My self and my elder sister and brother are being stopped from seeing mum by mums eldest four children, we are mums youngest three children and grew up with mum seperate from the older ones as they were moved out and married when we were young, we were almost two families as we had no relationship with the elder ones as they never bothered with us or mum much at all. Us youngest 3 used to gather in mums every day, mums home was our family home as we grew up with mum there.
Mum was diagnosed with dementia a couple of years ago so myself and the other two youngest gradually had to look after mum more as time passed, eventually mum became 24 hr care a year an a half ago, it became a real struggle then as i work full time and my sister is on disability herself, we wer gettin no help from the older one who were still coming and going as they pleased offering no help, just assuming we had everything taken care, we have young families and all the older ones children are grown adults.
One of those grown grandchildren came to mums one day after not visiting her in 5 yes 5 YEARS, mum was in the middle of an extremely bad kidney infection and was on her fourth course of anti biotics, mum was critical of everything and saying things that were very distorted, this grandchild not being educated on dementia began taking what mum was saying as fact and began accusing me of doing nothing and leaving mums a mess, and said I treat mum like dirt, all things mum was saying. Well I completely lost my temper in front of mum and told the grandchild to get out, due to this mum became scared of me, and starting saying she didn't want to see me, after this there was another arguement with me and the grandchilds father and he kept saying mum doesn't want to see me anymore, the grandchild hadn't spoken to her father in 5 years prior, one of mums elder daughters took mum from her home to live with her and sent her brother with a list of things she wanted from mums, we hadn'seen mum in 3 months when she came to my door with another one of her sons, she stood crying hugging me and was asking to come home, two weeks later she was home, now suddenly he had moved into mums as her full time carer, this is the same man who wouldn't sit with mum an hour a couple months before so my sister could get mums shopping,
Neighbours had to tell us she was home, so me and my sister called to mums and noticed no washing machine and bags of dirty washing everywhere, the elder daughter kept her washing machine. Wen we asked where it was her now carer, father of the uneducated grandchild threatened to keep us out, are we not enitled to ask whey she's left with no washing machiene. At this time mum was happy to see us but the tension between us and him was not good for her, a few days later we were denied access to mums by the control freak (did i mention his marriage broke up due to domestic violence) who now looks after and told to contact mums social worker, which we did of course.
We worked with social services and arranged a one hour visit in a week with my own mother, who previously had dinner in my home with my family 3 or 4 times a week, this was to prove to social services mum was ok with us, they agreed everything was fine, suddenly after 2 visits mum didn't want to see us again, for no reason, i'm convinced he was emotionally abusing my mother, been almost a year now and were totally exhausted and social services didnt help, as long as mum is saying she doesn't want to see us is there anything we can do, she probably doesn't know who i am now, i still have the right to be with her at this stage of her life, and so do my brother and sister, mums eldest arent looking after her out of love, they had no relationship with her, i mean one didnt speak to her in 18 years and the rest didn't care. They all lived 5 mins from mum and rarely called, they were strangers to me growing up, now these people are lookin after her and stopping us from even seeing her.
is there any legal direction we can take this we just feel helpless
any advice welcome
thinking of seeing solicitor
Thinking about your family, I'm sure you're right, that everybody has his or her own agenda. That's only natural. But the critical thing is that your mother's wellbeing needs to be Item 1 on all of them; and the difficulty is that everyone will have different ideas about what is most important for *her*.
Normally, you'd say it's just obvious that contact with all of her children should be the goal. But when there is conflict among those children, it ain't necessarily so: the conflict could be very upsetting to an elderly lady, especially if she is suffering with dementia, and in that case avoiding conflict in her presence would become more important than facilitating contact with all of the family.
Another point that will have been considered is the quality of care different family members are able to provide. Love and closeness are important, but they're no substitute for practical capabilities; and if your much older siblings have stepped in and taken over, could it be that they argue they had to do that because your mother was not being adequately supported before?
Has anyone suggested mediation?
Who is caring for your sister?
Thanks agian
I'll post again soon
I'm very glad you're seeing an attorney because I've not found the pro bono situations to do much good. I hope you'll post back here afterwards and let us know how goes; I'm eager to hear what they say regarding the documentation you have and what he has to say especially - and, yes, I'm the one who asked about the marriages and children - re the whole children and two marriages situation, especially since that's my own situation, as well as my neighbor's with his mom, and that's what happened with him; he's the one who went in and took over, over all her younger children with her 2nd husband, as her oldest child - so am anxious to hear what he has to say about that in regard to your situation. Please let us know; hope things do go well, however.
We still miss mum everyday, we have given up a few times, but something stopps us giving up completely. we had a great relationship and strong bond and I know my mum would never imagined not having us with her at this stage of her life,
we offered evidence of what we thought to be evidence of emotional abuse when my mums phone acidently phoned mine, I had a recording app installed due to a previous phone call from one of mums older daughters, in which she answered mums phone when I rang, and pretended in front of mum that I was shouting at her, anyway the phone call I recorded , they didn't no mum mistakenly rang my phone and the same daughter could be heard berating mum with question after question about us and calling us names to her, this was after we had seen mum for an hour. The same daughter completely lost it when we put photos up in mums, at the request of mums social worker, and mum was more than happy. I still dont understand how that isn't a concern. The same daughter told us she was now mums POA which we knew was a lie as we were told a year before that mums was unable to make that decision. We also had an advocate from the AS but he couldn't get access on two occasions,
Thanks again for your support and kind words
A few keys things I noted from your post are extremely relevant, that I would offer you the following:
1. Your statement of your mum being diagnosed with dementia a couple of years ago - Medical records with this diagnosis are important documents to support your case.
2. The lack of knowledge and understanding of dementia by the general public, as you cited in the incident with the critical grandchild's visit, is an escalating problem. The fact that you lost your temper during the visit is nothing out of the ordinary with those of us who deal with caregiver fatigue. That can not and should not be held against you.
3. Elder abuse, neglect, exploitation et. al is escalating in our country at an alarming rate, and our system is "broken" - I have heard that term from law enforcement, geriatric care managers, attorney general office staffers, medical personnel, etc. It is heartbreaking to hear that you are another family going through this nightmare.
4. Documentation is one of the key components needed to support any reports of elder abuse, neglect, exploitation, fraud, etc. A timeline of key events, medical records, receipts for all purchases related to mum, photographs of anything good/bad related to her care/neglect, etc. is essential.
5. Check out resources in your area such as: Alzheimer's Association; elder advocates; your state's attorney general's office - elder care/senior care section; your county/district's Area Agency on Aging; call your state's Bar Association for refer to specialists in elder law - there should also be a group available for pro-bono or initial no charge counseling by a specialized attorney.
Do not give up hope. God Bless.
Which might be tricky to establish.
Where do you live?