How do you handle Mom being lazy?

(((((((hugs)))))))) Jessie; I don't know how you put up with this. I know that I never could.

Jessie, your Mom sounds like my sig other who is more of the absent minded professor type his whole adult life. And who's Mom would clean up after him instead of teaching him to clean up after himself. It can drive me crazy at times especially if my OCD had kicked in.

I stopped nagging to him to close the drawers, cabinets, refrigerator, etc. because it would only work for a week. And here he was a man who was highly regarded at work, winning rewards, etc. Maybe if I pay him he would clean up after himself :P

Once my primary doctor prescribed meds for me to take the edge off, mainly because of my parents, I found it worked for dealing with my sig other. I would come home from work and be able to follow a trail through the house where he had been. Therefore, no more closing drawers/cabinets/refrigerator/closet doors. When he emptied the shredder and tiny pieces fall to the floor, he can pick them up... right now those pieces are all over the house as they will stick to the bottom of one's socks.... [sigh]

How about getting rid of cable television? I know it's drastic but it will save money and force your mother to find new forms of entertainment like reading, radio, movies, arts and crafts, etc. It also will improve the quality of what she is watching because she will choose movies or programs rather than just plop down in front of the TV. My husband used to spend $150 a month on cable TV. I cannot imagine paying that amount of money to watch commercials and bad news.

I remember reading news stories of moms or spouses who had "gone on strike" in order to force their kids/SO to step up. I imagine them living in filth and chaos because their loved ones didn't notice or care, and in the end they would cave and nothing would have changed.

Thanks, everyone. My mother has always disliked anything resembling work, so all this isn't new. The place was a wreck when I first got here. I tried to get it livable, but it has been an uphill battle. I swear I live with Pigpen from Peanuts. A lot of times I let things go until I just can't bear it anymore. Sometimes I ask for help cleaning, but she says she doesn't care if it's clean or not. It's fine with her. It can be so hard to believe that she is my mother. If I didn't look like my father I would think I'd gotten switched at birth. My brothers are even more industrious than I am. We must take after my father.

Great idea and I've tried that. The answer was that we don't need a maid, that I can do anything that needs to be done. After all, she says, what else do I have to do with my time. She doesn't like having anyone come into her house -- a common theme with older folk that can be very inconvenient. I'm left to decide exactly how much I can do and where to draw a line. If you are thinking it isn't the best of circumstances, you're right.

I've been planting some seeds in my mother's mind. She talked about her friend's son and how he doesn't seem to pay much attention to his father. The father is 93, living in a nice ALF, and in poor health. I told her things weren't like they used to be when people lived to 60-70, then died of a heart attack or something. I told her people can live 20 years now in poor health, so no child can donate that much of their life to take care of them. Then I talked to her about my aunt and cousin. My cousin spent 15 years of her life taking 24/7 care of her mother. When my aunt died, my cousin was in her 70s and totally broke. I told her that it was a bad thing my aunt did to her own daughter, even though the daughter loved her enough to do it.

I somehow think I did not impress on her that what she was doing was not okay. And I know I will not be able to donate much more of my own life, because it is just not a good way to live. I do deserve to be happy as much as she deserves to be comfortable.

I hear you, JessieBelle! If I didn't look so much like my middle brother- people thought we were twins when we were kids - I'd think I'd been switched at birth as well. If fact my whole family teases me about it and have since childhood. My mother wasn't a slob but she didn't clean much either - I vacuum almost everyday. I was brought up camping - the rough stuff, tents and sleeping bags, no RVs - and was taught to ski at age four and was swimming even earlier. Today, my idea of roughing it is slow room service. My brothers and their families are still in the woods in tents and cooking over the ole' open campfire- and loving it! I'd rather donate a kidney!!!

You're just venting, right Jessie? I hope it helps a little.

I have been a loving, caring, patient, compassionate caregiver for many years. Really, I was a great caregiver. But I couldn't have lived with your mother for seven weeks let alone seven years. So know that you are exceptional and give yourself a lot of credit for the outstanding service you are providing, above and beyond what duty calls for.

Your mother was lazy lazy all her life. She certainly cannot be expected to change with dementia. You are doing an amazing job putting up with her.

