Why are they so stubborn?

Question

Why are they so stubborn?

Follow

Share

49 Answers

You say that there's nothing wrong with getting older, but my question for you is "have you done that; do you speak from experience?"

I am 81. I can tell you that there is a whole lot wrong with getting older. Start at the top. The hair thins, the eyes weaken and get all kinds of conditions requiring surgery, shots into the eyes, and ultimately you go blind. The balance because of brain changes is dreadful no matter how much you want to do exercises for it, and you had better do them! You cannot hear as well. Your neck muscles stiffen and hurt, and headaches can result. Your bones ache, as do your joints. Your heart will act up eventually in some manner whether weakening pump or arrhythmias. I could go on, but we are heading toward the bowel and bladder, and honestly you don't want to KNOW.

So instead of going through every system, I will just assure you it is a time of great loss. Family often moves and certainly have their own lives and nuclear family to deal with.
Your children, who once came for advice now have a whole lot of advice to GIVE you.

I am one of the lucky ones. No major systems have given out. I can still walk, garden, read, foster dogs, manage my own life, and no one is yet trying to manage my life FOR me or tell me what to do (Thought I have heard the phrase "do you have plans"). And that will change, and there's no upside coming. I will only get older. Things will get worse. My daughter will become worried.

So that is from the perspective of someone more near your mom's age, than your own. You might also want to consider if she is honestly a whole lot different. Wasn't she always someone who wanted to manage her own life.

That's my own vent. Now to MY advice.

I would have a gentle, honest sit-down talk in which you SEEK information from your MOM. Tell her that you have now a tendency to want to try to make things easier for her. Ask her if that bothers her. Ask her to let you know when you can help if she WANTS help, and HOW can you help. Tell her you may be annoying her, but it is out of love. Tell her that you, yourself are a bit scared. Because just trying to give you another perspective, your mom think that much of what you want HER to do, you want her to do FOR YOU. So that you don't worry. So that you don't get "that call" you don't want from EMS that your Mom fell on the stairs. But you WILL get it. It IS coming as surely as your mom's balance is going. She's my age. My daughter, 61, will be getting "that call" as well, no matter what we all do about all of these changes.

Believe it or not, my heart goes out to you, and to my own daughter as well. As soon as you can get us all neatly packed away into some lovely ALF you will feel better. We may feel better as well; who knows.

This is the face of aging. My own opinion as an old retired RN is that we should be issued our final exit pill at age 65 or when we start collecting SS, whichever comes first. But that's me. It would at least give us some CHOICE in all this.

My best to you, OP. I can identify from BOTH sides.

Helpful Answer (22)

Report

Thank you that was beautiful

(7)

Report

See 5 more replies

Take a look at your responses and you should see exactly what the problem is. How would you feel if someone suddenly tried to take away your independence, remove your right to make your own decisions, and dictate what you are to do? How would you feel if you began losing your abilities and activities you have had and enjoyed when you were younger? How would you feel if suddenly others were taking away what you are accustomed to and have been doing for years and years and years? How would you feel if the children you had raised suddenly took over as being your self-proclaimed caretakers, telling you what to do and not to do, where things will now be moved, and on and on? Much of society is not kind to the elderly. The best advice I see given here is to enlist the help of your parents' friends or others they trust to engage causal questions and observations as they enjoy visiting together. Forcefully making changes over your parents' wishes will cause further divisions and anger and resistance. Causal but helpful questions, observations, and suggestions from friends can work miracles. Butting heads and wills are not the solution.

Helpful Answer (9)

Report

unless the issue is dementia and she is not herself - then it get more complicated. For creature comforts, we let it go, for health and safety we intervene. Always with love and respect and dignity.
One day mom was unhappy that she has help - she’s fiercely independent - for things she can’t do or remember anymore. I jokingly told her if she didn’t want me to help her she really messed up as my parent. She took care of everyone -
her mom, MIL, dads aunt, MIL’s caregiver… so if she didn’t want me to learn how to take care of family as they age she shouldn’t have been such a great role model. :)

(8)

Report

See 6 more replies

Just venting—several years ago we asked my 90 y/o mom if we could move her washer/dryer out of the basement because she was so unstable on her feet. She didn’t think it was all that necessary, because she had created her own adaptation. She had formed a rope out of plastic grocery bags to hang onto next to the railing so she could clutch it as she went up and down the stairs. What could possibly go wrong?! Ugh. To her, this was the perfect solution. Anyway, we bought her a stackable washer/dryer. It fit neatly at the top of the stairs, My husband installed it himself. We went back the next day and found a note on the door. She had never told us “don’t do this.” But apparently she had held her anger inside. So we found a note stating she’d gone away with a friend until we took out the washer/dryer. It was a lot of work putting it in. My saint of a husband took it out. We put the washer/dryer in her garage. Eventually, she must have given it away to someone. We live 5 hours away. Mom eventually paid someone to come and clean her house & do the laundry. She also asked neighbors to help her fo the laundry, Yes, she was that stubborn. She eventually began to have auditory & visual hallucinations. I think she had Lewy Body Dementia, but there again, she refused to be evaluated. Even after she called the sheriff to come help her because “men from Taco Bell were running around her house.” This is just one example of her hallucinations, the sheriff sent her to the hospital for evaluation but they didn’t test her for dementia. Big sigh. I won’t even go in to the next chapter, which was trying to get her in to assisted living. She passed away at home, age 94.

