Our son goes off to University tomorrow for the first time - my husband and I will have to get used to being “empty-nesters” as he is our only child. My mother lives with us and has always tried to get me to be the “parent “ to her, with various demands in order to get me to take the burden of anything she doesn’t want to do for herself. From my various posts over this year regular forum readers will know that my mother is a very selfish person. For many years I’ve been working on dealing with this and have got to the stage where we’ve been able to set a number of boundaries to ensure she doesn’t overwhelm me, and that she takes responsibility for her own personal needs and wants. I think I’m content that we have a situation that works for us reasonably well. I’m now concerned though that with our son gone, she will assume that the time I spent caring for our son will be time freed up that can now be spent on looking after her, rather than me and my husband having some time to ourselves to adjust to and enjoy this next phase in our lives, whilst still supporting our son from a distance. I would be grateful for any advice that my dear forum friends could offer me so that I can set out the way things are going to be, rather than get sucked into unnecessary additional care giving.
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Thats what my mother would tell me as a child. Since you are in a role reversal with your mom and she is acting like a child and YOU acting like her parent, just say NO. Loud and clear.
It is not your mother's commodity to direct.
Just because you will now have more "free time" does not make your mother's demands valid.
I would start by taking my own sweet time getting back from drop son off at Uni. Get someone to look in on mom once a day if that's the level of care she needs. Or hire someone (on her dime) to stay with her while you are gone.
Practise saying "no, mother, I can't possibly do that". And you DON'T need to have "reason" for that. You simply can't do it. If she asks, you say, "because I don't WANT to and you can do it for yourself".
You are not a slave, nor a lowly Victorian housemaid with no other hopes and aspirations in life.
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There was a thread were a member wondered if she was enabling her Mom by doing for her. A member came back and said no you are disabling her. If she can do it herself, then Mom should do it. Our responsibility to our parents is not to be at their beck and call but to make sure they are safe and cared for. You have given Mom a nice home to live in. You make sure she is fed well. She is safe, clean and warm in the winter and cool in the Summer. There is no reason she can't do for herself. So, keep those boundries and do for yourself. I may even go on vacation and find someone to check on Mom or stay with her.
And I believe with certain personalities you have to put a little threat in things and some reminders. Seems Mom maybe living with you because she could not afford to live on her own. When she starts I'm for telling her "Mom, where do u think you would be if I hadn't allowed you to live with us?" And "If you don't like living with us anymore, we can make other arrangements".
Oftentimes, actions speak MUCH louder than words. I can talk until I'm blue in the face with my own mother, but it's only my actions she understands. For instance; she 'needs' so so so many things from the store, but refuses to make me a list (she lives in a Memory Care ALF). So, until and unless I get a list, she doesn't get anything. She knows that, yet still refuses to sit down with pen and paper or an aide to write a list FOR her. That's one small example of actions speaking louder than words.
Good luck!
Lea, You are very creative! Imaginary part time job is brilliant! I don’t guess that she could stretch that by saying the job asked her to work extra hours too! Hahaha 😆
That might be pushing in a little.
I like the way you think. It shows you’ve been dealing with stuff a long time! So many of us have mom’s in our 90’s that have outlived our dads by many years.
It may come to a point where you will just have to bluntly tell her the time you spent on son is not transferring to her, it is transferring to you.
Congratulations on your son's entry into college. Enjoy time as a couple.
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