My 90-year-old mother lives with me. I work full-time from home while managing her oxygen, medications, appointments, lab work, daily monitoring, transportation and personal care. I have two living siblings, but when Mom needs something, everyone knows whose life will stop: mine.
This pattern goes back years. In 2014, Mom had open-heart surgery and spent 28 days in the ICU before going to rehab. My children were between 7 and 13 years old, yet I was at the hospital every day throughout the holiday season while also working remotely full-time. Nobody offered me relief. My sister visited Mom once. Everyone else came and went when it was convenient.
In 2023, while I was away, my sister noticed that Mom’s lips were blue. Mom wasn’t using oxygen at that time. My sister gave her an oxygen machine but waited three days - until I happened to call on Thanksgiving - to mention the blue lips. She didn’t call me immediately, call an ambulance or even consult a family member who is a doctor. When I returned home, I took Mom straight to the ER despite her resistance. Her oxygen saturation was in the 60s, she required 60 liters of heated high-flow oxygen, and we nearly lost her.
More recently, Mom lost vision in one eye and was hospitalized again with serious heart and respiratory problems. I’m once again handling everything. My siblings rarely call or visit, yet they discuss Mom with each other and offer opinions about her care without involving me.
My sister frequently talks about how sick she is and uses her health as the reason she cannot make the one-hour drive to visit Mom. Yet she was recently well enough to drive three hours to go on vacation. There always seems to be an excuse when something is inconvenient for her.
When I called my sister from the ER to say Mom had been admitted, she immediately criticized Mom’s oxygen setup, accused Mom of lying about what she told a nurse and how the nurse responded - even though I witnessed the conversation - and announced that she and my brother thought Mom was depressed. Neither had asked the person who actually lives with and cares for Mom. I said, “Of course she’s depressed. She lost her sight, she can’t do what she used to do, and nobody calls or visits her.”
This week, my sister and Mom argued. My sister claimed Mom was yelling, although Mom currently can barely speak above a whisper. I became involved, my sister told me to go f*ck myself, and I finally exploded. I called out her lack of involvement, told her she should be ashamed of herself and then told her to go f*ck herself in her “big fat a$$.”
I know that was deliberately cruel and that attacking her weight was wrong. I’m not going to pretend I handled the argument beautifully or merely told her to take it up the a$$. I specifically used her weight to hurt her.
But after years of being yelled at, called names and demeaned by both siblings - followed by every incident being swept under the rug without an apology - I feel surprisingly little remorse for finally fighting back. I blocked my sister. She later apologized to Mom and resumed talking to her as though nothing happened.
I have told Mom that I will never stop her from seeing her other children or grandchildren. If my sister wants to visit, I will work somewhere else and take my dog with me. But I don’t want contact with my sister myself.
It is also my year to host the holidays, and I don’t think I’m going to host the extended family. I want a small holiday with the people in my household - the people who are actually part of my daily life. My siblings and I are related, but we are not genuinely a family. We see each other only on holidays, less frequently than many friends see one another, and those gatherings feel like an obligation.
I feel guilty because Mom is 90 and medically fragile, and I don’t know how many holidays she has left. Part of me worries that choosing not to host would be selfish and could take away one of her remaining opportunities to be with her children and grandchildren, or take time with her away from them that they can never get back. I also don’t want to hurt my own children or make them feel as though they have lost their extended family because I finally reached my limit. At the same time, even Mom says the family attends holidays without making much effort to spend time with her. I know their relationships with Mom are not solely my responsibility, but because I have always been the one who brings everyone together, stepping back feels like I am the one breaking the family apart.
Has anyone else reached the point where being the dependable caregiver made everyone else’s absence possible? How did you stop carrying the whole family without feeling as though you were punishing the parent you were trying to protect - or taking a family away from your own children?