I am the sole caregiver for my parents and I hate it. As I wade deeper into this destabilizing phase of my life, I do believe my caregiving misadventures deserve their own saga. So, here we go.

My father is now 91 y/o, uses a walker/rollator and his cognitive decline took a major downhill tumble in the recent month. He now frequently speaks to the people on tv and is disassociating. He believes that my mother is two different people. He is increasingly stubborn as evident by our literal tug o’ war trying to prevent him from wandering outside at 10:45 am.

Yes, my generation is tasked with the care of our aging parents. Unfortunately, the majority consensus is that sometimes our parents’ behaviors are downright frustrating and stressfully despicable. This is in addition to all the normal fulltime duties that come with caring for the aged. The gut wrenching part is their behaviors are creating significant resentment and a tinge of hatred from their offspring. No doubt this fractures the parent-child relationships.

Attention conservative readers: Before you continue reading, please note that I have no compunction to minimize my thoughts and feelings about my experiences. You are warned. Now, let’s continue.

F* This

When most people hear that you are a caregiver to your parent(s), the responses fall into the category of ‘bless you for doing such a wonderful thing.’ Since most of the caregivers are women, we are ever so polite to respond with a shy smile and ‘thank you’ while biting back the truth.

Here is what many of us truly want to say: ‘F* this,’ ‘I hate this,’ ‘I would pass this off to someone else in a heartbeat,’ or ‘Shut the f* up.’ We mean no disrespect with our silent monologs or screams. It’s just that this gig sucks our mental and physical energy, it can be very unbearable, and many of us are not cut out to be caregivers to the elderly. We’ve slowly morphed into being the parents of people who were once in-charge of us. We are caring for the adult problem child x10 who are not going to get better.

Uninhibited Bad Behaviors

He tried to kiss one of our hygienist.” The clinic manager discretely said to me. I sighed and struggled to maintain my composure. My thoughts were raging ‘Yep, that’s my f*** filthy disgusting motherf*** father.’ I am actually not a frequent profanity user – maybe 3-4x per year -but this deserved my expletive thoughts.

After five years of toxic exposure from his behaviors, my biased mind has come to the anecdotal conclusion that these bad behaviors are not newly manifested due to old age but they are old inhibited behaviors. These behaviors are now exacerbated and freely let loose because of the degrading mind.

Anecdotal exhibits a-c

a. A former coworker’s mother, who lived with her before her death, turned her life into a stressful nightmare. The mother was consistently guilt-tripping, condescending, berating, and disparaging until the day she died. In an epiphany moment, the coworker shared her caregiving story with one of her childhood friends who reminded her that her mother was always that way.

b. A friend of mine who is now caring for both her parents laments about her father who frequently distrusts and accuses her of trying to take his money. My friend had spent quite a bit of money and time to relocate them closer to her because she saw that they needed help. As his mind slowly diminishes, his money anxiety increases. The friend states that her father had always been tight-fisted her entire life and it was to the point where he would not spend money on leisurely activities.

c. I learnt that my father had always been prolific with his penis during his younger years. Despite being decrepit with a defunct genital, he still wanted a prescription for the ‘little blue pill’ (male enhancement drug) and he disgustingly takes EVERY opportunity to make sexual innuendos to almost every woman. At age 91, my father was on the verge of being expelled from his dentist because of inappropriate talk or gestures (i.e. sexual harassment) towards the young ladies. I am hyperalert when women are in his presence because at some point, I will have to intervene and refrain from slapping the sh*t out of him.

The Age Excuse

Age is not an excuse for bad behavior. I do acknowledge there are factors such as illnesses and medications that cause behavior changes in some elderly but this is not the case for all. Deplorable traits do not improve with age. They improve by choice. Unfortunately, some people, like my father, become set in their ways and refuse to change.

Think about it, if age is really a contributor to bad behavior, is this something we will all experience as we age? Are all future caregivers going to be subjected to such behaviors? Are the nice older people an anomaly?

Let’s hop back to my former coworker. When she told me about her mother’s death, what she did not verbalize was her feeling of relief but I heard it. I understood the unspoken. It sounds heartless to verbalize your relief in the death of a parent but for some of us, it brings a long awaited peace mixed with the sadness of how things could have been.

Are you a caregiver? Let me know about your experience in the comments.

Written by HarleyQ2 on the blog The Unedited Version. Title: Caregiving Saga: Parents Behaving Badly

https://myuneditedversion.wordpress.com/2025/01/28/caregiving-saga-parents-behaving-badly/