would you move your parent in

DH and I have been discussing this very topic over the last few weeks. My mum who lives alone has very poor mobility mostly due to crippling arthritis. She has all of her marbles but is only just about managing to care for herself with lots of help from both my sister and I. Things are getting harder for her day by day. We do have room for her but I absolutely know that she would hate to become a burden along with leaving her independence behind and come to live with us, I also know she would hate the thought of going into a care home., If I'm perfectly honest it would probably be a recipe for disaster, her living with us, we don't always see eye to eye. We've never fallen out but that's because I can leave and go home to my own house. Having said all that, I think eventually and in the not too distant future we will be putting it to her and in the unlikely event that she agrees, give it a try. Maybe with lots of understanding and patience on my part and a little on hers,it can work.

I would never expect to live with my own DC's.

I love *Nelliemoser's role reversal idea! Ha ha.

We live very close to DD. Opposite sides of a courtyard style garden.

Quite close enough thank you very much

My DC loved having my DM here and were always very caring towards her.

They loved DMIL too, but none of us could have lived with her, even DH. although she used to come and stay for a few weeks at a time.

I wouldn't.
There is absolutely no way that I would expect to move in with my children.

When my youngest daughter and partner wanted to buy their first house I suggested that I sell my house and we bought one jointly. I'd have done it gladly to help them. In the end they were helped with the deposit by partner's parents.
I still dream of moving in with one of my children (not the one who's a reincarnation of my mother). I'd be very happy as long as I had my own space.

Another back-of-an-envelope superficially attractive idea. Sigh. This is no way to make policy.

I could no more have lived with my poor Mum than flown to the Moon. She was severely demented with hallucinations and Parkinsonism - no way she could have been cared for in anything but a specialist unit with staff who go off duty and get a break.

I do not think that I would have had a problem with all the bum-wiping and so on, but her care demanded more than anyone could possibly give 24 hours a day.

My DDs are most insistent that when life gets difficult for us (more difficult!?) they will make sure we have accommodation with or near them. We will wait and see - I did not raise them to look after us but to have a happy life of their own. But I admire and treasure their views on this.

We had both mothers living with us at different times. DMiL was quite a lot older than DM. She came to us first and was with us for several months before she died. We also had my Aunt, DM's sister, for over 20 years. My DM was here at the same time for several years, then just her after my aunt died, until she needed 24 hour care. DH and I were both brought up in families with several generations under one roof so it felt quite routine. It was very nice for the DS as well. We didn't have a Granny annexe but the house is big enough for us not to be on top of each other all the time. It wasn't always sweetness and light but the good points definitely outweighed the bad.

sunseeker. I know people who have done the same, and had moved to France! The poor mother found herself homeless- and abroad where she didn't even speak the language- and with no money to come back to UK and buy even the smallest of homes!

Considering the s* I gave my Mum as a child I'd do it without batting an eyelid if she needed it.
How would I manage? No idea!
How did she manage? Still no idea but we made it through alright!

Another Cabinet Minister with a great empty space where his brain should be. Does he have any idea just how small the majority of the houses in this country are, whether 19th century or 21st century?

For many people, having a parent (or does he expect us to house all of them) in the house would mean kicking out the children and then shoe horning the elderly parent into the little box room over the hall. This parent, let us refer to her as she because more often than not it is a she, would have to share a not enormous bathroom, where it is highly probable that the only shower is over the bath. The house may not have a downstairs cloakroom and the stair lift will be fighting for space with all the family belongings in the small hall.

Let us start with the indignity of an elderly person, now a bit frail, being moved out of an independent living space, with rooms for their own belongings, their own hobbies and interests, shorn of all their belongings, because there will be little space for them in a small house already occupied by a family, and being expected to live in a small room with barely space for a bed and wardrobe, expected to adapt to communal living and the habits and traditions of another family.

The elderly parent will be fortunate if their child's home is in the same area as those, so they will be moved from a community where they have friends and interests and moved somewhere where they kno no-one and will have little opportunity to develop new social networks.

I think cabinet ministers that make stupid suggestions like this should go and live the life they suggest for six months as lodger in a small house remote from their family, with nothing of their own but a television, unable to get out, unable to move from the house. Then ask them how they enjoyed it and who they would recommend it to.

I didn't and I wouldn't. My DC both told me if my Mother moved in,they would move out and they meant it,I think DH would have gone with them. Blunt but true.

I never had the opportunity to take either of my parents into my home. Both died in their 70s. I have overtaken my mother and next year I will overtake my father - probably.