Thanks, everyone. I am chomping at the bit to get back to living my own life. It is too lonely here and I don't feel like I'm serving any good purpose. I think that in this day and age that the family caregiver is a luxury most can't afford. My mother talked about how her grandmother had a stroke and her parents had to take care of her 84 days until she died. She talked like that was a long time. That is how family caregiving with a parent used to be.

I think people of the boomer and later generations will not be so reluctant to leave their homes. Retirement communities, IL, and ALF are so much better. I've lived in the first and it was fun.

JessieBelle - my parents first IL was in a giant retirement community. The place varied from cottages and duplexes to several five story buildings that were IL and one two story wing that was AL. The community has a couple restaurants, coffee shop, theater, a bank branch, hair salon, gym, pool, art studio, barber shop, hair/nail salon and more. I noticed several men who couldn't be more than 60 living there - usually hanging out at the mini golf course. I mentioned this once to my hairdresser and he said he had a few male clients that lived in places like where my parents lived. He said they felt they had everything they needed within a short walk, housekeepers, etc and it was usually nice and quiet at night - lol! But yes, I think you're right - hubby and I have already talked about moving to a retirement community when the time is right. Just hope we're of sound enough mind to recognize when that is!

I wouldn't mind moving into one right now. Some are reasonably priced and one rabbit would be welcomed. She wouldn't even bother the neighbors with barking or prowling at night. :)

I used to dream about having a little house by a stream out in the country. Now I just dream about going to sleep in my own bed inside my reasonably tidy place, knowing I can wake up and have coffee with my friends if I want.

Oh I wish I had a cure-all for laziness LOL! Even before my mother became bed-bound she'd developed the really annoying habit of stuffing wrappers, napkins and whatever under sofa cushions, now she tucks things under the mattress or the pillows even though there's a wastebasket set up for her RIGHT THERE.

The worst is the television remote though. I've sat down with her many times and explained how it's the same remote she's had for five or six years, we go through the buttons, she does just fine. Then after five minutes she'll turn the volume up all the way, somehow end up on a channel that's just snow and start yelling for help or even worse, drop the remote where she can't reach it. Now I have to keep it out of reach and just leave the TV on the "oldies" channel with Matlock, Andy Griffith and Gunsmoke reruns unless I find a movie she likes or something.

I like the idea of canceling the tv. You might carry it one step further and simply remove the tv. Put it in a closet. This should get your mothers attention. Explain to her that either she is mentally impaired or rude. Sit down and have a discussion about how you are feeling abused. Invite her to speak. Be calm. Have you concerns written down in order to remember what you would like to get cleared up. Perhaps she feels she is providing your room and board and she is entitled to your servitude. If that is true, you might consider it and decide if it is an acceptable barter. If you are already earning your keep tell her if she wants to have maid service, you can find it for her. Hire a housekeeper to come in to do what she isn't willing to do for herself. If she is living in your home let her know you are hiring a housekeeper out of her funds to pick up after her. If you don't have POA to do this then she needs to be told to find alternate help and you need to move from her house or get her out of yours. This is all up to you. You dont have to put up with it. If she is mentally ill, take action. If she is willfully taking advantage of you, take action. No more Miss a Piggy on your watch.

97yroldmom, but Jessie's mom is both mentally impaired and rude. It is not either/or. And you cannot reason with someone who has dementia the same way you can with someone not impaired. Of course Jessie's action is all up to her. It has been for the seven years she has done this. She has several options, but retraining her mother is not one of them.

Jessie, I feel for you, and you illustrate yet another good reason to remind myself that I must never never never live with my children.

I confess: I, like your mother, am an idle little piglet in many ways; and yet I fall between Daughter 1 who is a non-stop neat freak and Daughter 2 who... well even I used to blanch at the state of her bedroom sometimes.

Quentin Crisp said of housekeeping "after three years, the dust doesn't get any worse." This, to me, is going too far. But I'm perfectly capable of leaving a cupboard door open and going 'tut' at it at least three times before I get round to shutting it.

So I sort of feel her resistance; and so, then, where *could* your mother live where her less than sparkly standards would trouble nobody but herself? Is there any option like that?

