I’m so lost as a person and a mother. I took in my grandmother a little over a year ago due to health issues. She was found by me at her house having a stroke followed by multiple seizures. After her first hospital visit I was pressured into her moving in with me because doctors said she can no longer live alone. Granted we don’t have the biggest home but we make it work. I’m a stay at home mom of 4 and homeschool. Currently expecting again. Grandma expects to be waited on hand and foot. She won’t come out of her room for anything. Just sits and watches tv all day long. When I cook she won’t even come out to grab her plate, someone has to bring it in to her. I’ve tried stepping back and doing less but then she’ll go days without properly eating and just raid the snack cabinets. I buy things that are easy to make in the air fryer and microwave but she just won’t cook for herself. She’s still very independent and can make her own decisions, walk, talk etc. I don’t charge her money for staying with us nor do I rely on her money. I’m just exhausted and wish I never got rid of her mobile home when doctors said she could no longer live alone. There’s absolutely no other family. No one else cares about her. My father (her son) only one left of three does not care one bit. He’s an addict himself with no where’s to ever live. I took her in because I didn’t think it was going to be a 3-5 year maybe longer plan. Her health was really bad at the moment and time but she wouldn’t agree to hospice and would refuse nurses to come out to the home. Would only go to the hospital if she couldn’t breathe for low hemoglobin. Now since April she’s refused all doctors and nurses. Her hygiene is not the best. She hasn’t showered once since living with me for over a year. Just wipes herself down. Doesn’t do her own laundry. Mind you prior to her stroke and health declining at that moment she used to live alone and do everything for herself. The only thing I did was manage her money, bills, and food shop for her. I’m just so lost and not happy. I’m not happy in my own home for my kids. My husband and I bicker everyday about her because she’s just so ungrateful for everything we do for her. She’s miserable to my kids. If you say the wrong thing to her she acts like a little kid and won’t talk to you for days. I’ll make her food and she’ll agree she wants it and then scrape it in the trash. Complains to her sister on the phone I don’t take care of her enough and feed her enough when she’s more than capable of fixing herself something to eat. She complains about my dogs when they bark. I’m just so torn on what to do. I can’t live like this much longer. It’s not like she was the best grandmother ever either while I was growing up my parents were addicts and still are, I was in and out of foster care she never stepped up to care for us. She was a drunk and chain smoker herself. There’s just so much trauma I’ve experienced all the way around. I want to try and get her into assisted living we are in nj and she only gets about $1,200 a month and when I look up places they’re well over $5000. I just don’t know what to do or who to contact I’m just so so tired.
Secondly, you need to tell her that the gravy train has stopped and that you will continue care ONLY if you go to an elder law attorney for a CARE CONTRACT that is a shared cost of living contract. That you expect her to pay a full 1/3 of expenses for home, mortgage, insurance, utilities and food.
Thirdly she is responsible for cooking two days a week and for her own laundry and you would appreciate some help with yours.
Now we come to "she doesn't want to".
Then tell her she has exactly three months to stay in your home, and after that three months is up that you will be calling an eviction attorney to get her removed from your home.
Or, you can just continue on as you are, with now homeschooling FIVE children and taking care of granny.
You are an adult.
Life is fully of choices.
Your obligation is to your children. If you are wasting your time throwing yourself on grandmother's funeral pyre, then just know it is a slow burn; she will be there a long time with you and the grandkids. And you are neglecting your own children for her.
But there's nothing a forum of strangers can really do about that.
I hope you will wake up and take charge here, because you and your husband are the adults in the room.
You can no longer accommodate an 8th person living in your small home and one who refuses to bathe and wants to be waited on hand and foot. You already have too much on your plate with 4 children you home school, another on the way and a husband you're arguing with thanks to grandma.
Apply for Medicaid and get grandma placed in a Skilled Nursing facility stat. That's my advice. See an elder care attorney for advice and guidance. Grandma now requires more care than you're capable of giving her. Your children and husband need to come first now.
Good luck to you.
I would call in social services for your county and start a discussion about getting her a court-appointed legal guardian who will move her to a facility and take care of all the management and financing for it. Be persistent that you can’t sustain it and will not do it. Not “can’t” do it — WON’T do it. Do not accept any promise to help her “stay in the community”, this is a lie they sometimes tell to get people her off their plate. My family had a good experience with social services and guardianship.
The only acceptable solution is to move her out permanently. You’ve done your best. May this give you peace in your heart.
You home is not a safe place to care for her with so many small children and a new one on the way.
Get her on medicaid and find a placement in a state home for her. Then you can visit her happily and not resent her for things she can no longer do.
And it's you and your husband that are going to have to put forth a united front to get her out of your home ASAP.
I would start with calling APS, and your local Area Agency on Aging to see what your options are. And that most likely will include applying for Medicaid for her and allowing her to be placed in a Medicaid facility, where she will be taken care of, and you can get back to just being her granddaughter and not her burned out and overwhelmed caregiver.
You had a traumatic upbringing and I know that you don't want your children to do the same, so make those calls today and get the ball rolling of getting grandma OUT!!!