What to say to step-mom who is demanding I promise Dad will stay at home?
My step-mom and my dad live across the country. We never had a close relationship even when they were on the east coast. Briefly, they are very self centered people who have never voluntarily made a generous decision regarding me or my sister. Dad is verbally abusive to everyone and always has been. Now it is just magnified. My step-mom is dad’s full time care giver except for a VA nurse that comes 4 hours a day and other nonprofessional people that come a few times a week to do chores. She has Parkinson’s and a pacemaker. However, now that my father is 92 and has dementia my step-mother is demanding that I promise to not put dad in a nursing home should she die first. They rent a loft space in Downtown LA and pay for it out of their social security benefits, I think. I visit 1x per year due to cost and time. Over the years I have tried to reasonably discuss care plans that would work for them both. My step-mom adamantly refuses to move into a VA subsidized residence that could help my dad with a transition if she passed away first. So since I have no control over what happens to them and no idea what their finances are I am unable to make any other recommendations. There is no way I am moving to LA to take care of Dad. What should I say to my step mother who is demanding I promise that he stay at home.
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I didn't promise my husband that I would never place him in a care center. What I did promise him, several times when he was at his most lucid during his 10-year journey, was that, "I will never abandon you. I will always see that you have the care you need. If you need the kind of care that can only be given in a facility of some kind, I will visit you often and I will always be your advocate." Once late in his disease we drove by a building under construction and I pointed out that it was a health care center. He said, "But I'm never going to a place like that." I replied that he had the best doctor in the state, that there are lots of kind of help I could hire. There is equipment like lifts we could rent. So I will definitely keep you at home as long as I possibly can. But we don't know the future."
I think what your step-mom is asking is unrealistic. Just say NO.
I liked that Guestshop had written above. I would use those words when speaking to Step-Mom about this question.
I can't promise that because I am not God and I don't know the future. However, I feel fairly certain that if the time comes and I must use a NH, you won't be aware of it.
That satisfied all 3 of them. I hope it helps.
As for financials - have they set up any DPOA/MPOA? If not, why not? I would tell her sure, I'll not put dad in a home, but I will need access to financial and medical information after you are gone. Have you set anything up, step-mom? I would bet not, but it would be best to ask. Doing everything AFTER the fact is painful and time-consuming. Our mother is still alive and although switching her billing address and banking information to me was easy enough while she was still living in her place, the rest of the changes needed are still on-going and it has been TWO YEARS! Anything federal (SS/Medicare, VA benefits, IRS, and in mom's case a federal pension DO NOT CARE what kind of POA you have. You MUST use their forms and process to get this done!)
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