not so long ago my only parent had some health problems so I had to drop everything and move in with them and be their carer.
probably like a lot of people here they’ve had had strained relationships with their parents while ‘coming of age’ and for me its no different, where my lone parent lives now is not where I grew up, its a suburbanised villlage/town in a different area to where I grew up, I have no friends there and in my opinion its a pretty unpleasant place to be.
the only ‘upside’ my parent is pretty well off, in a working class retired nouveau-riche tastless kind of way.
so while I’m on carers allowance money itself isnt a problem.
My dad regularly says ‘if there is anything you want on Amazon…’ etc etc, this is hard for me to indulge in because when I was a teenager, in a rural location he gave very little attention or support to me my or my other siblings interms of ‘social development’, he was pretty stingy and critical of spending money, always having me and sibling do housework yet not capable of setting an example himself, he never gave us a lift out to town to see friends (it was an area with no buses). and when I moved out it was definitely under a cloud.
for years I was destitute but happy living my own life in London and other cities around Europe, and he’d contact me, nagging me to come home ‘for a day or two’, so I could wait for a delivery on his behalf, while he was out at work, and he’d ‘offer me some money’ usually about 40 quid for mytime, considering the train from london itself was about 25 quid, it sort of made it pointless to spend my free time there doing that. his house is about 30 minute walk from the station and depending on his mood he may or may not offer to pick me from the station, so with all of those travel times added up, it just wasnt worth doing his errands, and then he started to pay his friends/partner’s kids to do housework (apparently they were getting a proper wage!)
when I found out he was ill I had been living overseas. I had to drop everything to return to the UK including being separated from my spouse who had visa issues for 1 year. around that time I was beginning a new career in a particular industry, which I had to drop.
the few friends I have in the UK are based in London, Im lucky to meet one of them once a month.
in this rural location I can’t work in any sort of job which contributes to any career paths I was previously heading down.
meanwhile my spouse who was a translator and has no intention of working in the local Spar or a fish and chip shop (something my dad doesn’t quite understand). meanwhile if I mention career or money my dad says ‘ohh dont worry about it, if you two need anything I will pay for it!’ which obviously feels like manipulation.
He’s spent a lot of money on me recently, because I’ve had driving lessons, (I never wanted to or learned to drive before, Im content with public transport and living in cities.) to complicate things he nagged I had to learn manual and he/we spent a lot of money on several weeks worth of lessons, with a horrible local instructor who’s car I almost crashed/stalled countless times. Eventually he relented and gave ‘permission’ for me to have automatic lessons instead, and my dad’s car which he can longer drive is an automatic. (“ohh but if you have a manual license, in the future you can drive any type of car!” its 2019, automatics will soon be the norm AND I clearly have no wishes to suddenly buy a 1960s Aston Martin and go to a car rally.)
so things like the cost of those driving lessons are what he uses when his body is aching and he’s having an impatient tempter, for example, he will want his dinner (a plate of 4 chicken theighs cooked in the oven (he prefers them overcooked and really ‘brown’) with some microwaved frozen vegetables) at 6pm exactly, he will say "Arrggh! To think I wasted all that money on those driving lessons, and this is how you act… like spoilt brat! etc, and thats something I’ve lived with since I was a child.
I’ve noticed that when I go the extra mile, he will expect that as normal the next time around, whether thats wiping his ass, making an extra cup of coffee, pushing his wheelchair. I honestly cant workout if he’s become accustomed to being wheeled about everywhere or if he’s too lazy to make the effort to talk with his sticks.
in the mornings, he can shower and dry by himself most days, but then I do his socks and shoes, then his breakfast. He always has 2 large cups of coffee, I used to make one, have a few minutes of conversation, where he’d cut me off mid-sentence and then ask for his second cup, (‘Please, I’ve asked you 3 times now! I’d like my second cup of coffee! Or will I have to get up to make it myself?’). So I’ve gotten into the habit of making 2 large cups of coffee with his porridge, and then going straight back to bed without a word said, because there is nothing else to do.
as he’s of that baby boomer generation, he can’t trust technology, so when he needs to check his bank account, I have to physically go to the bank with him where he checks everything directly with the staff… instead of doing it online like I do, which is a further waste of my time.
whenever we get back from a supermarket (usually where he’d sat in the cafe and had me order a ‘a large Americano with three pots of extra hot milk, make sure its hot!’), he will say 'help me take my jacket off, right now I ‘d like a cup of coffee and perhaps something nice with it!’ Seriously? you’ve jsut been driven 7 miles to drink coffee, and now you are home you want to drink another cup of coffee? I dont have the desire to drink that much tea. As I mentioned earlier, we’ve just returned from the supermarket, we have several bags-for-life full of raw meat, and other foodstuffs, yet he forgets about the shopping I need to put away, and will be saying ‘and I’d like my coffee now. if thats ok.’ I’d explain Im busy he will have to wait 15 minutes, and during that 15 minutes he will say it repeatedly. ‘CAN, I, HAVE, A, CUP, OF…’
his dinner is always ‘too much’ and recently he’s developed a taste for Marks and Spencer’s kentucky style chicken and Aldi’s bratwurst sausages, the box has 6 pieces in it, and he will eat 4 pieces in a meal, with some sausages on the side, before I’d move in, he’d just cook all 6 pieces and throw the 2 other bits away. I do eat eat but I try to avoid eating it excessively and I even his castoffs are too much for me to eat and I feel like a glutton.
in the evenings he switches from drinking coffee to ‘diet’ ginger beer, he can drink one of those Old Jamaica 1.5L bottles in an evening. He says ‘I would like a straight glass and a bottle of ginger beer’. no idea why he nags over the glass being straight, but several other glasses in the cupboard are always rejected because of shape. Today we went shopping and I forgot to purchase 10+ bottles of ginger beer and I know he will throw a tantrum. However if he hears me boiling the kettle around 9pm, he can suddenly demand a final cup of coffee.
Politics they’re all over the spectrum, however they enjoy listening to LBC radio so you can easily work out what they voted for in recent referendums.
as they are retired they like to spend their money on crap, in the last 2 years I’ve been their career he’s purchased lots of fancy watches, the average price is around 5k, but 3 times in the last 2 years he’s spent 9k on Rolex/Omega watches. ‘Ohh but when die, you can sell these watches!’ he says, but I try to explain that when he dies, I dont want to go about with bunch of watches arguing with David Dickinson lookalikes.
personally I feel if you’ve got savings and money to waste on trinklets like watches you should spend that money on professional care.
so yeah, im stuck in a gilded cage, he said in the past ‘you want to move out? where will you go to? London? What on earth will you do there to pay the rent? its expensive in London you know!’ overlooking the fact I’ve lived in London and Berlin and Turin and Shanghai for years previously.
anyway its 6pm now and he’s nagging for his dinner.
I’m the ungrateful millennial youth, and i keep thinking about killing myself.
