Caring for mum: 'I got it wrong'

When it came to looking after his mum toward the end of her life, Peter White, presenter of BBC Radio 4's You and Yours, discovered that his best intentions were not enough.

Peter thought the logical answer was for his mum to move in with him

Men over 65 can now expect to live to the age of 82, women to 85 on average. This is getting on for a decade longer than 30 years ago and it is predicted to carry on rising.

It is estimated that in 20 years time there will be over three million of us aged over 85 - twice as many as now.

But those years are not necessarily healthier years.

How to provide the necessary care and how to pay for it is the conundrum which society must confront.

Certainly, politicians have to face it on a global level, but practically all of us, sooner or later, will have to deal with it in our own lives.

At just over 60 myself I already have, caring for my elderly mother.

And I believe that I got it wrong, although I think my intentions were good.

Obvious solution

When my Mum was in her late 70s she was widowed, very suddenly, for the second time. It knocked her sideways. Never a fan of her own company, she faced life alone with increasing gloom.

So what were the options? She was not ill, although she was getting a little wobbly.

She'd had a couple of falls. But no way would she have qualified for residential care, even if she would have contemplated it, which she would not.

She did not even like the idea of sheltered or warden-controlled accommodation - "ghettos for old people," she called them.

The answer seemed obvious - she should surely come and live with us.

It seemed logical. My wife, Jo, and my mum had always got on pretty well for the past 30 years and, in any case, Jo could see herself increasingly dashing back and forth to make sure mum was okay. So we went ahead.

Mismatched expectations

I have to say, it was an unmitigated disaster. Not a big, nuclear explosion type of disaster, just an increasingly steady drip-drip of irritations, unfulfilled expectations and apparently unfixable misunderstandings.

All attempts at compromise proved doomed

It would take far too long, and depress me too much, to catalogue all these woes, which largely stemmed from different attitudes to housework.

My mum came from the school of "not a thing out of place, not a dish left unwashed" and could not understand why Jo, a working wife, would not allow her to achieve this domestic heaven.

In her eyes, she only wanted to help. In Jo's eyes, every time she came home to discover a sink full of washing-up meticulously cleared away it felt like a standing rebuke.

I thought I could see both points of view. My mum had run her own house without interference for 56 years, Jo for 27. All attempts at compromise proved doomed.

But perhaps more crucially there was a total mismatch of expectations.

I think my mum visualised that it would be as it was when we had invited her when she still lived in her own home, say for Sunday lunch or for Christmas - cosy chats together or watching telly in the front room, trips out, shared responsibilities.

But Jo and I had lived together, free of other adults, for the whole of our married life.

Hurt and frightened

As things went from bad to worse we tried talking about it: me to mum; Jo with mum; Jo and me. Nothing fixed it.

Jo felt like an ogre, but an ogre right at the end of her tether

I can only explain how bad it got by describing something which I still find it very hard to admit or look back on.

After two years we found ourselves sitting down together, with a collection of brochures on accommodation for the elderly, actually putting it to my mum that we would have to find an alternative, that it just was not working.

I hardly need describe the scene. Mum felt deeply hurt, and, perhaps more to the point, frightened.

Jo felt like an ogre, but an ogre right at the end of her tether.

I felt caught in the crossfire, and a failure, having been completely unable to see it coming or put it right.

In the end, that final step was not taken. When the reality of Mum leaving was faced, it was Jo who said it could not happen.

Circumstances allowed us to make some changes - firstly, furnish a bed-sitting-room properly for her, and finally to achieve a granny-flat.

But when my Mum died 18 months ago I had to acknowledge that my good intentions had not been enough, that something like this takes more than meaning well.

You and Yours will be carrying items on Social Care almost every day this month, including a phone-in on Tuesday 15th January and a final summing-up debate on 31st January, which will include the Minister for Care Services, Ivan Lewis.

All contributions from listeners to our phone-in or our website will be passed on to the Government's consultation process on Social Care, beginning in the spring, which will lead to a Government green paper.