Why are so many elderly abandoned by grown up children.

Smileless you are quite wrong I quoted the word abandoned from Sparklings title I didn’t make it up

Why are so many elderly ABANDONED by grown up children

Once again the poor parents are the 'victim'.

My 'mom' would agree. Poor HER. She had a husband who worked his ass off to provide for their family. They had a 3 bedroom house by 25 and paid for by 30. 2 cars etc... My 'mom' didn't have a job outside the house since before my older sister was born...

AND YET -- "Why don't my children do what I DID??? Why don't they have all kinds of time to cater to ME???"

Because as others have pointed out... A lot of the 'older generation' had all those luxuries that people today cannot afford on two people of the home working/doing paid labor. And instead of recognizing 'that' and being truly supportive? Nope... The "younger generations" are terrible because they point out what isn't attainable in today's world by the "old people" standards...

Contact is someti,es hard when evryone is working. I don’t live in my sons pockets but it’s usually us that has to go to them if we need to see the grandchildren. But I accept that. Middle son just visits birthdays and Christmas. The other two are better.

I feel that’s a long time for someone in their late sixties

I would hope that not many people in their late sixties would need, or expect, support from their AC, except perhaps in the case of acute illness.
Where has this expectation that older people are entitled to their children’s time and company come from?
I remember both my mother and my grandmother (both widowed in their 50’s) being proudly independent and hating the idea of being what they called a ‘burden’ to anyone.
Complaining that you’ve been ‘abandoned’ by your AC is certainly creating a burden for them.

BlueBelle -- For 'some types' the truth is what they say/believe/try to gas-light into existence... Facts/reality and the evidence aside...

The "willfully blind"/people in denial, spout the same junk over and OVER and fail to see that true evidence like what they SAY counts.

"Well I have never seen anything like that." is a standard reply to things like Issendai's articles... And yet I too can show the same facts/reality they do.

Most parents that are estranged/'abandoned' are that way because of THEM... And THEY cannot accept that.

No idea what post of mine you are referring to holyhannah

I think the original post is a huge assumption built on a friends experience

I don’t think things now are any different to what has always been, some families are close some are not
My own situation I spoke to my dad in old age every day sometimes two or three times I visited my mum with Alzheimer’s every day after work, I have one daughter nearby who speaks to me every day a son overseas who speaks once a week with occasional messages inbetween and another daughter overseas who we message or speak at least every week to ten days ...all three different
I don’t think anyone in their 60 s needs micro managing they should have their own lives to lead

There will always be people cut off I remember working with a lady 20 years ago with five children none of whom spoke to her She seemed a lovely lady but who knows !

Also ‘abandon’ to me means there is some responsibility for the adult child to care for their elderly parent. In many cultures that’s the case.

Bibbity you seem to have a very hard attitude to elderly parents. My late Mum used to often say “we all get old and you’ve got it all to come”. It’s true.

Sparkling
I don't know how old you are, or how many people in their late sixties you mix with or know but you obviously have a distorted view of older people
Maybe you could widen your view of what we geriatrics are capable of. Prior to lockdown this old couple were asked to crew a boat being delivered from Croatia to Spain.
Obviously this didn't happen.

HolyHannah most parents are abandoned because of them. Really?
The people I know who are "abandoned" are good parents. Is it too much to think the children you love and care for might want to visit you?
Janeinsworth. I don't tell my children how I feel. You can't make people care. But why should it be considered a burden to spend time with your parents? I wish my mum was here to visit. I would be on her doorstep.
For many, parents aren't important nowadays.

Yes Meryl and in their late 60s this old couple took their boat 6000 miles round the waterways of the eastern United States causing their AC some concern at times

Anne of course it isn’t a burden to spend time with your parents. I’d hope it was a pleasure.
It only becomes a burden when the AC is made to feel it’s a duty.

Hasn’t this always been true to a certain extent but maybe we are now more aware of it? People retire and have more time on their hands and unless they fill it then time passes slowly. Young families are so busy that time flies by. So not seeing somebody for a fortnight could seem forever if you are sat at home with little to do. Time is relative. Estrangements are a different matter of course where people deliberately stay away.

A fly on the wall would often tell a different side to the story.

The adult child who phones but every time the first comment is along the lines of, you haven't phoned in ages.... and so has now stopped saying you can also phone me.

The elderly parent who repeatedly claims an adult child never bothers with them, even when the siblings have just passed each other in the driveway.

