Allowing poor decisions by elderly mom.

That is a point I never thought of, Ik, taking the pics to show mom just how bad it was in case she conveniently "forgets"...but I don't know that I would share the pics with the rest of the world. Then mention that mom has no renter's insurance. Then mention the GoFundMe, or whatever charity is collecting money. Probably just the cynic in me.

I have to admit when I saw that picture I thought...who would have thought to take that photo right then and there. Now I am thinking he took it to show his mother how bad it really was because we all know next week she will tell everyone it wasn't as bad as they were saying it was.

Adult children are between a rock and a hard place. Stubborn parents can put us all at risk over their stupid pride. More adult children need to learn it is ok to stand up to a parent.

I'm actually more curious about his idea to take all of those pictures WHILE he was rescuing mom? I don't know that my first thought - if I were getting my wheelchair bound mother out of a flood in her house which was up to her belly button - would be "hey, what a great time for a selfie!" In particular, I am referring to the first picture that shows his mother in the flooded kitchen (I think it's the kitchen) apparently screaming for help as the waters rise.

I also sort of pause that the very end of the story is a plea for money, since mom supposedly didn't have renter's insurance...

Just seems a little odd to me. Maybe the whole family suffers from terrible judgement issues. Or maybe this is a bit "staged" to get sympathetic people to donate money.

Has to be more to the story, as they say. I texted this video to my grown Kids days back. It surprised me when I 1st saw it on the news, then I thought of my Mom. Not our place to judge why this woman was alone in her home. Did she have part time or full time Caregivers that couldn't get to her?? Is the woman like my Mom: Borderline & NPD & a pain in the arse?! Definitely a nightmarish scene, but don't be judge & jury on this. We do not know the surrounding circumstances.

Lesson learned. I am curious how her telephone or cellphone still had service so she could have called her son to come help her. Otherwise, the outcome would have been tragic.

This happens all the time. Elders with apparent cognitive decline are calling the shots and adult children have no say so in the matter. They tried to get her to leave and she refused. On this forum we read numerous examples of seniors just like this woman (who probably has been making her son's life miserable for decades).

The woman is an amputee in a wheelchair! The son should've gone over to her house and wheeled her OUT the front door when Ian was called as the serious storm it was rather than allowing her to endanger her life and his unnecessarily. Some things are a no brainer! 🙄

This is because people aren't acquainted with cognitive loss and dementia until they see a raging, undeniable example of it in their LO.

"What were you thinking?!?" is what adult children usually say before they slowly start to realize they're dealing with something abnormal.

Irrational stubbornness is a first, subtle sign of cognitive decline. Stubbornness is a personality trait in people of all ages, so it gets overlooked as a symptom in the elderly (and sometimes they aren't that elderly... like in their early 60s).

For years I've been trying to figure out how to get my friends, who are adult children, to become educated, care about or be on the lookout for signs of mental decline *before* their parents or LOs have a crisis but it's really hard to do. Even if they succeed in this, they have to then figure out how to engage their parents to make changes in a way that is productive in making safety improvements for them. Many parents/LOs don't deal with aging in any sort of realistic way. No one wants to think of themselves as needy or losing independence. It's so terrifying thought that they prefer to put their heads in the sand.

Some adult children are in a point in life where dealing with their own lifee challenges is exhausting enough, and taking on someone else's crisis is not a priority until things are fully on fire and can no longer be ignored.

In the posted article, the grandson's home probably wasn't wheelchair accessible, which was one problem. The other was how to force your elderly mother against her will when they probably never had to do it before. My 100-yr old Aunt with dementia will sometimes scream for help at the top of her lungs when being made to do something she doesn't want to. Maybe this poor guy's Mom was doing that. Who knows. This guy will be judged all over the internet but many of us here will understand the substory.

I question the son that allowed her to make this decision.
While I am glad that all went well I do hope that she understands that she put others at risk making this decision and that the son also realizes he put his son's life at risk.
Makes you wonder how many lives that were lost were due to a poor decision like "riding out the storm"

My mother survived a “terminal” stroke at 85, and went on to live for almost 5 more years in the little old house that she loved, until she fell and shattered a hip.

Her last 5 years were lived in a fine local residential care center, loved by her caregivers, and visited every day by family.

Although she was incapable of independent living after her hip was broken, she did a darn good job before that, even with significantly diminished capacity.

I as her POA, have no regrets.

Her care cost almost a million dollars in the last 5 years, money made entirely by my father and saved entirely by her herself, and I do not begrudge her one cent of it.

”Poor decisions” on the part of the elderly can be a source of despair to the children who love them, but I am content with how the course of her life played out.

We all have to remember that some questions have no easy answers, and not all decisions result in happy endings.