Church; I think the issue is not so much that Jessie's mom's bad habits as the fact that she thinks that Jessie is there to "do" for her and that she has nothing better to do. It's insulting and demeaning for an adult to treat another adult as their personal minion, unless they are being paid to do so.

This whole relationship strikes me as veering into a toxic zone; toxic for our friend, at least. Caregiving is tough even when the person you're caring for is loving and grateful. When they are dismissive and rude, it becomes, imho, unbearable and unhealthy for all concerned.

Of course, if a change is going to happen, only the OP can initiate it.

Jesse, my Mom is very much like your's. However, when mine had her own home she was anal about cleaning and having it look 'just so'. I have been my mother's 'secretary' as she has called me for the past 35 years. My Dad died when I was 22 yrs old. I became the surrogate spouse. I had to push and execute every single change ever made in her life since then, from selling the family home (to my sister, for a good price) to finding her a condo and painting/wallpapering it (all while working fulltime and pregnant) to eventually taking over paying her bills because she spent every last nickle she had--including all the funds from a reverse mortgage that my sister helped her take but never told anyone. Eventually she could not pay the property taxes and with her showing signs of dementia, my husband and I decided to have her come live with us. What a HUGE mistake! The minute her foot crossed the threshold, she became a burden, no preparing food for herself, no independant trips to the market ( we had set up COA transportation when she lived alone - but once in our home she refused to do anything for herself. She would always say the same thing to me when I would tell her she needed to do something (things she could and was doing up until the day she moved in with us), "Well, after all, you're here and well I would rather you do it. I tell everyone, you're my secretary!" and then she would giggle. She is a very coy old woman and over the past 3 years she has done some very selfish and disrespectful things to avoid pulling her own weight in our home from stuffing poise pads down the toilet and flooding half the 1st floor of our home to now hiding adult diapers under her mattress and peeing on the floor in her room-because she is not going to be told what to do. We have a 250yr old home. Floors that are beautiful until now, because of her. We had to put linoleum in her bedroom to protect the floor, but she peeled it back and pushed her uring under the flooring to hide it from us, we figured it out because the urine was leaking into the basement under her room. I could go on and on. Like your Mom, she eats and leaves all the trash all over her room dispite a trash barrel in there --when she could use the phone she would tell her friends that she will not be emptying her own trash at 85, we are there and we can take care of that. She steals my clothes and hides them in her room! We had to lock the fridge up because she was sneaking in and eating things that she thought we were hoarding for our selves--putting herself in the hospital once for eating a bottle of hot chili sauce. We can't put her in a nursing home, because medicaide would have us pay for her. She pays room and board to live with us, and from my understanding even with a contract it would still be counted. We do not have the means to pick up the tab for that, nor do we feel we should have to given that she had plenty of money and should have planned for this rather than expect us to foot the bill. We are stuck with her--I never in my wildest imagination would have expected her to treat us with such disrespect and be so self serving. Just because she pays room and board doesn't mean she can take advantage of us or ruin our home. Even if you consider her our employer for our role as a caretaker, there are laws protecting employes from mistreatment! Soon we will have to have help come in during the day while we work because she pretty much stays in bed now and only comes out to get the meals I prepare and leave for her before I go out to work. She avoids us when we are home and sneaks out of her room just to grab food and scurry back with it to her room. She tells people when they call her, "Oh, I don't even talk to them"!

I have the same issue with mom, 87
Unfortunately, in her younger years, she was also a hoarder. Even though she worked as a cleaning woman, with an excellent reputation, home was the typical boxes and boxes and boxes of junk. Growing up this way, I now am OCD about organization and cleanliness.
Mom thinks as a senior she should not have to do things. Added with forgetfullness, things get disgusting pretty fast. Dirty dishes everywhere. Clothes, newspapers, and whatever else all over the floor, I could go on.
On top of it all, I'm still trying to remove excess crap from over the years which mom does not want to let go of. You cant clean properly atound all the stuff......sigh
My saving grace is that i live in a suite downstairs. My space with my rules. I dont know if i could live with mom in the same space without having to call the men in the white coats. You have exceptional patience and courage to reach 7 years.
The idea that you dont have anything better to do is bothersome. That needs to stop immediately. How? I wish i had the answer for you.
I repeat as need "I am your daughter, not your slave. I am here to help, not to serve. I am here because I want to be, not because i have to be"
I then walk away. Ive learned to pick my battles but hold firm to my guns.

