Holiday stress(JAWM)

[Mrs Tiggywinkle Again]

This week I have to give my students a final that I just finished writing, pull together a nice graduation for the graduating class that I thought the outgoing program director was handling(and three people also swear they heard him say he’d handle everything for the graduating class, including my boss), attend two Christmas concerts, one gymnastics thing, and provide Christmas cookies for one kids’ class and a fruit platter for another, and I have two Christmas parties that I ate least need to show up for.

and on top of this, my mother picks this week to stop speaking to me after I called out her nonsense behavior towards one of my sisters and her lack of planning for my disabled sister’s future and basically said she won’t have any kids speaking to her if she keeps this up.  I know it is rude but she has done nothing but caregiving for eight years—no travel, no visiting out of town grandchildren, no shows or plays or things she used to do, and it has changed her mentally. I wouldn’t have said this fifteen years ago but honestly I now think she’s got some codependency/martyrdom complex going on. Two of my siblings are no or low contact because she continually prioritized my grandmother over them, and I am talking missing things like births and graduations, and she refused to hire a home health aide for the longest time(and now cannot other than the one lady she has because no one locally does the level of physical personal care that is needed outside of a nursing home. I’d had enough of the victimization thing she’s got going on and called her out on it.

But now I don’t know if she’s picking up DD from school tomorrow as she does every Monday, and I really need to reschedule a meeting if she isn’t.

 

Edited December 17, 2023 by Mrs Tiggywinkle Again

[Harriet Vane]

Awww, that’s a lot!

Good for you for speaking up. I’m sorry it’s so rough and sorry for the not knowing what happens tomorrow. None of it sounds easy.

[Mrs Tiggywinkle Again]

It’s enough stress that I wound up in the ER last week with a severe headache and TIA. Like seriously. I’ll be glad when this job gets easier(I demanded they hire two more part time instructors and seven lab instructors starting in January, so it’s coming).  
But the issue with my mom is the icing on the cake.

[SKL]

It's a stressful time!  I suspect the seasonal stress is pouring over into your interactions with your mom.  Not that she doesn't need to hear your words, but you would have probably had it easier if you'd waited until after Christmas to let loose.

I don't have any suggestions.  I hope your mom's head clears and she picks your daughter up tomorrow.

Meanwhile, are there any punching bags around that you could take it out on??

Edited December 17, 2023 by SKL

[Katy]

Why doesn’t she put her in a nursing home? It makes no sense. 

[Mrs Tiggywinkle Again]

5 minutes ago, Katy said:

Why doesn’t she put her in a nursing home? It makes no sense. 

Partly because the care at our local nursing homes is terrible.  She’s been in short term rehab which is in the nursing homes here and would spend hours waiting for incontinence care, got pressure sores, etc.  Even the private pay facilities are not great.  And my grandmother is very mentally sharp and hated those places.

And partly because I think my mom likes the accolades she gets for giving up her life to care for my grandmother.  A few years ago they could have hired an agency to come in, but now her physical disabilities have advanced to nearly bed bound and no one does that level here as far as agencies are concerned. They’d have to hire privately and while my grandmother actually has private insurance that would cover it, it pays  minimum wage and I can’t imagine who you’d get to come out.

But I think if she actually tried, my mom could find people to at least do overnights.  But again, my armchair diagnosis is that she’s become very codependent and really needs to be needed and have the admiration.  Probably before being a homeschool mom of many kids filled that need and now we are all gone, most moved far away, nobody but me homeschools, and we don’t really need her or turned out the way she thought we would.

I probably could have waited but the argument started seasonally specific—she isn’t sending my one sister’s kids Christmas presents because that sister wouldn’t let her see their newborn baby last year during RSV season and it would have involved at least three planes and two layovers to get to her house.  All my kids have been sick for a week, I have had several very very sick baby and toddler patients with RSV lately, my mom listens to too much Fox News and I’m sick of her downplaying how bad it is really is out there.

[Faith-manor]

13 hours ago, Mrs Tiggywinkle Again said:

Partly because the care at our local nursing homes is terrible.  She’s been in short term rehab which is in the nursing homes here and would spend hours waiting for incontinence care, got pressure sores, etc.  Even the private pay facilities are not great.  And my grandmother is very mentally sharp and hated those places.

And partly because I think my mom likes the accolades she gets for giving up her life to care for my grandmother.  A few years ago they could have hired an agency to come in, but now her physical disabilities have advanced to nearly bed bound and no one does that level here as far as agencies are concerned. They’d have to hire privately and while my grandmother actually has private insurance that would cover it, it pays  minimum wage and I can’t imagine who you’d get to come out.

But I think if she actually tried, my mom could find people to at least do overnights.  But again, my armchair diagnosis is that she’s become very codependent and really needs to be needed and have the admiration.  Probably before being a homeschool mom of many kids filled that need and now we are all gone, most moved far away, nobody but me homeschools, and we don’t really need her or turned out the way she thought we would.

I probably could have waited but the argument started seasonally specific—she isn’t sending my one sister’s kids Christmas presents because that sister wouldn’t let her see their newborn baby last year during RSV season and it would have involved at least three planes and two layovers to get to her house.  All my kids have been sick for a week, I have had several very very sick baby and toddler patients with RSV lately, my mom listens to too much Fox News and I’m sick of her downplaying how bad it is really is out there.

That last paragraph really resonates with me. I have a sister in law and niece who literally reject the concept of viral transmission. They have some strange belief in "out of balance and bad humors" causing illness. So they these huge walking Petri dishes of disease. They even brag about spreading whooping cough one year, and how that benefited everyone who got it because it strengthened their natural "balance". These would be the people who are actually Typhoid Marys and would need to be forcefully confined by the state. Since my brother goes along with his wife in everything, he was not allowed to see his grandbabies who were born during RSV season. Their parents were being super, duper careful with them as newborns. They were sooo vicious towards their sons and dils because of it.

I don't blame you for losing it on her. My goodness. You see this horror show everyday. Her lack of respect for the welfare of the grandbabies is very upsetting.

Many hugs. I hope you survive it all. I really feel like December has become something most folks end up hating because the expectations are insanely high and too much stuff is packed into it. Just once I would like to see schools do a fall play, band concert, choir recital, and lay off December. It would be nice if people would host parties at other times of the year.

Hugs!

Edited December 18, 2023 by Faith-manor

[fairfarmhand]

1 hour ago, Faith-manor said:

 

Many hugs. I hope you survive it all. I really feel like December has become something most folks end up hating because the expectations are insanely high and too much stuff is packed into it. Just once I would like to see schools do a fall play, band concert, choir recital, and lay off December. It would be nice if people would host parties at other times of the year.

Hugs!

This is the specific reason that my drama group performs it’s fall semester show the last weekend before thanksgiving. Then we’re done until after New Years. It’s just too much and we all want to be done before any of the holidays.

[KungFuPanda]

3 hours ago, Mrs Tiggywinkle Again said:

This week I have to give my students a final that I just finished writing, pull together a nice graduation for the graduating class that I thought the outgoing program director was handling(and three people also swear they heard him say he’d handle everything for the graduating class, including my boss), attend two Christmas concerts, one gymnastics thing, and provide Christmas cookies for one kids’ class and a fruit platter for another, and I have two Christmas parties that I ate least need to show up for.

and on top of this, my mother picks this week to stop speaking to me after I called out her nonsense behavior towards one of my sisters and her lack of planning for my disabled sister’s future and basically said she won’t have any kids speaking to her if she keeps this up.  I know it is rude but she has done nothing but caregiving for eight years—no travel, no visiting out of town grandchildren, no shows or plays or things she used to do, and it has changed her mentally. I wouldn’t have said this fifteen years ago but honestly I now think she’s got some codependency/martyrdom complex going on. Two of my siblings are no or low contact because she continually prioritized my grandmother over them, and I am talking missing things like births and graduations, and she refused to hire a home health aide for the longest time(and now cannot other than the one lady she has because no one locally does the level of physical personal care that is needed outside of a nursing home. I’d had enough of the victimization thing she’s got going on and called her out on it.

But now I don’t know if she’s picking up DD from school tomorrow as she does every Monday, and I really need to reschedule a meeting if she isn’t.

 

Has anyone in the family offered to learn to care for the grandmother so mom could do other things? She has how many children? It seems if it was important they could take turns doing some respite care while she visits the other siblings and attends occasional kid events. You agree she can’t hire a health aid at this point and has to do it herself. When you’re the primary caregiver of a beloved disabled family member there isn’t a lot of time or energy left for able-bodied adults who want something from you but aren’t interested in helping you in return. Hiring help is a second job that you may not have the bandwidth for when you already have a job that keeps you on call 24/7. Has another family member offered to do the legwork to help her find hired help? Or do they want her to do more while removing nothing from her plate? Also, how can she be a non-participate AND pick your daughter up EVERY Monday? 

 

[KatieJ]

I would check into hospice services. 

[Mrs Tiggywinkle Again]

8 hours ago, KungFuPanda said:

Has anyone in the family offered to learn to care for the grandmother so mom could do other things? She has how many children? It seems if it was important they could take turns doing some respite care while she visits the other siblings and attends occasional kid events. You agree she can’t hire a health aid at this point and has to do it herself. When you’re the primary caregiver of a beloved disabled family member there isn’t a lot of time or energy left for able-bodied adults who want something from you but aren’t interested in helping you in return. Hiring help is a second job that you may not have the bandwidth for when you already have a job that keeps you on call 24/7. Has another family member offered to do the legwork to help her find hired help? Or do they want her to do more while removing nothing from her plate? Also, how can she be a non-participate AND pick your daughter up EVERY Monday? 

 

She does have one aide who is a neighbor lady and takes care of my grandmother Mondays and Tuesdays. That lady works full time and can’t do more. So no my mom isn’t doing ALL of it but two days a week doesn’t let her go do much either.  My grandmother can theoretically be left alone for short amounts of time, there is no dementia or anything, but if there was a house fire or emergency she could call someone but not get out of the house.

There is very little local family. My mom has a sister who was widowed young, works full time, and is not interested in caregiving more than bringing my grandmother dinner once a week. My one cousin is a single mom and works a full time and a part time job already.  I am here and my disabled sister is still here, everyone else in the family has left.

There are people they could hire privately through Care.com, but at this stage of the game it is going to be hard.  But my mom is unwilling even to do that. I have given her numbers of people who might take some hours and she won’t call.  

She did finally pick up last night when my daughter called.  So today is set.  My mom participates with my kids as she can because they’re close.  She won’t even reach out to the grandchildren who live far awa my because she says she can’t learn the technology.  FaceTime is not that hard IMHO.  It’s probably that she is mad all my siblings moved far away but yet she doesn’t accept that we live someplace with awful weather and no jobs. 
And withholding Christmas presents is just wrong; the older two kids in that family are old enough to know. 

Hospice services evaluated my grandmother a few months back and she doesn’t qualify. She has Parkinson’s and is 90 but otherwise completely healthy and there is no dementia.  The hospice services here are limited anyway; they are focused on pain control and equipment such as hospital beds.  They don’t have nurses or volunteers who go out and help with the patients other than managing meds and equipment. It is actually a large problem in my area and many people wind up dying in the hospital instead of at home simply because there is no one to take care of them at home. Hospice runs on the assumption that there is a female caregiver who doesn’t work or can take extended leave to provide 24 hour care and that is becoming less and less common. 

Edited December 18, 2023 by Mrs Tiggywinkle Again

[SKL]

I'm glad your daughter's ride is set for today.

It's too stressful a time to argue about this.  But as an outsider looking in, your mom seems to be doing a lot and it's mostly pretty understandable.

