I have a sister who owns her own home and is on disability who had been taking care of my mom a few days a week while I worked. My husband who is also on disability / retirement helps to take care of my mom the other day. He does this out of the goodness of his heart because he loves my mom and me. We've been married for over 35 years yet four years ago when my dad died I came to live with my mom to care for her. My husband lives about 4 blocks away. there will be a couple of months that my husband will not be able to care for my mom so I hired a lady to come one day a week because my sister said she could only come for days. My sister expected to get paid so we offered her a certain amount of money and she asked for more! I told her no that was not possible and that how this is going to make it very hard on my mom financially anyway. Incidentally we were giving my sister gas money everyday she would come over to care for my mom. My husband on the other hand did not want to take a dime. That's pretty sad when your sister is asking for money to take care of her own mother. Last week my sister was in a rage and screamed and hollered about how she can't make ends meet and that she wants to get paid the same that everyone else gets paid. The lady that's coming one day a week is a CMA. She's a friend and she's giving us a break. There's no way my sister is going to get the same amount of money that someone who has a certification. besides my sister is my mom a lot of money from the past and has never paid it back. My sister lies and is very deceiving and has some emotional issues too. Basically she's a narcissist. she's been very jealous of me even since childhood and my mom is even aware of it. I love my sister but I don't like her actions but yet my mom is being manipulated by her to continue to hand her money here and there. My mom cannot afford this especially now. I've had to hire that person 5 days a week now instead of one because my sister refuses to take care of my mom now. We got over that hurdle and things are settled and the new lady started this week. My mom likes her very much and I feel comfortable with it. Now my sister is calling on the telephone and begging my mother for money, crying about how she doesn't have money for food and her prescriptions. I also might add that my sister is an alcoholic. she has lied in the past and said that she was sober, but sometimes I would smell it on her. it's probably a blessing in disguise that she's not here taking care of my mom. She would drive my mom crazy repeating herself and complaining all of the time. so now the issue at hand is how to handle my mom feeling bad for her and wanting to help financially. This is the problem. She's done it all long never let my sister grow up.
The fact that you've got hired care coming in sounds like a good arrangement. Then you don't have to depend on your sister.
Encouraging your sister to get help would be good, but perhaps you've tried that. Most people won't get help until they decide for themselves that they need it.
Stick by your mom. You may need to accept things as they are for now.
Please keep us posted on how things are going.
Carol
I think you can explain why it isn't a good idea until you're blue in the face, but parents have their own need to give in to some adult children. I had the same sort of situation. I finally shut up and let the cards fall where they may. Eventually, my parents saw what was happening and addressed it themselves.