December 22, 2024 at 5:21 am

Son Was The Only Family Member Who Helped His Mother After She Had A Stroke. Now She’s Living In An Assisted Living Facility, And His Siblings Still Want Him To Take Responsibility For Bringing Her To Celebrate The Holidays

by Jayne Elliott

Source: Reddit/AITA/Shutterstock

When parents get older and have health problems, sometimes the grown up kids have to become like the parents and take care of them.

In today’s story, a young man puts his life on hold to take care of his mom after she has a stroke, but that’s still not good enough for his siblings.

Let’s see how the story plays out…

AITA for “ruining” the Holidays due to placing our mom in LTC?

So, I(28m) have two siblings Theo(35M) and Abby(38F).

Our mother had a stroke back in 2019 and our father passed away in early 2021.

I have been taking care of her since.

I dropped out of my graduate program to take care of our mom.

He’s responsible for all of his mother’s care.

Since January things with our mom became more stressful, increased memory issues, lack of sleep, and I was generally burnt out.

During this time my siblings did not offer any assistance.

They have families and lives.

It fell on me because at the time I was staying with our parents in their apartment in NY since I was going to school in NY.

Each year I would fly or drive to VA so our mom can see my siblings and her grandkids.

He ended up putting his mom in an assisted living facility.

I found a place for our mom back in February and I informed my siblings they had no objection at the time.

Now that major holidays are coming around they have been asking me if I am going to bring mom.

I told them no, I was not, but if they wanted to take her they were 100% free to take her.

I told them she is not in a prison and I did put them on the list for approved people to take her out.

Now everyone thinks he is the bad guy.

They told me they could not do that it would be far too complicated.

I told them that is unfortunate but I am going on vacation so I would not be available.

Now all of a sudden I have everyone and their mother reaching out to me telling me how selfish and heartless I am being towards our mother.

He defended himself!

I pretty much lashed out at Theo who is hosting this year and told him off.

I told him he has no right to call me selfish.

I was the one that stepped up to care for mom after her stroke and our dad passed.

I handled the sleepless nights, the wandering, the outbursts, the doctors appointments.

I handled getting her Medicaid, I handled everything and put my life on hold to do so.

Theo claims he should’ve asked for help.

They got to see the pleasant side of our mom and if she had an outburst I was the one that had to deal with it.

Then he said I should have asked for help.

He claimed he figured I had it all handled and did not need help.

I told him I should not have had to ask.

I was 23 when mom had her stroke and 25 when dad passed.

You knew I was stressed and was handling everything.

I told him he did not even offer to help me setup the arrangements for our dad’s funeral.

Neither did Abby.

Yet Theo doesn’t want to take responsibility for picking up their mom for the holidays.

He said he cannot read minds, I should have asked.

So in that moment I said fine and asked him can you come pick up mom so she can go over for Thanksgiving.

I will cover the travel fare.

He came up with excuses like it was short notice.

I said fine what about Christmas and again came up with an excuse.

Theo’s excuses proved his point.

After that I told him this is why I did not ask because you jerks will always come up with an excuse to get out of it.

I told him that is how you two have always been.

Apologize for the borderline rant, I am just upset atm.

I feel bad for the mom in this story.

I hope someone comes to get her for the holidays.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story…

This reader is on his side.

Source: Reddit/AITA

He needs to set boundaries.

Source: Reddit/AITA

Another reader wishes him well on his vacation.

Source: Reddit/AITA

This person can relate to his situation.

Source: Reddit/AITA

He isn’t the only one to experience family drama over this type of situation.

Source: Reddit/AITA

His siblings need to step up and take responsibility!

Or they need to let him handle things without comment.

If you liked that story, read this one about grandparents who set up a college fund for their grandkid because his parents won’t, but then his parents want to use the money to cover sibling’s medical expenses.