I also choose 1 small area at a time and set rules on how it needs to be kept. Right now its the kitchen table and one cupboard area where no junk may live. So far, so good. My issue has become an older sister who is staying temporarily upstairs and is just as messy as mom so i now have 2 people messing and not cleaning.
Normally i manage 2 households and keep both running firly ok. Right now, my foot is down with sis and i no longer go upstairs letting it fall with her. I work fulltime, she does not. I will not clean up after her and needs to do her part with mom. But thats another post entirely.....
I wish you luck and peace of mind.
Hang in there.

I am going to play devils advocate her for just a moment.....
Do you sound like your mom did 65 years ago when she was telling you to pick up your room, close the cabinet door, get dressed and go out and do something? And did you always pick up your room, shut the cabinet door or get dressed and go out with friends? It is sort of like a look back into your lives but with the roles reversed. This is just a headslap that some of these things you can't stress about to much because they are not a matter of safety or a matter of life or death..Wait until there is something real important to focus on
Now to your question....
Can you get someone in once a week or twice a month to do a good cleaning? You can do day to day stuff but knowing that someone will come in and do the real nitty gritty cleaning you put up with a bit more.
Can you get someone in 1 time a week to take your Mom out on a "date". Go to lunch, go to a show, go to a park or conservatory. Take her to church, bingo, the library or to the mall. If your Mom has something to get up and do she will be more likely to get up and go.
Sitting in your PJ's watching TV and not wanting to do anything could be a sign of depression. Has she been evaluated? If not and this is early just getting her out might be of great help. My guess is by the time I reach 90 most of my friends will be gone and unless someone encourages me to get up and out I would be right where you Mom is but without a daughter to pick up after me.

I see I am not alone with the problem I'm living with. AlwaysSunny, I don't think I could handle what you're going through. I think I would talk to someone at Medicaid to see what needs to be done. Damaging your historical home is terrible. Medicaid will allow people to cover living expenses. I don't know the technicalities, though.

Mojorox, the sister would be the straw that broke this camel's back. Grr! I'm not a clean freak, but I like things reasonable. And I hate being treated like a slave and have disrespect heaped on top of it.

Grandma, I had to chuckle at your message. Normally nothing you said would be too wrong, but I wasn't even born 65 years ago. As soon as I was old enough to clean house, my mother put me to work doing things. Every Monday was cleaning day. I hated the sound on the washing machine on Mondays in summer, because I knew how my mother was going to be in mood most foul. She would give my brothers and me tasks. They were to clean their room. I was to clean my room, dust all the furniture in the house, and run the dust mop over the hardwood floors. I learned quickly that women were built for servitude. My mother did get our cereal ready for breakfast and cooked us dinner, but that was about it. As a child of emotionally neglectful parents, I don't feel like I owe much. But here I am.

This sounds like my grandmother, The TV is always blaring and her house is a disaster. Whenever she is at my house, she gets mad that I am not going to turn on the TV for her to watch Fox News nor get her what she wants. I don't watch a whole lot of TV and she knows where everything in my place is. I tell her to get up and get it herself. My reasoning is that she is not a guest in my house and since the doctor said that she would hurt less and build up stregnth by getting her butt up and keep moving. Is she living in your house? If she is, unplug the TV and hide it or let her watch 1 hour in her PJ's and after that, the TV goes off and she then has to get dressed and work on her chores. A not of TVs now have timers, locks and all kinds of blocks to make this happen. Since you are living together, you are within your rights to expect things out of her. Give her chores that you both know that she is able to do and expect them done.