I agree it's wrong to not buy the other grandkids gifts.  Does she mean she's just going to send money?  If so, I think that is legitimate.  Not visiting the far-away families is definitely legitimate.  But I don't blame you for telling her off about not doing Christmas at all for her innocent grandkids.

[Faith-manor]

As part of all this, good reminder to everyone else that if you stick yourself with 100% or near that for an elderly relative that needs lots of physical care and should have a staff instead of just one, long suffering adult relative, you are going to wreck your own health and then come to your own "golden years" having sacrificed relationships for it. The Sandwich generation is getting steam rolled bye expectations of providing huge amounts of nursing care without a staff while also being expected to keep working, keep being active in relationships, many times still raising kids, and ignoring our own health and neglecting our own care. We have reached a place where medical science is a double edge sword where people live longer but they also live much more frail, and with an expectation that their kids will care for them come hell or high water. It isn't how it was in the "good ole days". Gardens and crops had to be tended, jobs had to be maintained, fires built, laundry done by hand, clothes mended. Elders often languished in beds in their own homes with the crudest of care or no care at all. Not a happy thing. I hear so many people romaticize the past, and it makes my head twitch. 

So if we can have these conversations early about what we can and cannot do, and what expectations we will or will not meet, that is for the best. 

Tiggy, I have major issues with your mom's attitude in three areas. Refusing to call those numbers to seek some relief aides, refusing to make a future plan for your disabled sister which is profoundly horrible for her, and not giving gifts to the " away grandchildren" because she has w beef with their mothers. If she sends money, then okay. That is fine. Shipping costs so much these days it is probably my for the best. But if they just get the cold shoulder as innocent kids, she needed to get a MAJOR earful from you. That is mean spirited, period.

Hugs, hugs, hugs, hugs.

[Mrs Tiggywinkle Again]

She isn’t sending money.  She isn’t sending anything. She hasn’t met these grandchildren despite the oldest being almost four but has sent presents.  She is just mad hay my sister won’t travel across country with three tiny children to come here and didn’t want my mom coming out bringing God knows what picked up in airports during the winter. My sister was happy to welcome my mom during the summer, but the people who have offered to care for my grandmother for a week or two and basically move in own a landscaping business and are only available in the winter. So my mom is mad and is just not sending them anything. It’s ridiculous and I told her so.

To be fair, at this point they aren’t going to find anyone to care for my grandmother.  My mom has actually contacted agencies who have come out and done an evaluation, and all of them said that  they don’t do that level of physical care.  And she is hesitant about hiring more people outside of an agency because there is a lot of lifting involved(a hoyer lift won’t fit in the house; they tried already) and personal care, and she is afraid of liability if someone gets hurt.  So it is reasonable at this point.

Yep—it all goes back to how it’s traditionally been done and “I can’t place her in a home because we’ve never done that.”  True, but my great grandmother lived independently until she died at age 98 and had no health concerns. My great great grandmother died of a ripe old age as well, and did need some help, but she had 12 children who all lived close by and she just moved house to house every month for a year.  So each child only cared for her for a month.  My mom has been caregiving for eight years between both parents, and frankly my grandmother is healthy other than Parkinson’s and comes from a family where it’s youngish to die at 98, so there is no end in sight.

[Faith-manor]

58 minutes ago, Mrs Tiggywinkle Again said:

She isn’t sending money.  She isn’t sending anything. She hasn’t met these grandchildren despite the oldest being almost four but has sent presents.  She is just mad hay my sister won’t travel across country with three tiny children to come here and didn’t want my mom coming out bringing God knows what picked up in airports during the winter. My sister was happy to welcome my mom during the summer, but the people who have offered to care for my grandmother for a week or two and basically move in own a landscaping business and are only available in the winter. So my mom is mad and is just not sending them anything. It’s ridiculous and I told her so.

To be fair, at this point they aren’t going to find anyone to care for my grandmother.  My mom has actually contacted agencies who have come out and done an evaluation, and all of them said that  they don’t do that level of physical care.  And she is hesitant about hiring more people outside of an agency because there is a lot of lifting involved(a hoyer lift won’t fit in the house; they tried already) and personal care, and she is afraid of liability if someone gets hurt.  So it is reasonable at this point.

