Guilt you feel when you can’t do more for aging parent
LOS ANGELES: Every time Jennifer visits her mum in aged care, she leaves with the same feeling.
“I come home to a lovely house, and I feel guilty that I’m sitting, laughing while watching TV, and she can’t even get someone to turn the channel,” the 69-year-old from regional NSW says.
Jennifer was caring for her mum, who has dementia, at home for many years. She felt forced to place her in residential care when the system could no longer provide appropriate support for her and her mum.
Jennifer, who asked that we not include her surname for privacy, says home services often wouldn’t show up, and the funding wasn’t covering the level of care her mum needed.
“My beautiful mother had been a single mum of three and cared for me until I left home at 20.
“She had been a strong woman who worked all her life until aged 80, and I sadly had to place her with strangers.
“My feelings of guilt and failure were overwhelming.”
Carer’s Australia CEO Annabel Reid says these feelings are common among carers who wish to do more for their ageing parents.
“They are trying to make the best possible decisions to care for other people.
“They often feel guilty about ‘are they doing the right thing?'”
Carers may also face other barriers that mean they can’t give the support they would like to, Ms Reid says, such as time or logistical constraints, other responsibilities, like caring for children, and inflexible workplaces.
“They are key challenges that make it hard for the carer to do the best job they can.”
‘You find it very hard to run your own life’
Jennifer’s mum came to live on her property in a separate dwelling when she was 80 years old. Ten years later, she moved into the main home with Jennifer and her husband after falling and fracturing her hip.
“I was working full-time, rescuing animals, dealing with some of my husband’s health issues, and caring for mum.
“Then we had the floods.”
Jennifer says it was a tough time. She was getting up several times a night to help her mum to the toilet. She hadn’t been away from the property for years.
But Jennifer says she would still be doing it today if she could. She’s one of three siblings but the only one involved with her mum’s care, and says the in-home aged care system let her and her mum down.
“There would be days you would make arrangements, like ‘I’ll go into work today’, then [a support] worker wouldn’t turn up.
“You find it very hard to run your life at all with some certainty.”