Grandma, I appreciate your point but at the same time an 85 yr old woman can not be compared to a child with absolutely NO life experience. Expecting an elderly person to do very simple tasks like shutting a door or in my own case of using a trash barrel and having her not comply is driven out of motivation that is very different than simple immaturity of a young child. My mom is very capable of doing many things that a child cannot do, she chooses not to do certain things she is ask to because of deeply ingrained personality issues. She has Alzheimers, but that is no excuse to find the mental capacity to peel back flooring to hide an accident when she has a pile of depends next to her that she can wear but chooses not to because it is "beneath" her to wear them. I don't me to come off so harsh, I am just annoyed with my Mom and although her behavior is childish, I can't justify it by comparing it to what I may have done as an innocent and immature child. For the record, I had chores and was expected to behave properly and I did as a child.

Please correct me if I am wrong about what I am about to say. It occurs to me that other posters have complained about feeling stuck after a parent moved in with them. People have cautioned others to not move their parents into their home because, after a certain amount of time which varies by the state in which you live, the parent has rights to continue living there. That said, what rights does a caregiver have when moving into a parent's home? Must the caregiver accept disgusting living conditions because the parent does not want a stranger coming to clean? JessieBelle did not just show up on her mother's doorstep one day, barge through the front door, and declare she was moving in. (JB - you didn't do that, right? LOL) And even if she had, her mother's time for calling the sheriff on her has long since passed. What are Jessie's rights as a tenant/resident/roommate?

Believe me, if my mother insist I move out tomorrow and had other arrangements in place, I would be gone. That brought up a memory, though, of leaving everything I owned in TX when I left. Family can really be the pits, can't they?

The only sane solution would be for her to go to a facility. She can't stay alone and there is no one but me. A girl from the church just called her to see if she wanted her to come by. My mother said no, that she had a cold -- a lie. She pushes everyone away. She said she prefers to watch the TV to having anyone around. I couldn't disconnect her TV. She isn't a child and I'm not the boss of what she does. I only can control what I do.

We get stuck in this place. They can act like a child wanting someone to take care of them, but they aren't children. We can't ground them and take away TV privileges like they were teens. I don't know what we can do, because there is no right answer as long as they are legally competent to say no and family won't get involved in any way.

Um. Jessie with all love and with all empathy, not just sympathy, you do know what we can do. You just don't like it, any more than I did.

If you made real plans - somewhere to live and a job for yourself, and contacts with caregiving agencies for your mother *should she choose to avail herself of them* - and said to your mother a kind version of "that's it, I'm gone" how do you think she would react when it came to it?

Alwayssunny...I was not saying that Mom should be doing these things I was simply reminding the poster that when she was young her mom probably said the same things to her.

JessieBelle - why didn't you tell the woman from the church that *YOU* wanted her to visit? Why are you making everything all about your mother? What about what *YOU* want? Wouldn't it have been nice to have some new company for a change? Why not call the woman back and say "I would love you to come for a visit." Then make a pot of tea or coffee and sit and chat with this woman. What have you got to lose? In fact, you have something to gain by building a network for yourself to help you until you get out of there.

I do like the woman. She is part of the church's team that visit elderly shut-ins. My mother is not really a shut-in, but she used to stay home when my father was still alive. When she talks to me I tell her to come on by. When she talks to Mom it is just the opposite. You have a good idea about inviting her by. I think I'll message her right now and see if tomorrow is good for her.

Grandma, I guess I just don't see any value in playing devil's advocate when a caregiver is just needing to vent. Your advice of having someone come in to help with big cleaning jobs is great if it is in the budget. For my situation it is the daily stuff that is tiring, but this is not my post. I just wanted Jessiebelle to know others are dealing with many of the same frustrations she is and she is not alone.

Oh, it didn't bother me. Most people don't know family histories, so speak about the norm. There are people who feel that children owe parents the same care the parent showed them. This usually only applies to daughters. It is the right viewpoint in many people's minds. The thing is that old age now last a long time and gets worse, instead of better. Someone once said that taking care of a child and an elderly parent is as similar as birth is to death. There is a lot of truth to that. We think of raising a child as joyful. They're only in diapers a year or two, and the piddles and poos are usually not so bad. Then there is the joy of the milestones reached. And, of course, there is low-cost P-12 schooling so parents can have life outside the children.

Can you imagine what your own parent would have done if you told them to clean something, then told them "What else do you have to do?" I imagine that a lot of us would have gotten the belt. Old folks can get by with a lot more than kids. :)