Caring for Disabled Senior Citizens: Managing the Mother-in-Law Issues

We are caring for my elderly disabled mother-in-law. As we are learn about caring for senior citizens, we're passing it along. Today's Sticky Wicket: Persuading senior parents to allow the in-law child to help with care. Often, not due to any malice on their part, the senior citizen wants only their own children to care for them.

My mother-in-law has always been incredibly attached to my husband. He was the only child she was able to have. She was 28 when he was born and is therefore an older mother. They have a pretty healthy relationship and since my father-in-law passed away she has come to rely on him more and more. Our relationship is also very healthy, but after 22 years of marriage, she still prefers her son. When she first injured herself, she wanted her son to care for her. That is typical of senior citizens and I wasn't surprised. It's difficult for a senior citizen to relinquish control of their affairs to anyone.

We have agreed between us that I will see to most of her care. I'm a woman and can help her with personal We have four children and are very busy. My husband works a demanding job and isn't often able to take to help her. My job is more flexible. I have more medical and business experience. Furthermore, I have more tolerance for tedious business matters, the slow senior citizen pace and my mother-n-law's endless chatter.
needs. I also attend to most of her most her business affairs, like setting up checking accounts, running errands, making housing arrangements and dispensing medicines.

She wasn't rude to me, and is always appreciative, but her expectations were inappropriate and self-centered. This is also very typical of senior citizens. It isn't any indicator of their personality. It's a part of the self-preservation drive that is inherent in an aged person. But at the same time, the demands on time are not always reasonable or fair to our family.

It's crucial that we come to an agreement between us without her input. Since we are extending our care and support to her, we have to decide what's best for our family. We had to be firm that if she needed our help, we would make the decisions between ourselves. When it comes to this firmness it had to come my husband, which it did. He made his trust in me explicit and admitted to her that I was better suited to the job. That helped. It also helps that we have built a relationship of trust, so that what she was really objecting to was natural frustration, not me personally. Things may not have worked out so well if we'd been married only a short time.

That's my advice for today. Be clear and firm but also very patient and loving with your senior loved ones, whether you are the child or the in-law.