Helpful Answer (7)

Report

“Didn’t test her for dementia…”

I am not surprised.
They frequently fail to even test fir UTI even if the elderly person has clouded, stinky urine and sudden confusion.

Ive seen it.

(6)

Report

See 1 more reply

Your mother probably feels "safest" with familiar conditions. It's too bad she won't make at least some small accomodations for safety reasons, but unless she is incompetant, her decisions are her own. Some of the changes you wish she would make may be so that you will feel more comfortable about her situation. She is not likely to react well to being told what she "should" do. If something concerns her enough, she needs to think an improvement is her own idea. Avoid arguing with her or lecturing her. If she complains about something, encourage her to think of ways she might make that situation better.

Helpful Answer (9)

Report

teethgrinder, where are you?? i'm screaming all alone, and sound like a cat.
let's scream together and sound like two cats.
🙂

Helpful Answer (3)

Report

teethgrinder, are you having a good, non-screaming day? if not, let's scream together. you do soprano, i'll do alto. we'll harmonize. ready? in the key of G.

Helpful Answer (3)

Report

I won't use a cane.
Would make me look old.

I'll just clutch the furniture to keep my balance.. I look so much younger doing that.. Like a cute baby learning to take steps. Add a bit of teen sass & I'm invincible attitude & "I'll manage just fine, thank-you".

Until I can't & then you'd better be at my beck & call so I can keep on looking young & being independant.

Helpful Answer (14)

Report

Boy your mom is really giving you a hard time, isn't she?? Is she medically diagnosed with dementia yet? It seems to me that a lot of her issues could be from having some level/form of dementia. Do you have POA for her that would get activated if she were incapacitated? If it were my mom, I would push on that so you can take care of her finances so she doesn't blow her money on whatever it was that she lost a lot of money on (per your profile). My mom can still function but I took over her checkbook years ago, even before her DPOA was activated.

My mom would never want to do sensical things either and OMG did it piss me off. Now she's not living with me and is in AL so I can deal with it cuz it's not in my face 24/7. Most of my mom's poor decisions were in the health arena. Just accepting decline as inevitable which is complete BS. Well, yes people decline but when you have bone-on-bone arthritis in your knees, the solution is to get your knees replaced which I basically forced her to do cuz I did not want to become her slave which her mobility decreasing was going to make her end up in a wheelchair and then a nursing home cuz I was NOT going to deal with that. Cataract surgery? Same thing. If I hadn't forced her, she'd basically be blind by now.

She has hearing aids but won't wear them? Nice. My mom's hearing is poor but with her dementia, I know getting her to wear them would be an impossibility. So, I had decided a long time ago that I was not going to scream at her (or my husband) so that she can hear me. I always felt like - I'm not the one who's going to do all the work when they don't give a crap about doing what they can to solve their own problems.

I think it is time for you to get some help for your mom. You deserve to have more time with your kids and grandchild. She won't like it but that's not the point. You probably don't like spending so much time and energy dealing with her, sooooo there you go. When my mom lived with me, I started with a cleaning lady when she couldn't take care of changing her sheets and keeping her room and bathroom clean. Not my job. Then I started adding caregivers and slowly increasing the days and hours until I had some level of independence back. But I still had to coordinate everything and fill in the huge gaps when there were no care givers. Your needs matter too. Not just hers.

If you want the washer and dryer moved, tell her it's for YOU because you don't like going downstairs to do her laundry or some other reason that makes sense.

I'm glad you came here to vent. I have always found it so helpful along my journey with my mom. It's not easy and you can feel really alone since no one understands unless they've been there!

Best of luck.

Helpful Answer (9)

Report

Just allow her to go her own stubborn-a** way and let the chips fall where they may. You seem far too involved. Just shrug your shoulders, stop offering amy advice, don’t visit so often, and wait for something to happen. It will, of course, and then you may get your golden wish of not having her to deal with any more. And it will be absolutely nobody’s fault but her own.

Helpful Answer (7)

Report

Yeah, I mean sometimes this is all you can do. Sad but true.

(3)

Report

Write down all the things that she does that annoy you, then give it to one of your children, and ask them to show it to you when you get to be her age.

My mother swore she wouldn’t be like her father and refuse to wear hearing aids when the time came to need them, but she did exactly that. My brother even stopped talking to her because he was sick and tired of having to yell everything to be heard.

