What do you expect from your children when you are older and frailer?

Morglin

onlyroz wrote: »

I think it just shows that parents can often unthinking have a favoured child whether they are male or female, older or younger. However, I do think that when it comes to weddings and having babies sons often get the raw end of the deal.

Your son says "I'm getting married" so you go out and buy a big hat then turn up on the day feeling smug at what a great parent you are. Your daughter says the same and you spend a year in indepth discussions over everything from the guest-list to how the napkins are going to be folded. Your son says "We're having a baby" and so you say that's nice dear" and turn up after the birth with a set of hand knitted booties. Your daughter says the same and you spend nine months gushing over her bump, helping her design the nursery, and pouring over baby name books.

I think that sons are expected to be more self-sufficient and that this can lead to a sort of passive neglect which can seem like disinterest. So you end up with young men who rarely visit their parents because they are so used to being independent that they don't see why they should help out when their parents start to get frail. Daughters on the other hand are taught "caring duties" from an early age and so often end up feeling that they must drop everything for their parents out of a sense of duty and obligation. And if course this itself can lead to family resentments building up.

It was the opposite in our family home, I had a good relationship with my dad, but my mother did everything for my brother - he wasn't allowed to do a thing for himself!

Not a cup did he lift.......:eek:

When he announced he was getting married, all hell broke loose, for a year, with the wedding planning, with both our mother, and the brides mother competing over who could do more and who could spend more!

She even used to take him meals to the marital home in case he wasn't being fed properly!:eek::eek:

I was 9 when she had him, and she told me then that her life was complete now she had him - and it was. Shame he didn't give a toss when she got Alzheimer's.

Lin :doh:

duchy

The thing is that even if care is given with a good heart and with love -many carers have their own health or families broken by the demands of caring an older relative. Many women who cared for the parents/grandparents of these older relatives didn't have to hold down fulltime jobs as well just to afford a mortgage with both partners working like today but were homemakers/housewives.

I was a carer for three years and the pressure of my own family, working and caring for my Mum was enormous. There is an expectation that female family members will naturally do caring -as that was what was the norm and outside agencies would mean the family didn't care. It isn't about not caring it's often more what is physically possible and sustainable. Many women today are damaging their own health to fufil their own and other expectations of their responsibilities.

Morglin

One of the problems, with people living longer, is that the 'middle generation' are often trying to care for elderly parents, work, and help with grandchildren.

Lin :eek: