Everyday on this forum, I read over and over and over again and again about the family caregiver complaining about their siblings not helping with their parents.
I'm sure I'll get back lash from a lot of you, but, here is how I handle things and it certainly makes my caregiver life much easier and happier and I get along well with all 3 of my siblings.
First, caregivers, stop the need to run siblings' lives! It's none of a caregiver's business who wants to help with Mom and/or Dad and with what chores need doing. If they choose to help, fine. If they choose not to, fine. Not everyone is able to be, wanting to be or willing to be a caregiver for many legitimate reasons.
Second, caregivers need to stop complaining and go on without the help they are needing or wanting from siblings. If siblings are truly interested in helping, they will contact and ask you what they can do to be helpful. .
Third, Have a list of responsibilities that SIBLINGS choose from (not you) in case they ask. Tailor those responsibilities according to how often they can help, what is practical for them in helping. Example: don't expect someone to drive/fly 5 hrs away to do some trivial little thing then drive 5 hrs back. It's a waste of their time and fuel. Find something else for them to do, such as pay bills, help with insurance, send a monthly family letter to all siblings that can't help but want updates. This can easily be done by caregiver sending a 2 or 3 minute voicemail to a sibling who lives too far to do much but is willing to help. They can dictate a message and send as an email, text etc to other siblings. This message can include updates on Dr visits, prescription changes, changes in mom/ dads health etc.
Third, caregivers.... For those siblings who do not wish to or cannot help, back off from them and quit trying to guilt them into helping. They have their own reasons why they are not helping. It's on them. Not you.
Fourth, Quit wasting time complaining and getting yourselves all annoyed and worked up. It really isn't worth it. Some caregivers are in the role to play the martyr, some do it for the attention, and some do it for the pure love in their hearts. There are just as many reasons why people don't help. No one is under ANY obligation to help. At the end of the day, everyone will know if they've done the best they could. It's not up to anyone to judge others.
Fifth, Just find the best help you can for mom and dad, place them in a facility or do what needs to be done. There is a lot of helpful info on how to get the help you need and just let things be.
All you can do is do the best you can.
Sixth, if you're one of those caregivers who chooses to control how things are done when siblings try to help, then complain how they do it, stop it and be grateful you have any help.
Finally, Good luck to us all and if this message has helped even 1 caregiver, then my mission is accomplished.
I thank my counselor who helped me make sense of it all decades ago and to control only my life and to let others live theirs. I'm grateful that I can get along so well with each of my siblings because I hold absolutely no grudges at all toward any of them. Life is too short. ❤
Hold in high esteem.
Respect.
Obey.
Serve.
People interpret differently. It shapes their decisions differently. Their decisions shape their behaviour.
If a LO refuses to move into a care setting.. One sibling may decide they HAVE to provide the care setting instead. In their home or the LOs.
Another sibling shrugs & says OK, don't move. Your choice. Does nothing.
They both are honoring the elder's decision in their own way.
some people mentioned, the helping-sibling should ask for specific help from the non-helping siblings. and then miraculously all will be ok.
THAT is not the problem.
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OF COURSE, every person on this forum HAS asked for specific help.
what's the problem???
some siblings STILL don't help, even when you ask please (even for a tiny, tiny thing that would only take 1 second).
we're talking about the kind of despicable siblings who do NOTHING.
it doesn't matter that the elderly parent begs for help, or the helping-sibling asks for help please.
they do NOTHING.
in fact, many times, the non-helpers make things WORSE. many people on this forum have siblings who are:
not helpful in any way, mean, toxic, greedy, manipulative, verbally abusive, exploitative, sabotaging, taking emotional/financial ADVANTAGE of the helping-sibling, etc.
many of these non-helping siblings are out partying, and can't wait till the elderly LO dies ------- $$$$$$$$$, inheritance! yipee!!
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they're despicable people (some of these non-helping siblings).
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also, a good person doesn't need to be asked. a good person ASKS.
"how can i help? how are you? you must be so stressed, dear helping-sibling. let's share the stress. i can't do a lot because i have other obligations. but you also have other obligations, and you're helping. let me take - some - of the load. it's not fair it's all dumped on you. we have to stop this injustice towards you. your life is just as valuable and important as my life."
**Edit:
"plus, i heard bundle of joy is taking notes of all non-helpers, and is going to kick our butts. so dear, sweet helping-sibling, i better help out. how do i start?"
The caregiver child came to this forum desperately asking for help because s/he was facing homelessness. She had no money, no job, no home.
You go tell her she shouldn't hold a grudge.
i would love to be the sibling you are so forgiving of which leads me to believe you get a lot of help
Brothers Wife is the day caregiver for my in laws. She’s been paid over market for two years, but fact is she can’t be there managing the one going to the doctors while the other one needs a full assist to the bathroom.
We would love to back her on the logical decision to outsource aides in blocks that they have appointments and she does shopping. But we’re not backing her on the insistence that she can be in two places at once.
For a couple of years, I jumped every time my father snaps his fingers. Then I realized he was doing it just for attention and not actual need. I learned to put up firm boundaries. Once he realized this he decided on going to AL because they would give him more attention than I was willing to give.
Eventually our father died. Several years later, our mother died. My sister didn't attend either funeral, because, as I said, we had no way of contacting her. Eventually, she reached out to a relative, who told her that our parents had died. That's when she showed up, demanding to know what had been left to her. She was told that after our father died, our mother made a new will, which left everything to me and nothing to her. Our mother's will specified that my sister wouldn't inherit anything because she had run away from us.
The lawyer handling the estate told me that if my sister contested the will, I should offer her a few thousand dollars to make her go away. I said that I wasn't going to do that. She wound up not contesting the will. I believe it was because she would have had to pay her lawyer upfront.
So she disappeared again. I have no idea where she is. Some siblings just don't want to help, and it has nothing to do with how the caregiver manages the situation.
hug! :)
i love your screen name.
i’m thinking your situation (mayyybe) (only you know) is a little different from those who rightfully are angry (everything was dumped on them, while the siblings ran away).
maybe your siblings show you gratitude for what you do. i hope so!!
maybe they say many kind things about you and to you :).
i understand your siblings don’t help you; you’re doing it all.
what i mean is - in some way - they might be contributing:
examples:
-maybe they call sometimes to ask how you are
-maybe they call sometimes to ask how your elderly LO is
-maybe they sometimes visit the elderly LO and do a tiny thing (like bring a gift, flowers, something)
-if you send an update about an emergency, although they don’t help, maybe they react to the update.
-maybe your siblings sometimes show gratitude to you
-etc.
——
there are some siblings who truly behave appallingly and literally —— do nothing. (some siblings even sabotage and make things worse.)
that’s what i mean. there are various degrees of non-helping.
hug!!
i wish everything good for you. :)
bundle of joy :)
Problems in the family arise when those people fail to accept that not everyone in the family has the same values and priorities as they do and aren't willing to make those kinds of sacrifices - putting a spouse, children, job, and even me time ahead of caring for a parent isn't wrong, it's just different.
Maybe a different way for caregivers who feel unhappy about the lack of help from siblings should instead post "I had *hoped* my siblings would think enough of me and MY health and well-being and time and life to offer help with caregiving for OUR parent(s) and I'm hugely disappointed that they don't; how can I get through that?" as a question.
FH, I get what you're saying about boundaries, and not being able to change others, so for your own sanity you need to try and change yourself, but that's often easier said than done. And I have to admit, I'm a little turned off by the entire "just deal with it" tone in parts of your post.
In my experience, when you get to this point with a sibling and sharing caregiving duties of an elderly parent, there's already a LOT of history between the primary caregiver child and the ancillary siblings - some good, some bad. I think it's a rare case where all of the siblings grew up with a "all for one-one for all" dynamic, only to have it torn to shreds over caregiving. I will fully and freely admit that when it came to my 2 sisters, the one with whom I am closer got a LOT more slack with my understanding about how much she was/wasn't willing to do than the sister with whom I am not close. That's my sin, and I admit it. But my attitude didn't come out of the blue, it was, in part, based on 50-odd years of selfishness of behavior on HER part, right or wrong. Maybe I'm not as good a person as you, to be able to separate all of that history from caregiving for my mom. And my mom wasn't particularly hard to care for - at least not so far as many of the other examples I see here. Maybe it's not "fair" of me to use a different scale for judging my sisters, but to minimize my feelings about the situation isn't "fair", either. You gotta feel what you feel until you don't feel it anymore. As long as my feelings aren't causing me physical/mental/emotional harm, then I'm good with them.
I commend you for your ability to not hold a grudge, and that's really wonderful for your relationship with your siblings. But I am not willing to wag my finger at the caregivers who come here to vent about the selfishness of absent siblings, saying "shame on you", telling them in essence since you can't change it, you need to suck it up. In my opinion, that's really just to rub salt in an already large, painful wound.
Where the "how come no one helps me with caregiving" problem comes in is in these examples which I will give:
1. Sibs or others who make a spectacle of claiming they are willing/able to help and then do not show up, show up and stay for much less time than is needed/implied, and complain about how long it all is taking and how much other stuff they have to do.
2. Sibs or others who complain about the caregiving job that I'm doing and want me to do things their way - but they are not going to help. Seriously?
3. Sibs or others who basically accuse me of "making the situation worse than it really is" or "it can't possibly be that hard to help (elder's name)." Thereby putting it on me that I'm simply working too hard and sensationalizing the situation and that their help isn't really NEEDED.... because I just need to get over myself and do the job efficiently as per their instructions.
4. People who do not understand that it really CAN take most of a day to take an elder to the doctor. My concerns about taking elder to the doctor don't stem from the basic premise of doing so. My concerns stem from having put my life repeatedly on hold for an entire day to fulfill others' expectations that elder should see this particular doctor.
5. The expectation that caregiving done by ME should continue uninterrupted regardless of my health and wellbeing. The EXPECTATION that I can just keep going. In my situation, it's THIS that leads to "why don't the sibs/others help me?" That it's perfectly OK for THEM to expect ME to sacrifice my health, my job, my relationships, etc. BUT, somehow it's NOT OK for me to expect those same people to help me??
6. And, last but not least, getting screamed at about "saving the house from Medicaid" at the 11th hour when this possibility was known and should have been planned for years earlier. A non-helper expecting me to protect his inheritance? Sorry, too busy providing the CARE that he would then claim was both substandard and sensationalized.
It's not purely that "jeepers, how come no one helps me." It's all of these things I listed above and probably many more. Relationships are complicated and family caregiving isn't so cut and dried.
I just dont know how some people wash their hands of parents or siblings in need so easily. It's very sociopathic. It's also a shame that this behaviour is somewhat rewarded as these insanely selfish people seem to live better lives.
Siblings are not plants. To be put where you want them. Or provide you shade when you sat yourself in the sun.
They grow their own way.
its super sad that all of the children don’t pitch in… I don’t know how they live with themselves.
also, this forum is for people who need to vent…
I would say yay for you everything works out so well but for most, that is not the case.
of course it’s your post but I think this is the wrong place
Just curious, as it seems you would have reason to resent siblings who do no caregiving.
Oh, and then yesterday, he’s over there doing the last of the ramp work. SIL had taken off but mentioned she was going to, to Brother. Brother comes over to help finish the ramp, and then MIl needs the bathroom full assist. She selected Brother to go in there with her and then SO heard her crying and keening. Thought she fell, but she was having an emotional meltdown because this had been the first time she’d required her actual children to toilet her. The Brothers are not ok with it and the mom definitely isn’t, so be ok with another aide.
SIL further has adapted the parents’ expectation for SO, which now will evolve toward his getting involved because SIL wants a break for some reason, or because one person isn’t enough to be there. If it’s the latter, I don’t want any enabling on why he has to be the one to do this on his weekends off. No one bothers her when it’s her weekends off.