Who knows why they're so resistant to change, but they are. Better to just go with the flow and practice selective deafness at the complaining.

Helpful Answer (12)

Report

oh my goodness....imagine ALL of us on the forum, one day age 99, behaving EXACTLY like our elderly LOs, whom we vowed we would never be like!

...i think i'll start writing a script for a movie. sounds like the start of a comedy..............or...............a tragedy. MJ, you'll be in the script, too.
❤️🙂

(5)

Report

See 3 more replies

Okay, so ask yourself this: how can she stop you? Have your sister replace the chair and Mom will adapt. Buy a new mattress. Mom will adapt. She can't physically stop you and she may cry and complain for a couple of months, but she WILL adapt. Find an assisted living place for her and move her, her new chair, and new mattress there. Because she will adapt.

Helpful Answer (14)

Report

JoAnn has a good idea . They don’t listen to their children. 1/2 the time they won’t listen to anyone. But you could try to have someone else talk to Mom.

Helpful Answer (6)

Report

I would wonder if she would listen to someone else. Call your Office of aging and see if they will do an evaluation for her. They can come in and say "Mrs Jones, don't you think it would be more convenient to have your washer and dryer on the main floor. Then u don't have to worry about those stairs. Same with ur bedroom, so much more convenient to everything down here. Me, I would hate going up and down stairs when I could have everything on one floor." See, she is being allowed to make her own decision. She is not being told, she is being asked.

Even a friend "Jane, if I had this house, I would move everything to the main floor. The w/d I would bring up here. I would be afraid I'd break my neck on those stairs. My bedroom too, bring it down here. Then everything would be so much more convenient. They don't listen to their children.

My RN daughter says, you let them think they made the decision.

Helpful Answer (11)

Report

Then you bite your tongue hard when she pops out with "I'VE had such a good idea! I'VE decided to move my washer & dryer.."

(7)

Report

See 3 more replies

teethgrinder,

i sooooooooo understand you.

i don't have any solution. i just understand you.

"I would never torture my kids with worry and stupid choices the way she has to my sister and me."

righttttttttt.

"It's totally degraded our relationship to the point where I want to scream."

yup.

hope you're having a good, non-screaming day!!

Helpful Answer (4)

Report

She is a miser, and will never change. My father was a real El Cheapo, finally he had to move to Florida to be near me, however, he never made it died 2 weeks before the anticipated move.

His house was a wreck, disgusting, he actually used Priority Mail Tape to shore up his windows from the cold, that was when the post office handed out rolls free.

It took me two months to clear out all the crap and rehab the house so it would be saleable.

So he dies and leaves everything to me as I was his only child, guess what I do? I spend it!

Helpful Answer (10)

Report

On something great, I hope.

(7)

Report

I don’t question anything anymore. I just shake my head. There’s no logic in their thinking.

It’s tough to watch poor decision making. Sorry that you’re going through this.

Helpful Answer (8)

Report

I’m sorry you are going through this and I want to validate your feelings.

Pick and choose your battles. The mattress is no big deal (IMO). Sure she deserves a better one, but unless you feel it’s keeping her awake at night, leave that alone.

Tell her the washer and dryer is getting moved upstairs for everyone’s benefit and then do it. Tell her it’s happening and she can’t make it not happen. It’s important and it’s for everyone’s convenience.

Let go of the rest of the stuff. Like my MIL, something bad is going to have to happen for real change to occur. That is just how it is these days.

When that something happens, it’s not your fault. You are doing what she wants.

Helpful Answer (12)

Report

Why? So they can teach US what NOT to do to our own children down the road, I guess. Or to perpetuate the myth "what doesn't kill us makes us stronger" meaning we should all have Herculean strength by now, eh? I hate that particular platitude myself.

I can understand wanting to do things "our way" but WITHIN REASON and using SOME SAFETY GUIDELINES, for petesake. Common sense is not very common these days, is the moral of the story.

Helpful Answer (8)

Report

I completely understand this! I think sometimes “life just has to play out” in a way that might force the change. It’s not what anyone wants, but I have decided this is just how it is/will be with some parents. Running to their aid and constantly making and paying for changes to better assist them burned me out beyond measure. My husband and I have put our affairs in order so that hopefully we will not put our children through this. I can relate to your exhaustion and frustrations. An aging, difficult parent is definitely a second job… 7 days a week.

Helpful Answer (10)

Report

Exactly, when I read all of these posts, it’s clear that we are over treating these unhappy elderly people for this and that which causes them to live longer and helps them become more and more unhappy. We need to stop running over there for this and that. You have to find the line between what they want and what needs to happen. It’s not easy, because they are difficult. We can’t let them take us down with them.

(11)

Report

1 2

This question has been closed for answers. Ask a New Question.

Why are they so stubborn?

49 Answers

Recent Questions

Popular Questions

Related Questions