<p>vlines - interesting link, thanks. I think at this point in time they would be a little small for two of us. But something along those lines would be interesting. I’m going to bookmark it for future consideration.</p>
<p>vlines, and others whose parents are still driving but shouldn’t be: take away the car keys. “But he needs to get around,” you say. He doesn’t need to get around by running over other people. How would you live with yourself if your parent killed someone because you had been unable to act?</p>
<p>Cardinal, we have tried. But when his MD and dept. of transportation test him, and say that he is still OK to drive, it is impossible to do that. He is not incompetent. So we can not force it on him. I have had the discussion with my husband many times, and my father in law too, about him stopping driving- to no avail. </p>
<p>Swimcat…they have biggerones out there, that was just the first link that came up with, Some are quite cool!</p>
<p>I think my worries are somewhat irrational. My sil adores my mother - she had her spend the first week with her after she had babies before her mother came. My Mom is really easy going, but also a bit New England stiff upper lippish. She can be hard to read so she may well have other concerns that I haven’t heard about. It’s a lot of work to keep up a house even if you are hiring people to do the actual work. She’s been through a lot this past year. My Dad passed away just over a year ago, and she had breast cancer this spring. She’s much less sure on her feet than she was. She lives in the same town as my brother (moved up about five years ago when my Dad started failing.) She’s involved in Garden Club, Community Supper and the Library Ladies. She has friends. I just think evenings at home seem very empty. She’s still sharp, but she shuffles and seems a bit lacking in energy. Maybe that’s just in compared to her sister who is the energizer bunny of old ladies. She no longer likes to drive at night and won’t go far during the day too. If anythings she’s too cautious!</p>
<p>My brother’s house used to be a bed and breakfast - it’s already got a wheelchair ramp to the door everyone uses. She’d have a big room on the ground floor with her own bathroom, but I don’t think they are planning on giving her a separate kitchen. There are three sitting rooms, one has the piano, one is really part of the kitchen, and one is the formal living room, but I don’t think there would be an expectation that one would be dedicated to her sole use. I don’t think my Mom is expecting to be taken care of - I think she’d just like to have bodies around at night. My brother’s household is certainly one where everyone can comfortably take care of breakfast and lunch on their own - they always have family dinner. I think it will work, but just want to make sure that we’ve thought things through. There is an assisted living place in town, and I believe my Mom made it to the top of the wait list a while back, but wasn’t ready to move then, and I don’t think she really wants to move there now.</p>
<p>My mother in law drove for far too long. She actually lost her license but kept driving and her husband who still had his license but didn’t really like driving would let her drive. We finally hid the cars. Eventually my mil’s dementia made it clear even to him she couldn’t drive, but she continued to be upset about it until she could no longer talk. It was really sad.</p>
<p>I think the two key considerations are how both of your brother and sil feel about your mother, and what type of personality your mother has. You seem to feel satisfied with both of those things.</p>
<p>My father has become very self-centered and more demanding as he has aged. I’m fairly confident that if he had moved in with us rather than the assisted living home, I would be divorced now.</p>
<p>I think my mother expects ME to move in with HER, esp. so she can live by “My house, my rules.” I dread the day, because she bullies me so much and I always need a glass or two of wine after I have spent my Friday helping her out. Her place is large, and mine has 44 steps to the front door plud a live-in husband! Supposedly, she has been working on cleaning her place out since my dad died over 16 1/2 years ago, but she still has three bedrooms plus two more closets filled with her clothes, some of which are 20, 30, 40,and 50 years old. She has always been bigger than I, so the only thing I can wear of hers is her jewelry. It is all getting too unmanageable for her, but if/when I push I get double the push-back so I have given up. I am pretty sure she won’t pass away or need/allow me to provide more care before DD goes off to college, but what a mess!!! I can appreciate wanting to remain independent, but why does she complain incessantly about all the stuff she has to do when there is someone (me) who has offered to take part of it off her hands? Or does she just want a Pity Party?</p>
<p>My mother lived with us for ten years, and it was tough, for different reasons, throughout that time.</p>
<p>Initially she was mobile and active. In her old community, she had been very active with friends and her church. When she moved in with us, she tried to take over everything, meals, deciding what we were going to do on weekends, etc. It was tough, and we had to set boundaries. </p>
<p>She didn’t really embrace making new friends, it was probably around this time that her hearing started to go. It was tough to find out she didn’t want to do things with the church ladies like she used to, that she wanted to be with us 24/7.</p>
<p>About three years into it, her osteoporosis started getting bad, and her driving iffy. After she broke her hip, we had to take the car keys away.</p>