If she said to them that she herself needed an extra aide for the days that doctors appointments needed to happen and got shopping assistants, the problem is solved. Instacart or Safeway.com solves the excuse of her disappearing on them for hours on end. The extra aide would be there to attend either to the driving or sitting. We aren’t the extra aide and feel not one bit bad about not reaching out to help SIL.
It is her paid job. Well paid. That makes her a professional.
We expect her to act like one.
:)
hug!! i wish you well :).
regarding the topic: i'm someone who strongly disagrees with what you said.
1.
most people who are complaining about their siblings, are complaining because the siblings do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.
2.
dear OP, you have no grudges towards your siblings. the only way that's possible, is that your situation is different: your siblings -- in some way -- contribute, even minimally.
there is no way it's possible for you to have ZERO grudges if your siblings did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.
3.
here's an example of doing nothing:
siblings not even reacting to life-death situations/updates. they read the message, but don't even say "oh no! how terrible!"...
no reaction at all.
here's another example:
siblings not helping to look for facilities.
indeed, we're not talking about siblings who've been mistreated/abused. of course, no one will be angry at their siblings for doing nothing, if they've been treated horribly by the parents.
we're talking about siblings who've been treated very well. and yet, choose to do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING (not search for facilities, nothing). they do nothing, so you're forced to do something. they know you won't abandon. you'll look for a facility, whatever; they know YOU'LL look for a solution. even if you decide to do nothing, to try to force the siblings into action, the siblings will STILL do nothing.
4.
for those who do have grudges against their non-helping siblings, I SAY WITH ALL MY HEART:
GO AHEAD!!!!!
you're right.
don't let anyone tell you, you're wrong about being angry.
of course, EVERYTHING shouldn't be dumped on you.
of course, they should help look for a facility, etc.
of course, they can help with X admin task, or Y phone call. there are a million ways to help (some of the ways take less than 1 second, and already YOUR load/stress is less heavy).
5.
GO AHEAD AND BE ANGRY.
don't hold it in (THAT WILL BITE YOU BACK).
6.
my opinion:
in addition to venting to others, let the anger out directly against the siblings. they deserve it. they should not be clueless about your anger.
7.
DON'T TRUST SOMEONE (for example your non-helping siblings) WHO'S WILLING TO TOTALLY SACRIFICE YOUR LIFE -- who's not even willing to lift a little finger to make things a little easier for you.
DON'T TRUST THEIR OPINION (the non-helping siblings' opinions of themselves) ----- no one who is guilty, is going to admit they're guilty, doing something bad. guilty people defend themselves. guilty people have a million excuses.
8.
although you're rightfully angry, try all you can to MAKE THE MOST WONDERFUL LIFE for yourself.
in other words, give the anger to karma.
let karma deal with it (after you've gotten it off your chest, against your siblings: let the siblings hear you. write to them, even if they never read it. you must stand up for yourself).
then let karma deal with it. why? because you can't be happy and angry at the same time.
hug!!
bundle of joy :)
I think it's perfectly understandable to hope siblings would step up, but I have always said that people will do what they'll do no matter how much you hope for more. My brother lived only a mile or so from my folks, but he didn't do anything for them. He just didn't have the patience, and there must have been something else going on between them that I'm not aware of. Still, he has had my back throughout the years of their illnesses and decline and did step up a bit when we got to the end with both of them. At least it was something.
Bottom line -- People are complicated. No sibling has the same relationship with the parents as the others do, and it isn't worth the stress to try to get help from everyone. As long as the caregiver has the POA and all the decision-making abilities, it's best to expect to be doing the job on your own. Any help you get is just gravy.
My hat is off to those who can do this, and I so wish siblings who can NOT do it would kick in at least with some respite, with bags of groceries, with meals delivered, with loving support. But we CANNOT change others and it is such a loss of steam to try to do so. It causes anxiety and frustration.
You you hit but ONE of my pet peeves. My worst is warring siblings who try to tear their elders in two when they are at their most vulnerable, but this one shows up over and over again.
I appreciate your taking the time and organization to say this so well.