Obligation to take care of parents when they are old

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Tell her to watch the Al Pacino movie "Scent of a Woman", taking particular note of the scene where he says:

YowlingCat-you can use my cane if you can't find yours...

I'm another of those who took care of my parents when they were unable to care for themselves. It was rough, it was draining, and it was a freaking learning experience.

My small bit of advice is to know your limits and what you can do for a parent without putting your own health at risk. Living in and doing the nursemaid duties may not be the best plan for everyone if it's stressful and mind sucking for the carer-and resentment will build. Maybe it will be helping to manage nursing staff and others who care for your mother.

Or maybe another family member should take on the responsibility. Your mother may not like it, but it may be the healthiest thing to do.

DO NOT GET SUCKERED IN. I hate to put it that way, but elderly and sick parents are so vulnerable, some may use all of their guilting skills to get what is comforting to them without realizing how much they are truly asking. It can be a disaster for everyone.

You aren't responsible for the costs, and if the parent is 65, then there's Medicare, which will cover most medical and drug costs.

But it sounds like all of that is far into the future, and your mom is wanting reassurance. I think you can safely say you'll be there, but that doesn't mean you'll be doing the actual day to day care of your mom. You need to take care of yourself, too.

Metta, Rjaye.

http://www.kansascity.com/news/breaking ... 47404.html

Lee's Summit Woman Charged in "Terrible" Case of Elder Abuse.

They found the mother with terrible bedsores, broken bones, dead of multiple blunt force trauma. The mother's bank account was cleaned out. This sounds to me like way too much rage in the daughter.

I have to ask people, just what can be so wrong with someone's child that she would want to do that to her own mother? Is it possible that after physical and verbal abuse, including severe beatings, that a child could be so conditioned that when she grows up, no matter how hard she tries, the violence comes out again? Think of people who grow up wanting to be "nonviolent" who eventually explode. It's more than being a bleeding heart liberal to point back to bullying and child abuse. That violence was PUT there by force. The child had to have been beaten down over and over again, and suffered under a lengthy extended period of "control" even after she turned 18. She had to have experienced being in such a condition that her mother could and would put her in an emotional tailspin over trivial things.

Even then, since she did use home remedies to try to treat her mother, she was actually trying. I can see taking the money, feeling that this was only due someone who was forced to spend her mature but still energetic years caring for a corpse with a pulse. The child's good nature was being taken advantage of, and her good years were drained from her.

It really is like the mother uses herself as a weapon to stop the child's life. This is way too much how I live. I don't want to harm a living soul and in fact I want to be a benefactor to many when and if I can. Someone wrote that the worst way to harm a man was to tell him that his works were useless. This kind of abuse comes in more than one version. If it includes acting to make someone's works worthless, what then? What if it includes swindling someone into a position where he loses what is precious to him for no good reason?

I've written my parents off. They made their bed, they can lie in it.