Can you tell I have the empty nest on my mind?

While I'm preparing for this I've been made to think about women who will be facing this all alone.

So many women in our generation have raised their children by themselves and must feel a tremendous loss when their kids leave. It hardly seems fair.

they leave? OMG! When?

My brother is 46 and still lives at home with Mom. OK everyone, how do we spell D-Y-S-F-U-N-C-T-I-O-N-A-L?

Meredith, so your mom's how old and never been an empty nester?

Does your brother know how you feel about it?

What is it that makes adult children cling to their homesteads and roots? Any thoughts?

It must be so hard... although I know of some moms who are just wishing for the day they see their kids "out", so they can be alone...

I was just reading a magazine about raising chimps. It said the hardest part is setting them free.
I guess it's the same for kids. It's difficult for the parent and for the child, but it is also the culmination of the entire nurturing process.
Just like mother birds, sometimes we might have to kick the little rascals out, but being on their own is the only way they will ever be able to fly.

smile

I mentioned in another post earlier that if I had my way my sons and their wives and children and I would all live together in a huge roomy house as one big family. I hatethat they are gone and on their own, I miss them. I grew up surrounded by a big family, grandparents, aunts, uncles and my sibblings and it was heaven.. I miss it and my sons even though I see one of them often.....What happened to the good old days?

Chimps huh? Well, the way I see it I can either stop

1) buying those dang bananas
2) buy him an airplane
3) move...in the middle of the night
4) sell him
5) Give him to SMILES (what?)

JJ

Mom's 78. Philip was out for a few years but could never hold a job. He has serious emotional and mental issues that neither he nor Mom want to address. My two other siblings, who live on the East Coast near Mom, have been talking themselves blue in the face for almost 20 years trying to get her to kick him out. She says she wants to move to Florida where her friends have gone, but has made no effort in all this time. Philip has taken her car so she can't go anywhere except on the bus to the senior center. He takes her out "shopping" and "asks" her to sign credit card bills for his purchases. The three non-leech children use terms like "co-dependency" and "elder abuse" but Mom avoids all issues by retreating into depression. My other brother Howard and sister Iris have both offered to go with her to court to get some kind of injunction but she refuses. It's pretty serious and very depressing for the rest of us, but there seems to be nothing we can do unless she is willing to press charges.

Meredith: "elder abuse" seems an appropriate term for what is going on. Can you get some friend of hers to talk her into taking action???

Meredith, it sounds like a sad cycle, but many people live that way.

We are mother bears who will always take care of our cubs. That's how I see your mom's life.

Our generation may have changed that by not allowing our children to do the same.

Any thoughts?

I'm with you Chatty Lady -- I could easily live in a big house filled with everyone -- maybe thats why I have all my animals and plants around --

I wonder how I managed to be part of my family sometimes -- my parents dont mind if we call occasionally but dont even think about hanging around too long -- I havent heard from my brother in years -- my sister is happy 1/2 way across the country -- and I LOVE family all around all the time

oh well -- someone has to be the oddball of the family i guess

I for one, would love to have everybody close! I know times have changed, but there was so much more peace before... and children got to know their grandparents and great grandparents, and values were passed down more easily. Cousins would be best friends, etc. FAmily stuck together always...

The way it is now, I don't know half of my family members! So far from each other... I don't even know their names!!!!

Meredith,
What your brother is doing is called Financial Elder Abuse. My brother-in-law, who lived with my mother-in-law, got her to open credit card accounts and put a loan against her house. I called the district attorney for our county and he REAAAAALLLLY wanted me to give him my brother's name. He said no one would ever have to know I reported him. Since Merwyn's family didn't want to do that, I didn't give his name. I did call him and tell him I called the district attorney and that there was a name for what he had done and that he needed to take care of business. I was not unkind, just honest. What my husband did was take his mother to her attorney and they re-wrote her trust. If Mer's brother spent any more of his mom's money after a certain date, he would get that much less when the estate was settled.
Hope everything works out for you and your siblings. It seems to me that you hear about more men pulling this kind of thing than women.
I wonder why that is?

Meredith,
Another thought:
How is your mom mentally? Merwyn's mother couldn't figure out where all her money was going because Mer's brother had all these credit cards, car loans and home equity loan on his mom's house, and didn't have job, so he was getting his mom to pay the payments. He also lived at her home for free, didn't pay for groceries, car insurance, car payments or anything. Since everything was in Mom's name, she felt obligated to keep the payments up to keep her credit from being jeopardized. But, it took her having a ministroke and having to come live with us for a while before we realized the extent of what was going on. Her home was a mess because she COULDN'T clean (we just thought she didn't mind living like that). She would just put her mail in big plastic bags because she couldn't deal with it or understand it all and then hide the bags behind a big screen in her living room. Her memory was pretty poor and her capacity to understand stuff was limited. Older people will hide the state they are in and the only way to discover how things really are is to spend an extended amount of time with them.
Does your mom have her financial affairs in order? Who has medical power of attorney? Who has financial power of attorney? What are her advanced health directives? Does she have her funeral plans taken care of? How does she want to be laid to rest? Does she have insurance policies? Are they still valid, or has she let them lapse because she couldn't figure out what they were and didn't pay them?
This is such a difficult time for our parents and for us. My own mother had Alzheimer's and I got her to get things taken care of financially and medically just before she went down hill drastically. It was so hard.
I am sorry. I know this is empty nest forum and I guess I should have posted in the taking care of parents forum. I'm really sorry.

lala, this is good information and I'm going to ask the two other sibs if they have any answers. I'll cut and paste your comments to them, if you don't mind. Unfortunately, much of the situation you described in your family sounds like what's going on here.

Iris and Howard see Mom about once a month. They say she's doing okay for the most part but she gets so depressed, she retreats so far that she isn't totally aware of the real world. They don't think it's Alzheimer's.

And Philip is a thieving lazy pig.

lala, no need to apologize. Just go with the flow. The information is eye-opening. thank you.

Lala, no big deal where something is posted and theres alot of valuable information here for everyone one of us. Thanks for that. I know how hard losing your mom was for you an all you had to go through with your brothers....

Thank you, dear Chatty. You have been a blessing to me. It HAS been hard and I hope it will end soon. I am thinking it should calm down within a couple of years. I am not sure it would be realistic to expect much before then...unless God intervenes..which He loves to do. I keep praying for a breakthrough. I started believing the awful things being said about me and I had to fight back by listening to the truth. Every night before I went to bed I listened to a CD called "The Father's Love Letter". It is narrated by the most gentle sounding man reading the letter as if it is from God Himself and describes how God is our Father and how much He loves us and then it is followed by the scriptures used in the "letter". It helped me soo much.
Meredith, I don't envy you the situation you are in. It is soo hard. Our parents want to retain their independence and don't like us butting in when sometimes that is really what we need to be doing. I know my mom was shocked the first time the roles were reversed, but it had to be done. I hope things work out all right for you and your family. One thing I will say from experience, forgive your brother now and keep working at forgiving him. Family is important, even crummy family.