I asked myself why this mother care is so disturbing and came up with a couple of reasons. I’ve learned I’m not alone in my reactions. I thought I was prepared for this stage, but it has blindsided me. But what is shared among many of us adult children seems to be a distaste for this task. Surely I’ll be infuriating my children in my unique ways a few short decades from now (if I’m lucky). My mother is, fortunately for you, not your mother. My best friend has a mother nearly the same age who is way more independent and competent she just sold her house, packed up, and moved into the city from the burbs without a peep to her children.) (Not all ninety-somethings are this dependent, I recently learned. I’ve grown weary of the constant complaining and the expectation that my siblings and I will step in to solve every problem. Then, Mom says, “I don’t want to be a burden to any of you.” Translation: I wish one of you would come live with me. My Aging Mother Doesn’t Want “To Burden” Me “Too mousy.” “Too gossipy I don’t want my business spread all over town.” I think the veto power helps her to feel in control and alive. Alas, Mom has shot down all the candidates we’ve come up with like so many ducks at a carnival shooting gallery. I’m pressing the point that it’d be better to institute a more organized, full-time caregiver setup. And then come the hysterical emails from Mom with the subject line: Damn! Damn! Damn! Inevitably, there are last-minute cancellations. But it’s like herding cats to get them to show up on time. The agencies cost too much so we’re using word-of-mouth to hire part-time helpers. Even she agrees that more “company” will be good. We children decided it was time for scheduled caregivers. “At least it’s not you burned to a crisp!” The turning point for me, however, came after a couple of shrill calls about the smoke alarms just as I was sitting down to dinner in my home 40 minutes away. Mom lived alone self-sufficiently until recent years when things around the house - like stairs - started to get dangerous. Rather than have a real conversation in which being honest would involve disagreeing with her, I go into my fake, submissive, yes-woman persona to get through these visits. While I love my mother, there are times when I have to face the grim fact that I don’t enjoy her company. An ugly sludge builds in me during my days when I have to give half my work day over to caregiving. She doesn’t get this, and blithely calls at the last minute for help getting to long-standing appointments.Ĥ. To survive juggling a staff job for 30 years while parenting three children as a single mother - I had to kiss spontaneity goodbye in favor of planning, organizing, and scheduling. My mother didn’t work for a living and so has always prioritized spontaneity. “Okay, Mom, we’ll look into it,” I said and I canceled the doctor I’d just found.ģ. But then she decided it wasn’t her shoulder that hurt, it was her groin. I recently went to some effort at her request to find her a new orthopedist because she disliked how her original one rushed through appointments.
Also, she eats only the gooey inside of a wedge of Camembert and leaves the rind for others.Ģ. Mom “forgets” her cane when I take her out in the world (she doesn’t want people to think she’s old, she once confessed) so she makes like an albatross on my elbow. Mom “forgets” to bring her wallet to restaurants, so I’m obliged to pay.
Here’s my list of what I call the Four Stages of Hating Caring for an Aging Parent:ġ. Especially aged baby boomers who feel entitled. I used to do elder care, but I came to hate it because old people complain too much. I complimented her on how nice she sounded with them and she replied, “I like young people. “They were so polite and nice,” the cashier said to me. I was at the grocery store the other day in line behind two lovely teenage boys. To echo Nora Ephron, I feel so bad about my feelings! The kind of shame that wakes me at three in the morning to beat me up. When it blows over, I feel enormous shame about my anger. This dramatic meteorological phrase perfectly characterizes my category-five internal weather at times. I’m not talking garden-variety annoyance, though I experience that, too. Who could say such things about her own mother? How My Aging Mother Provokes Me From my point of view, she’s self-absorbed and inexcusably dependent has been her whole life. She’s 92, and bravely facing her twilight, a widow just doing her best to get by in the familiar comfort of her home of 40 years. “My first resolution for 2019 is to stop complaining so much about my fucking mother,” I said to my significant other on New Year’s Day this year.