<p>She would take the senior bus places and get a ride to church. She did have medical issues, but at this point started to totally fixate on them, getting OC about her medicines and going to the doctor’s and emergency room all the time, for every minor ailment. </p>
<p>We had issues with her interfering with our parenting. She would do her own food shopping and load up on junk food for the kids, and would ignore my requests to moderate this. My S started having a weight issue, and I would just go and throw things away after she bought them.</p>
<p>Our biggest mistake was in not having a separate living area for her. Her bedroom and bathroom were on the first floor, and we shared the kitchen and dining room.</p>
<p>She had hoarding tendencies that I had forgotten about until she moved in with us and her stuff took over. It was tough dealing with her at the latter stages, as she obviously had some onset dementia issues, and I had no place to get away from it, and no break.</p>
<p>When her mobility declined (along with incontinence), we couldn’t take her some places with us (but we were mostly home on weekends), and she resented that. She was alone much of the time, (we all work full time, kids activities, etc) and she was no doubt depressed. </p>
<p>After her last hospitalization. I decided I couldn’t do it anymore and made arrangements for an assisted living for her, which she seemed ok with. Unfortunately, she suffered a heath decline and went into a nursing home for the last six months of her life.</p>
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<p>I saw an interesting sign when I was visiting Hawaii. It was advertising a pre-school/day care facility–but also included elder day care on the same premises. Reminds me of when I used to drop the little one off at pre-school. Will the day come when I will be dropping off my father at day care?</p>
<p>The internet has proved to be the way my father socializes. He doesn’t really socialize IRL, but has a bustling internet community that he’s involved in.</p>
<p>Parents living with adult children can be ideal as long as the parent is fairly healthy. My mother lived with my sister and only sibling (who never married) and all was well until my mother at age 81 (very healthy until then) started experiencing one thing after another( frequent hospitalizations, incontinence,mobility issues,early dementia,etc until her death in July at 87). My sister (a very loving, devoted daughter) gradually became more stressed and somewhat resentlful (and feeling guilty about having these emotions-as martina said-sometimes you feel you just can’t do it anymore)as time went by. The stress was very overwhelming at times and I took many a call (8 hours away)about the stress involved. Spent weeks and months over the last 5 plus years helping sister by relocating to their town to help with caregiving. My sister was determined to not have my mom end up in a nursing home and they did not want other caregivers in the home . I finally convinced them to hire a part time caregiver but it was a struggle to get them to agree to that. My mom ended up dying at home in hospice but there was certainly a toll on the family to make that happen. So, I do think thinking ahead is important-what if mom needs increased care, does parent have resources to cover the cost of care, is assisted living a better alternative,etc?). All the best. These issues are so very difficult.</p>
<p>Having parents in the home is ideal, and as a healthcare professional, I too would do everything I can to keep a loved one out of a nursing home. However, taking all the responsibility without respite is just going to make you resentful towards both parent and siblings. I have seen it too many times. We all have limits.</p>
<p>vlines, I totally agree. We all do have limits and until you have personally dealt with trying to maintain an elderly parent at home, it can be hard to comprehend the stress involved.We are all living so much longer that this is only going to get worse. My 91 year old mother in law is in a memory unit and is well cared for. There is still stress involved for her children but it has not compared with the stress involved with trying to keep an aging parent at home who needs major caretaking help on a 24/7 basis. However, MIL has not had major medical/hospitalization stuff going on. I would imagine that would greatly add to stress for adult children dealing with parents in assisted living/memory care types of places. All of it is tough.</p>
<p>I did not want to put my mother into a nursing home, but really had no choice. I couldn’t give up my job, and even if I did, I was in no way prepared to take on the kind of care she required. Her insurance would not cover the kind of in home care she would have needed.</p>
<p>Before the hospitalization and health decline, she was at the point at home that we thought she could injure herself or worse. She would leave the gas on on the stove, leave things cooking and forget about them, and try to do stairs and things that she knew she shouldn’t try. She couldn’t use the phone, between her mental impairment & deafness. The only thing I could think of to do was assisted living, which was doable between her income and a veteran’s benefit.</p>
<p>Before she went into hospice care I would have to take her to doctor’s appointments from the nursing home, and that required me to wrangle her into and out of my car. Once she was eligible for state assistance I was able to hire a wheelchair van. This was on a weekly basis, because the anemia med I used to give her at home wasn’t available to the nursing home pharmacy (drug shortage issue).</p>
