her it seems these days. She likes to be active, but joint and knee issues are preventing her, and I can see it’s frustrating her.
Her mind isn’t as sharp anymore, and I can see her getting frustrated with this too. When she forgets things or does something wrong I can see her annoyance at herself.
It frustrates me not being able to help her more. I’ll try and reassure her, and help if I can. I got her a brain training game on the switch which she likes, and things like knee supports to help her stay active.
But also I don’t envision staying here long-term, I am not happy here and wish to move somewhere with more opportunity, a city for example. But the thought of leaving my Mum again is a tough one.
How are you guys navigating this?
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Unfortunately thats how it goes. Just be ready to pull the ripcord when they cant maintain independence. Get POAs set up for their financial situations before they are scammed.
They didn’t give shit about my problems when I was growing up so I’m returning the favor. Simple as that.
Acceptance. This is the only way. Time moves in one direction.
First of all, you need to focus on doing what you can to continue to move on after the breakup. You don’t have to stay in that town.
Second, I have empathy for your situation. My parents are in their late 60s and won’t eat healthy or exercise. My dad just got laid off from his job, and they refuse to save and invest any money. I say this all because there’s nothing you can do if parents are not prepared for aging.
It’s hard. Frankly my biggest fear and one of my biggest struggles. I love my parents and struggle with the certainty that one day I’ll see them die. Nothing about that seems reasonable, like death is a part of life and so on and so forth but it really fucks me up.
My general approach is just to spend as much time with them as possible while they’re here, even if it means missing other stuff. I don’t want to regret having not spent enough time with them years from now.
Well, as someone who hasn’t had a great relationship with their parents in a long time, here’s my take on it. For context – my dad is already dead and my mom lives far away, I rarely see her.
There’s still a sadness to it. Some of it is regret, like “what could i have done differently? Why did I make the life choices that I made which ensured I’d almost never see her?” Those types of thoughts creep in, and the hard-hitting part is you know that it’s irreversible. Can’t go back in time and do things differently, just need to accept them as they are and that the current situation is the outcome of all prior decisions made.
Then you think forward. How can I spend more time with her? Do I *want* to spend more time with her? Will she care? Will I care when she’s gone and I no longer have the option?
I guess to summarize: I spend a lot of time thinking about it and not a lot of time doing anything about it. Whether I’ll regret that decision or not remains to be seen. Highly likely that I will, if I’m just making predictions.
Horribly. They are always telling me about how some person called them and is on the brink of convincing them to give up their bank account information or downloading something on their PC to “clean it” or how their new friend on Facebook is warning them about some conspiracy and they need to buy a bunch of stuff because of said conspiracy…
I wish I had the money to buy a large home, so I can move them in with me.
We’re lucky that my Dad and my in-laws have had jobs that allowed them to really prepare for old age.
That said, we’re in a starter house now, but I fully intend for my next home to be able to fit as many grandparents as it needs to. Learning about the costs of farming out the care to nursing homes, especially if a parent has a serious condition, is absurd.
I’m not there yet. Dad’s an alcoholic and will likely continue to act like an alcoholic until he develops alcohol-related dementia like his father, and *his* father before him.
Mom seems sharp. Had a brief scare last year when she sent me some very odd birthday gifts (she’s normally a very creative gift giver) but she swore it was part of a joke that nobody really understood but her. She hasn’t shown any other signs. I didn’t know how to bring that one up because I didn’t want to seem ungrateful.
They’re both in their late 60s. It’s kind of weird for me because, going by the ages of my grandparents, it looks like we have about five to ten good years left. Most of them died in their early 80s after developing dementia.
Financially they’ll be fine. They’re not the type of people to fall for modern scams, but they are the type of people to fall for old-fashioned scams, which people don’t seem to be pulling too often anymore.
The trick is for your parents to die tragically young
Mild to moderate bouts of anxiety / depression.