Yep—it all goes back to how it’s traditionally been done and “I can’t place her in a home because we’ve never done that.”  True, but my great grandmother lived independently until she died at age 98 and had no health concerns. My great great grandmother died of a ripe old age as well, and did need some help, but she had 12 children who all lived close by and she just moved house to house every month for a year.  So each child only cared for her for a month.  My mom has been caregiving for eight years between both parents, and frankly my grandmother is healthy other than Parkinson’s and comes from a family where it’s youngish to die at 98, so there is no end in sight.

That is hard. She is reaping what she has as sown for lack of planning for many years. The least she should do now is find a not entirely horrible nursing home within a two hour drive of her home, and get grandma on the list. Otherwise, what good is she to grandma if she ends up trashing her own health and can't take care of her anyway? But of course, she won't listen to you. Fairyland, rainbows, and unicorns seem to take up residence rent free in the heads of folks who refuse to consider alternatives. There just doesn't seem to be a way to fight that. What I kept telling my mom about my dad is that healthcare workers go home at the end of their shifts, they don't do it 24/7/365. On top of that, there is staff. Paramedics have partners, and can call for additional help. RN's have LPN's and CNA's to assist with so many physical care issues. Healthcare facilities have well engineered bathrooms, beds, you name it for their patients. Homes do not, and older homes often cannot be redesigned to make it easier to take care of a bed ridden elder. I told her, "There is a reason that the dry erase board on the wall, near his bed, has three names on it. His RN, his LPN, his CNA. And how many times have they called for an additional CNA? When the ambulance came, two paramedics AND a police officer moved him." But she wouldn't listen. It was awful.

I don't know how to make non planners, plan. I just don't.

It is truly mean spirited that she is not going to do anything for those grandchildren while simultaneously giving to her local grandkids. I wonder if you should talk to your kids about not accepting grandma's gifts this Christmas since there will be hurt feelings about this. We did that once with mother in law. She was going to spend $100 each on our kids, and $10 each on her South Carolina grandkids "Because they only come see me twice a year". They were little kids. Her son and daughter in law.both worked full time. They used ALL their annual vacation coming to see her. So we told the kids there would be no gifts from grandma that year, and told her she was not welcome to give to them until she stopped playing favorites. She changed her tune the next year. My mother in law has these moments when she makes my head spin! She can be so sweet many other times, and then gets a mean notion in her head and is just ugly. I swear she has a whole Dr. Jeckyl, Mr. Hyde issue.

[SKL]

About the care for the grandma ....

Based on the info provided so far, it does sound like residential care may be needed.  I understand the care facilities can suck.  But perhaps Ms. T's mom could take a shift there most days (hopefully there is one located near enough to drive).  She'd be there often enough to make sure her mom was getting enough movement etc., but she'd have help getting her mom to the bathroom, and she wouldn't be "on" 24/7.  With her going to visit her mom almost daily, the staff is unlikely to subject her to serious neglect.

I feel for Ms. T's mom on this issue.  It sounds like there really is no great alternative.

[freesia]

The not sending presents is unkind. However, I spent the last four years of my dads life dragging 2 then 3 little kids across the country ( and Canadian border) twice a year because my mom couldn’t travel. So, I don’t think there’s any one way of doing/ handling this type of situation that’s right. Could your sister be not willing to make any allowances for your mom’s situation and only seeing her own side of things? I don’t think it’s unreasonable for your mom to want them to come to her. 
 

That said—it’s hard and frustrating to be you watching all this. Your story is one of the reasons I had a conversation recently with dh about his mom. The plan has always been his sister will do elder care—but she has a history of not doing anything hard or that takes a lot of work. I told dh he could quit work and do it and I would get a full time job, but that I would be terrible at it and wouldn’t do it. He was a bit put out and shocked, but once he thought about whether he wanted to do that, he realized that I was right. Anyway, thanks for sharing your story.