Moving In Aging Parents

As a father, is your family getting another member added to the household?

No, I do not mean having another kid. I mean, are you having a parent move in?

We recently had Bethany's mother move in, and I will talk about the Good, The Bad, and The Ugly of this situation. 

I will also share what I have learned through this experience. I would love to hear about your experiences. 

I would love to connect with you on Facebook, and feel free to join our group, Thriving Fatherhood, where I offer more on how to thrive in fatherhood.

Transcript

Welcome to the Thriving Fatherhood Podcast, where we are living and working in the trenches to go from surviving to thriving in this mission field called fatherhood. 

My name is Brian Knight. I am a father of three, a husband, a son, a coach, and a believer in Jesus Christ.

Today, I am going to be talking about living with my mother-in-law. Du Du done!!!!! What are the positives and what are the negatives. Are there really any negatives when you look at it from a different angle.

As most of you know my father-in-law passed away back in January. He was sick, but we did not expect it quite that suddenly. I remember I had my wife in the car and I felt this inkling in my heart that we should visit him. So, I took my wife and myself to visit him at Summerville medical. At the time he seemed to be in ok condition. Well, with in 24 hours he had passed away. It was a little bit of a shock. If someone you love goes in the hospital, make sure you take time to visit them because you never know how much longer they will be with you. 

Fast forward to May and June of this year and my mother in law’s lease is coming due, well she can not technically afford to stay in their one-bedroom apartment which basically exceeds her social security check each month. So, we helped her move her stuff out and into storage. You may remember Bethany and I closed on our home in late April. Moving and selling my old home and getting the new home up to par was quite an undertaking for me. Luckily, I was on paternity leave at the time, otherwise I would have never been able to get the move done the way I would like. In other words, increased cost, things not done right. 

I would have had to pay someone, and all of you know that they still are not going to put everything in its proper place. Bethany had her hands full with the kids most of the time, so she was not able to help much.

Getting back to my mother-in-law, moving her out of her apartment was a massive undertaking in itself. They had so much stuff that they had not dealt with in the past twenty years. I still have some of that stuff today. I am slowly adding it to my stuff, selling it or throwing it away. I must say that overwhelm has hit me quite a few times this year with all that is going on in our lives. Welcome to fatherhood with three kids, moving, and starting a new job all in the same year. 

When we bought our new home we had the intention of her staying with us in the future, and that is why we made sure there was a bedroom with its own bathroom on the first floor. She just had a knee replacement so you can imagine if we had only bedrooms upstairs how that would have turned out. 

We would have liked her to be on her own but her financial situation is not conducive to renting an apartment on her income. She could move in a low-income housing, but the wait list is long and the rent really is not that cheap and then is it going to be a safe area. All of these things were going through our heads as we thought about the idea of her moving in with us in the future. 

Also, she has had a history of falling and sleep walking so we were not totally confident in her ability to stay safe in her own place by herself however many miles she would be from us. It would worry my wife if she did not hear from her for a while. 

So far she has been doing well living with us. We have had a few miss haps. She pays us a modest rent and we pay for almost everything for her. The only thing she pays for is her meds, car stuff, and spending money. She likes her life to be very simple with out having to keep up with a lot of bills and all the administration that goes with that. 

She also helps us with child care sometimes, especially with my youngest. She is not as resilient as she once was.

I think when it all boils down to it I feel good about her contribution to the household, and it is helping her to live the life she wants to live, and it lowers the worry for my wife. It is important that having a parent live with you that it is a win-win for everyone. If not, someone will start to get bitter as time goes on. So, no I do not recommend letting someone stay with you for free if they have the means to pay. Honestly, income help with your toleration and resiliency of the situation. 

Most recently, my mother-in-law just had her knee replaced. She has had a hard time with this. She has not been taking her meds as scheduled and this has put her in pain, made her depressed at times and makes her not want to move or do her daily PT so she can recover properly. My wife feels like she is caring for a fourth child sometimes, but it is our duty in my opinion. It is unfortunate that she seems unable to thrive on her own, but it is what it is. 

Recently, the PT company said they were understaffed and could not send anybody out the Friday after her Monday surgery. In my opinion, that was unacceptable. My wife called on the phone Saturday morning, because she had a fall the night before. We had someone out there that afternoon to provide therapy and they are coming four times the following week. 

We have made every effort not to handicap her, but it is kind of difficult to tell a 68-year-old woman what to do who is not your mother. Bethany has a little more leeway to tell her mom to wip into shape, but it does not always work. I think what I have had to learn, is that she is her own person, and she does not view life like I do. She does not feel like I do or is driven like I am.

We give her privacy as much as possible, her room is right by the kitchen, so it is easy for the kids to go in a invade her space. Sometimes it is hard for her to tell them I need to be alone right now. We did get a sign that says open or closed for her door. Also, she sleeps late and our day gets started early. So, it can be challenging to keep the noise down for her, although she is a hard sleeper with the medication she is on. We have had to have her set some boundaries with the kids and we have been enforcing that as well. 

My wife had brought up the idea of selling her car, but we decided against this big time. For one it will not fetch much money which she will tend to spend it away. Another thing, is anywhere she needs to go Bethany will have to take her. We do not want to take away her main source of freedom at this point. Her car will not bring much money and it does not cost a lot to keep going so selling it would have a negligible effect on her finances.

Recently, we needed to close out her storage unit that was a 10 by 10 to keep her from having to pay on that going forward. So, of course all that stuff ended up in my neat and somewhat organized garage. So, I have been selling that stuff at penny’s on the dollar, giving it away or throwing it away. I believe my mother-in-law and maybe even my wife would have chosen to throw it all away or donate it. It seems like such a waste of money. Even donating it you are often not getting it to somebody who truly is looking for that item. 

It will take me a few months to slowly off load the stuff, but we finally have everything under one roof. I guess the message is slowly but surly you will get there on these overwhelming projects. Just keep working at it every week, every day if you have to. It is amazing to see what has been done since April 21st of this year. Honestly, I know there will always be something that needs to be done around the house but I am hoping that I can wake up one weekend and say “Wow, I have no projects I need to work on today and I can read or work on the podcast, or, just serve my family, take a trip with the family. We have not done that in a while. We would love to go to the mountains again. Some how with three kids, one that is seven months, and one due in May. My wife is just not that excited about four car rides anymore. HMMM

So, that is what I have for you today; if you feel this show has been valuable for you, I encourage you to share it with one other father who could gain some insight from it and wants more thriving in their lives. 

Also, I would love to hear about your experiences with moving your aging parents into your house with kids. What were the challenges for you, what came up for you that was unexpected, what did you learn? Please share that with me in the comments below.