Moving Your Parents into Your House: Elder Care at Your Home

If your parents can no longer live in their home, having them move into your spare bedroom or basement apartment might be a good option. Even if you charge them rent, it will probably be less than they’d pay anywhere else. You can cook for them, drive them to appointments, provide some basic healthcare, and save the time and gas it would cost you to drive to their house every day.

However, the Family Caregiver Alliance says there are several questions children caring for aging parents should ask before issuing the invitation. This is particularly true if you're part of the "sandwich generation" caring for both your children and parents.

Parents Living with You Can Mean Conflict

If you and your parents have unresolved issues, living in the same house may make it hard to avoid them. Do they resent that you left their faith, or moved to a different state? Do they accept that you or your kids have a partner of the same sex or a different race? Or if it’s your widowed mother who has a same-sex or different-race partner, is that something you’ll be able to deal with?

If you and your parents have become estranged, you might think that asking them to stay is such a loving gesture; it’ll fix everything. It’s possible, however, that your relationship with them won’t improve, so how will you feel if that happens?

Even if you and your parents get along well, moving them in can lead to new conflicts, not only with you, but with your family.

If one of your kids has to give up a bedroom so that your father can move in, your child may resent it. There may not be enough space in your house to hold everything your parents insist on bringing in them. Even trivial matters – the meals you eat, the music your kids listen to, what TV the family watches in the evening – can become a source of conflict.

It can help if you avoid making unilateral decisions. Talk to your family members, tell them why your parents need to move in, ask for their support. Think about ground rules: Do you expect your family to conform to your parents’ wishes or should you make it clear to your parents that your kids’ lifestyles are not their business?

Also talk to your parents about their expectations and hopes. Are there parts of their lives and yours that you want to keep private? Will they have an outside social life or will you and your family become their entire support system?

Your parents’ health is another factor to think about. If one of them is in a wheelchair, will you have to pay to widen doorways and make your house handicapped accessible? Will you have to structure your schedule around taking them to the doctor?

With some seniors, the challenges are greater: Physical weakness that makes it hard to get out of bed, dementia, incontinence or a special diet (particularly if they refuse to stick to it). Do you have the skill to take care of them under those conditions? Do you have the patience and the fortitude to wash them off if they soil themselves or their sheets? Can you or they afford hiring someone to do the job?

Whatever your relationship with your parents, having them move in with you will require adjustment on everyone’s part. Think about the problems in advance, discuss them with everyone involved and you’ll have a better chance of staying close when they’re living close at hand.

Sep 19, 2008 12:16 AM

Guest :

I just want to say thank you for the read..My mother is 97 years old and very well groomed at all times. But very, very stubborn (nothing new, she has been that way all her life) I am having a difficult time and my stress level is running on low. Physically and mentally she is wonderful, just a little slow in walking. I do everything for her and with her, shopping, hair appointments, nails, restaurants, but at the end of the day there seems to be an augment about something. Everyone has an opinion but it is very hard for me to follow.
Thank you,
EW

Dec 11, 2008 6:33 PM

Guest :

My mother has been living with my husband and I for a year and half. Her and my father moved to our city when my father had to go into kidney dialysis 3X a week. He then started with Alzheimers disease. After a year my mother had to put him in a home, because he was having trouble with his breathing, and would have to have oxygen in the home. This was going to become way too much for my mother to handle, she lost 40 pounds in one year just from the stress of the move and driving my father back and forth to dialysis. Her health was starting to go down hill. When she was living by herself she had a fall and I found her on the floor passed out. She has had many falls since then and this was why we decided to have her move in with my husband and I. When she was on her own she was paying me $100.00 a month to go in once a week and do her cleaning for her, because she not manage it anymore. When she moved in, she stopped paying me "because she would have to check what her income would be since all of days' senior's cheques were going to the senior's home we placed him in. I cannot work because I have to home for her, since the doctor's still do not know what is causing her falls, thereby she can't be alone. She is able to cook, do some cleaning and other things around the house. But she leaves it all to me to do. I get very frustrated and angry at times because, I have to be at home, and get paid for not one thing I do in the house, even though I do it all. I feel that if she went into a home, 90% of her income cheques would go to the home. We share the rent, she pays the phone and cable and my husband and I pay for the groceries. However, I feel that I should be paid as if she were having someone come into the house and cook and clean for her. Even as little as $300.00 a month would earned as extra money that I could be making if I was out working and she would still have most of her cheque. Am I wrong in thinking I should be paid for all that I am doing.
I need an answer from someone impartial, so that I can decide what to do. I am desperate. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you. RB