And, anyway, what constitutes 'elderly'?

Late sixties is not elderly if one is healthy. I'm 71 and do not consider myself elderly.

My apologies Bluebell and Bibbity, I didn't pay attention to the thread's title.

Once again the poor parents are the 'victim'. Sometimes parents are the victim, why is that so hard for some to accept?

A sweeping generalisation isn't it annep to say most parents who are abandoned are at fault, as it would be to say that most EAC are at fault for abandoning their parents.


























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I sincerely hope that I do continue to see my children and grandchildren as I get older but there is no way I would want them to feel the massive guilt that I have had pressed on me my entire life. It got to the point where I could barely have a day away without a full inquisition . Don’t get me wrong I have never begrudged looking after the elderly members of my family but I have a sister and 2 girl cousins who all seemed to assume it was all my responsibility .

It becomes a burden when parents tell their adult children that it is their duty to carry it - "We are your burden and you must take it up, and phone and visit us ten times as often as you have done, and do things for us in your very rare time off, whether you want to or not, even if we spend your whole visit going over again how selfish you are."^ Before that they may not have seen it as as something unpleasant that they ought to be doing, just hadn't really thought about it at all. They were encouraged to go out into the world and conquer it, and they are doing just that.

If parents have a life of their own, with hobbies, places to go, friends to see, they are less aware of the exact date and time that their children last contacted them. Because of this, when they do visit or phone, they are not greeted with a reproach for staying away - so the meeting is a pleasant one. Parent can chat about what they have done, hear about what child has done, be pleased about good news, and both parties enjoy it.

Result = child goes away happy, is motivated to make time to come again soon. There is scope for a phone call a little later, with more news about some ongoing situation, from either one of them. Not an hour-long chunk out of a child's all-too-short free time, but an update on things, and perhaps an arrangement to meet soon. As someone has said above, phones have outgoing connections as well as incoming ones. an "elderly" person, unless their faculties are impaired, is capable of ringing - and also of making it a fairly short call.

You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.

Sometimes parents are the victims. Why is that so hard for some to accept ? I agree Smileless
There are too many angry "children " who are making generalisations from their own bad experience. But the fact remains there are children who neglect good caring parents.

My mother once told me re my brother ‘...he never comes near!’
He was just getting in his car to leave as I arrived!

Of course she had dementia, but zero short term memory meant she really did believe it.

In some cases of course it’s very sad when there’s no reason for it and grown up children just can’t be bothered, but then some parents weren’t nice to their children.
As you sow...etc.

Do you really believe that what you have put in quotation marks, is something parents say Elegran?

Mr. S.'s is mum was always very demanding but never said anything as bad as that. She now has dementia and is in a care home, she always tells him when he visits that she never sees anyone but bless her, she just doesn't remember.

Lollin I remember my grandmother's first comment when Mum and I would visit her was always on the lines, "Oh it's you. Haven't seen ^you for three weeks. My grass needs cut."^ She was in her late fifties, perfectly able-bodied, and as capable of getting two buses across town to us as Mum was of taking the same two buses to her with me and a toddler. It doesn't encourage anyone to return, does it?

She had neighbours, by the way, but wasn't on speaking terms with them most of the time.

I don't spend time with people I don't like who make me unhappy and make my life difficult.

People who love you do not make you unhappy, not on purpose or without remorse anyway.

I'm not going to be a martyr. I don't owe anyone for my birth or for raising me.

What I do for older relatives is love, not duty and that's not difficult even when it's complicated.

If I want my children around I need to be someone they want to be around.

I have told mine to just shove me in a cheap home and live their best lives though.

You're right annep.

Smileless They don't say it in exactly those words, but that is the meaning behind what some people do say. It is what the feel about the relationship. See my post just above this.

The memory has coloured the way I have tried to shape my relationship with my three children and my two sons-in-law and one daughter-in-law.

Smileless2012

My apologies Bluebell and Bibbity, I didn't pay attention to the thread's title.

Once again the poor parents are the 'victim'. Sometimes parents are the victim, why is that so hard for some to accept?

A sweeping generalisation isn't it annep to say most parents who are abandoned are at fault, as it would be to say that most EAC are at fault for abandoning their parents.

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The OP made clear in her post that this thread isn’t about estrangement and the “abandoning” is the family not being in touch/visiting as often as that individual would like.