Granny Dumping

I recently graduated college. There was a whole chapter in my textbook devoted to granny dumping. I had no idea that it was this common (common enough to warrant placement in a college textbook). All I see is the constant breeder worship around me. I had no idea that simmering beneath the surface was this whole phenomenom of breeders who are too busy with their own brats to be bothered with an incontinent and senile moo or duh. This is why I have started my own retirement fund and I plan to care for my damn self. If I ever get to the point where I can't take care of myself, then please just put me out of my misery!

I have a Genworth Long Term Care plan and 2 policies from Aflac for "just in case".

Anyone I know who doesn't have kids ends up getting elderly parents dumped on them. People who come into contact with my mother tell her how "lucky" she is that my brother and I don't have children - we can "devote all of our time to her care".

Breeders go on and on about how much they worship their parents, but when it comes to taking care of them in the "golden years" most of them can't even be arsed to take them on a doctor's appointment.

A good example of this is my 85 year old aunt. For over 20 years, she lived in an unsafe house that was falling apart all around her because her three kids were too busy with their gaggles of children to notice their mother's home was a disaster. Finally, about 3 years ago, my cousin, who is CF, moved in with her and re-did the entire house. He no longer to speaks to his brothers, his mother or my other cousins because no one stepped up, even when he was busting his hump to build someplace safe for her. His mother refers to him as our family's "angel". She's a stupid bitch.

HIs mother was the same person who let her mother live someplace unsafe, but spent every weekend for a year driving back and forth out of state to visit my uncle who was dying of cancer. She would make all kind of organic soups and other bullshit to bring to him. She also would drag her fucking kids and grandkids with her - meanwhile these people hadn't seen my uncle in YEARS.

Being related to someone doesn't guarantee that someone is going to care about you when you are old.

I remember reading somewhere that granny dumping is something hospitals plan for every holiday. In some cases I honestly can't say that I blame them. What about the people whose mothers were horrible to them??? Why do those same abused children get stuck caring for the parents who made their lives hell??? If I was in that position I don't doubt that I would take my mother to a different part of the counrty and just ditch her in an ER. I've even thought about what states to do this in just in case I ever need to.

I know that probably makes me a right real bitch so I'll shut up now.

Well satansbitch, if you are a bitch, then I am too. I would have no problem dumping a set of breeders that made my life hell. I would have no problem draining my bank account, telling them I'm going to a "doctor's appointment" and riding off into the sunset to live my life in freedom. If that makes me a bad person, then so be it.

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peace-n-quiet
I recently graduated college. There was a whole chapter in my textbook devoted to granny dumping. I had no idea that it was this common (common enough to warrant placement in a college textbook). All I see is the constant breeder worship around me. I had no idea that simmering beneath the surface was this whole phenomenom of breeders who are too busy with their own brats to be bothered with an incontinent and senile moo or duh. This is why I have started my own retirement fund and I plan to care for my damn self. If I ever get to the point where I can't take care of myself, then please just put me out of my misery!

Yup, very common. Sometimes, they dump them even if they DON'T have brats of their own.

Squatting a loaf is no guarantee anyone will take care of you when you're old. All those old people rotting in bottom-dollar homes? Almost all of them have kids. Think about it. Effective birth control didn't even exist then, and women didn't have the option of pursuing other interests, usually.

So they pretty much all have kids... and yet they're flooding into dingy old homes like a tsunami.

The holidays makes sense as prime dumping time. Everyone's together for X-mess or Easter or what have you and they see just how bad Granny really is and decide she's too much of a burden, so they leave her off at the local ER. If she's senile, she won't remember her relatives' names, so the staff can't call the family and tell them to come back and get her.

I'm kind of torn on nursing homes versus family caring for an ailing elderly relative because having to help care for my own grandma when she was in the throes of dementia and Parkinson's is what led to a wedge being driven between everyone and why I am not "allowed" to speak to my aunts, uncle and cousins. Even if you really truly love someone, keeping them at home to care for them is not always the best option. In my grandma's case, it was one of her children demanding that she not go into a nursing home because of all the things she did for everyone, so we should ALL take care of her. Never mind that Grandma didn't even know who any of us were at that point, and we were not equipped to care for her. Sometimes it would take over an hour to get her to the bathroom...which was 5 feet away. She would just stand in one spot and tell us, "C'mon I gotta go pee!" but I guess her mind couldm't tell her legs to walk.

My relatives and I struggled to get her to move, but at night, she tapped into some kind of energy source and would walk around the house. She'd try to go in the basement (which had slippery painted wooden stairs) and we'd have to argue with her for an hour or two, trying to tell her she doesn't need to go down there and she felt she did. Or she'd walk up to the second floor where it was really warm and say she couldn't breathe, but couldn't get back down the stairs and my cousins and I would have to call someone to help us get her down. Anything we put up to block her from going upstairs she found a way to move. More than once during her walks, she'd fall in the middle of the night and I'd have to call someone to come over and help me pick her up.

I just think she would have done better in a nursing home. Her house was just too full of stuff that could cause her injury. I'm sorry, but if Meemaw and Peepaw have Alzheimer's and don't even recognize their family anymore, I don't see the problem with a nursing home. They don't know it's their family busting their asses for free to care for them, so what difference does it make? And it's painfully obvious that having children does not mean you will have someone to wipe your ass in your golden years - nursing homes are full of parents and grandparents whose family don't even come to visit them. The best you can do is not be an asshole to your kids and hope they put you in a nursing home with running water.