My elderly father recently hurt himself in a fall and will by in a short term care home until he is able to rehab enough to come home. He was the sole care provider for my mother who has mild dementia , so my sister and I have been staying at their house to assume care for my mother. I am retired and my sister is adjusting her work schedule to help care for our mom. We have 2 other siblings who very little to care for my mother. They both work and have the excuse that they are busy and cannot adjust their schedules to assist much, so the majority of care falls on the shoulders of my sister and me. I'm sure this is not an unusual scenario.
Just curious how others have dealt with this situation. My sister and I would like more support from them. Someone suggested that we use financial motivation by putting a dollar value on our time and have it taken out of their estate before the rest of their assets are disbursed to all siblings. My sister and I don't care about the money, but that might motivate or siblings to participate more...sad picture of our family.
You don't need to tell the siblings about it ahead of time. You would not go into the minutiae of hiring a random caregiver either. Just get it done. If they wanted to be in the details, they would be there with you or on the phone trying to work this out.
If I were still working and one of my siblings was doing hands on care, I would absolutely expect them to be paid. I would expect for a caregiving contract to be written and proper compensation, including respite time.
If your other siblings can't adjust work schedules or aren't capable of providing hands on care (both of those apply to me), I would assume that they would be amenable for Mom's funds to be used this way. This is also helpful if mom ever needs to apply for Medicaid.