<p>They were wonderful to her at the nursing home, and I was able to spend time with her every day in a positive way, not as the resentful, overburdened caretaker that I had become.</p>
<p>Exactly, martina, The times when my mom was in the hospital or rehab, we were able to be her daughters, not her caretakers. Now that she is gone, I feel that way when I visit my mother-in-law. We can be there as her daughter in law and son, not her primary caretakers for her physical needs. And as anybody who has been there knows , the caretaking (transfers,bathroom help,etc) for someone who is elderly and needs 24/7 care is overwhelming. I think sometimes we make promises (you’ll never have to go to assisted living or a nursing home for instance), that we just might not be able to keep unless we seriously sacrifice our own health and well being to keep that promise.</p>
<p>It is tough coming to terms with the fact that our parents need care as much as they need their children. I am still in the situation of daily care although my father does not live with us. I have a sibling who would never consider suggesting that our dad go to an assisted living or any other type of facility unless we could not lift him or he required assistence with bathing and toileting. I really hope it never comes to that and I am happy that my dad is still able to live in his own place a few streets away from his kids in each direction.</p>
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<p>Is it always ideal?</p>
<p>Many elderly people who live with a family member become socially isolated. In addition, their activities may be limited because the home is not designed for people with physical limitations. And some don’t get adequate health care because of the difficulty in getting out of the house to go to the doctor or dentist (those porch steps can be a huge obstacle). I have seen this happen in my own family.</p>
<p>A good care facility (or for a healthier senior, an independent living senior residence) that’s near family could be ideal in some cases. It offers opportunities for social interaction with other residents, a fully accessible environment, and easy access to health care, while at the same time, allowing for as much interaction with family members as both the senior and other people in the family desire.</p>
<p>No, it is not always ideal, but in most situations it is ideal. The biggest issue is finding a “good care facility”.</p>
<p>My mother lives with my brother and he is a saint because she is difficult. My suggestion would be to discuss everything, no matter how small, so that there are no misunderstandings or hard feelings. Who will take her to appointments, grocery shopping, holiday shopping, whatever. The biggest small issue for my brother is how my mother will celebrate the holidays. He doesn’t enjoy hoopla and feels extremely penned in by the assumption that she would spend every holiday with him, so I’ve been the one to take her for every holiday, which means that I can never go away or celebrate with someone else because I have to cook and make a holiday for my mom. It would be great if one of our other siblings would help out, but they don’t, and my brother has her all the time, so I refuse to let him be imposed on for holidays. I would also arrange to schedule in some time off for your brother and his family for vacations, private outings, whatever they need to do. Don’t wait for them to have to ask, because that will build resentment. Hash out a schedule up front and stick to it. Good luck!</p>
<p>The one person who hasn’t been mentioned at all in this is the kid still in high school in the home. </p>
<p>As someone who was once that kid, the kid should be brought into the discussion of moving grandma in. (Not saying he should have a veto, but it should not just be sprung on him). </p>
<p>People who have high school and college aged kids and elderly parents are truly sandwiched. I’ve seen people torn between attending events of their children and caring for their elderly parents. I’ve seen people who are basically homebound to care for elderly parents. They are finally ‘free’ to travel while they are still healthy themselves, they’ve raised the kids, they want to do the things they’ve put off due to paying for college, etc. and then they have to put their own plans on hold again. It’s a very tough situation.</p>
<p>Exactly what happened to me, TatinG. Perfectly healthy mom until she was 81 and then it was one thing after another. My kids were a college freshman and high school freshman at the time. Just as I was seeing the light at the end of the tunnel with childrearing, all kinds of stuff started happening with my mom. Spent weeks away from home off and on helping to care for her for over 5 years until her recent death, missed important events in son’s lives. It is not easy and there are lots of us on this thread alone that are dealing with these issues with our parents. I truly don’t know what the answer is. It is a very tough situation many times, especially when a parent starts having incontinence,mobility and dementia issues. At that point, we have found that the memory unit my 91 year old MIL is the best place for her. She is well cared for and safe.</p>
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<p>My mother died the year my DS was a high school senior…she died in the spring. There were many senior things I missed…and somethings with my mom that fortunately my husband dealt with because I was out of town with DS. We were happy she was close to us (not living with us) for those last six months…but there were many conflicts…MANY…and she was not living in our home.</p>