Basically I've been 'babysitting her" and was an "enabler" for the last 35 years - (after her divorce). She's been in 3 alcohol treatment centers thru the years and last year was in detox. .I've moved her 3 times when she was kicked out of senior housing. I'm the only child within a 5 hour drive. The nursing home is 35 minutes away (an hour ten minutes both ways plus the time I'm there). I'm an empty nester with a job that takes about 55 hours a week. I usually stay at least an hour - she likes the visits sometimes play dominos or eat with her. I bring her toiletries etc She has some speech issues from a stroke and her dementia so there aren't real conversations though we do talk. She is also paranoid an complains inappropriately about her roommate. So not a pleasant time for me. I grieved for her long ago. She hasn't done anything motherly since I was in elementary school. At times I feel sorry for her life and I try to tell myself this my volunteer work. Right now I try to see her on
She had a stroke 10 years ago & now has early stages of Dementia.
Seems to me that people who drop off their parents in the NH and forget about them subject their parents to abuse and mistreatment. When you are concistant in your visitation this sends a message to the staff that you wanna make sure things are going well with your mom.
So not only would I go as often as I could, but I'd pop up at all different times so that there wouldn't be a pattern. That staff wouldn't know when I was coming, how long I was staying, or what I had planned for my mom when I got there.
No mother is perfect and they all have their issues but it really doesn't matter because there is no love greater than that of a mother. My grandmother used to say "MAMA'S BABY, PAPA'S MAYBE".
I'm not telling you what to do, I'm just telling you what I WOULD DO.
Hope this helps and continue visiting.
My mother was a very caring loving mother all her life and it is sometimes difficult for me to relate to those that have 'less than perfect' to "downright awful' mothers or fathers, but I do understand their position too.
BUT we have to live with the decisions WE make about our behaviors, not justify what 'we' will or won't do based on what our parents did. My mother was so dear and kind to me ALL her life, that there wasn't anything I wouldn't do for her, INCLUDING tolerating her outbursts or her anger when I visited her in the nursing home. But it didn't stop me from visiting her four days a week (or more, I work for myself so I could make my own schedule). But that is just me, I am NOT looking for 'kudos' from anyone for doing so, but I knew in my heart that once she was gone, she would be gone forever. And even a bad day with my mother was better than nothing. She passed on my birthday this year, but it still wasn't about me, it was knowing that she would no longer have to be confused on where she was, or WHO I was. or that we would not have to watch her slip even further away from us, while still being in the same room.
So the point of how often to visit is very understandable, and perhaps even necessary to those with less than perfect parents. How we conduct ourselves is the only thing we can control.
(p.s. I am not a "momma's girl" or a wimp, just a caring person that would want others to forgive my trespasses too)
Do what's best for you!
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