I really regret that my mother didn't stay with us in her latter years when she was widowed. We have a 3 storey house and the living room and bedrooms are on the 2nd and 3rd floors and as my mother had osteoporosis in the last ten years of her life she really couldn't get up the stairs very well. I regretted buying a house with a lot of stairs when that became apparent. It was a problem for my father in law too, who outlived my mother in law by about 10 years or so, he also had problems with the stairs due to his knees. We therefore visited our respective parents in their own homes. My mother had all her faculties apart from this physical disability, she was very easy to be with. I enjoyed going down to her home and cooking for her and just doing things for her generally, she was always a great mother to me. I could have imagined her living with us she got on very well with my husband too, but it would have to have been in a different house, preferably where she had a degree of independence, somewhere with an annexe. My father in law wouldn't have contemplated living with us, he considered anywhere outside of Essex a foreign country I'm not sure I'd ever wanted my father living with me, we didn't have a particularly good relationship and I think that would be absolutely pivotal.

I don't know whether either sets of parents would have coped very well with all the comings and goings of our children, their partners and friends who often stayed round. This sort of thing didn't really happen in either of our growing up years when we lived at home!

I could move my mum in with me-I have the space and if she ever reaches the stage where she needs more care I may do it. But she now lives quite close to me in a sheltered housing flat. She enjoys her independence, has friends and a social life in the building. She chooses what to eat and makes her own meals. My sons and I do her shopping, take her out and clean her flat. If she was entirely dependant on me I don't think her lifestyle would be as good as it is. I think when too much is done for them people age more quickly. She is 93. I also think it is wrong to assume we will all finish up in care homes and the only alternative to that is to live with family. Family support is important, but it is best given whilst maintaining a degree of independence. Providing a variety of suitable housing is what matters. Also just because we handle things differently to other cultures doesn't make us wrong. I am sure that for every family caring devotedly for an older parent there is another where the parent is unhappy and less valued.

That's what i worry about granjura - i would not want my children diong those sorts of things for me, but also (and i do feel quite ashamed admitting this) i'm not sure if i could do it for one of my parents. i've never been good at that sort of thing. i suppose in the situation, one just deals with it as best they can.

You are so right about it being a bad idea to sell up to buy a bigger place with children granjura. A friend of DH talked his mother into selling her house and moving to a larger property with him and his wife. Mother and wife were soon at loggerheads, the son then told his mother to leave. Having sold her house and given the money to her son she had nowhere to go and the local authority put her in bed and breakfast until a friend gave her a room. She died a lonely bitter woman cut off from her son and grandchildren.

Never. I loved my parents absolutely dearly, and we came to live here near them so we could keep and eye on a daily basis- help with everything- but NOT moving in with them or vice-versa. I've seen it so often- adult children encouraging parents or one parent left to sell their home and invest it in a much larger/better home to move in with said child, spouse and family- and then turning sour, bitter, nasty even- and being totally trapped into that arrangement.

My mother would have totally hated to have me wash her and help her with the toilet- and so would I with my daughters. Mum would have felt she was taking too much of my time and affecting normal family and couple's life, and so would I. Much better to get professionals on work their hours and then can go and relax, play or sleep- and have a bit of detachment- and have children look after the emotional and affection side of things- but not day to day 24/7.

A friend of mine told her daughter she wanted to live with them and didn't mind her wiping her bottom and washing her and doing anything that needed to be done, etc- and daughter was horrified and really concerned.

I would , there is always a way to manage even if difficult

I don't have any parents now. In the circumstances they died within two and four months of becoming too unwell to manage.
There would be no room at all in DDs house. Unless we bought a joint house with them with a granny annexe. I would not be happy with doing that.
I could get my own back on DDs teenage yrs. Role reversal, I stagger in pissed off my head. She undresses me pours me into bed and sticks the sick bucket by my bedside.
Later on she comes in in the night to poke me to see if I am still conscious.
Mind you DD never seemed to develop the bad hangovers I did.

I think that he is right.

But I havent had to do it.

I would think myself lucky if they visited and kep an eye on me.

I never had a good relationship with my mother and the thought of having her live with me makes me shudder. However, she solved that problem by moving to the other side of the world!! We now get on much better with several thousand miles between us.

She lived with my brother for several years and that worked well because she always treated my sister in law with respect, rather than the sneering disapproval she had for me. Unfortunately she had a stroke a few years ago and now lives in a nursing home.

We would have my mum to live with us in a heartbeat. If it was my DH's mum we would all have killed each other within 24 hours (his words not just mine )

.. . that should be "and still work ..." in my first paragraph.

My DP was not very mobile and needed help with day to day tasks but was lovely and easy-going

I always say I won't inflict myself on my DC