i am not coping with grandmother

helen_vasey

So, cfc, it's selfish not to like seeing your family life destroyed, is it? The op is having a difficult time, as is her family and all you can do is criticise her spelling and grammar. Caring for someone either old and infirm or terminally ill is physically and emotionally draining, the op can obviously see the toll it's taking on her poor mum, how many womens' lives have been severely impinged by years of caring? I know one lovely lady who spent 20 years caring for her mother and when she finally died, the lady managed to find a nice man who she was going to marry , then her father developed dementia, she felt she had no choice but to take care of him and subsequently lost her husband to be because her father made her choose between them. I have one daughter and there is no way I would ruin her life by expecting her to look after me should I become unable to look after myself. We don't (or shouldn't) have children so that we have "built in" carers ready for the end of our life.

CFC

Parents do not produce children so that they can have a carer at the end of their life, that's pretty obvious. It may happen in some societies, but not in ours. Though I would take dispute with your 'shouldn't' as that appears to criticise and imply that we are morally superior to countries whose inhabitants can't afford to stuff Granny into a paid-for home. In those countries, which perhaps are more civilised than ours in some ways, the view is that family look after family.

The problems that the OP is having seem fairly minor (ie Granny is not demented or physically disabled, although she seems a bit sly) and the fact that she complains that her own friends ask after Granny and that she is prepared to play a dyslexia card for sympathy indicates to me that Granny may not be the only manipulative person around.

As for your lady friend, if she allowed her father to make her choose, then that was her own choice. The deal is not that you allow the old person to bully you. That's not caring, it's emotional weakness. I do not personally think that it is appropriate to care for people with dementia or who need intense nursing at home, as you will note from my previous post, because the levels of care required are beyond the skills of the average person and of those who are emotionally involved with the sufferer.

However in this situation we are talking about a mother and father who are doing what they think to be right, even if they do not enjoy it, more praise to them, and a young lady who doesn't like it and feels she can't put up with it.
Life is not a bed of roses and I do not think it appropriate to be unduly sympathetic to her in these circumstances. I am certainly very sympathetic towards and applaud her parents, though.

I'm glad, but sad for you, that your principles tell you that you do not expect your daughter to assist you when you get old, despite the fact that for 20 odd years you'll look after her, and then perhaps be a babysitter in the future for her own children.

You're brave to embrace the prospect that you will willingly go into an old people's home when you need a bit of support in your daily life. I do hope you enjoy your institutional life when it comes. It's rather like boarding school without any of the pleasures, and with nothing to look forward to except a wooden box.

Good luck with it.