MaryAnderson60 wrote:


> Meals on Wheels would be ideal for my parents but they won't consider it. I
> even looked at "personal chefs" to cook for them every week but price is
> prohibitive.


When you say your parents won't consider meals on wheels, are they
saying, in effect, "oh no, we won't consider meals on wheels; we much
prefer that you drop everything, abandon your career and your family and
your free time and your friends so you can drive here and cook for us,
and if you don't, that's O.K., we'll starve," because that's what it
sounds like to me.


This might not be the right time, but at some point they'll have to
consider it. There's only so much you can do. You can travel the
hundreds of miles to take care of them. You can freeze meals for them
when you're there. You can hire someone to look in on them now and then
(which will cost a bundle). You can hire someone to cook for them
(which will cost a bundle). You can travel to take care of them more
often (which has huge costs to your own life in terms of time and career
and time spent away from your own family and friends).


This might sound like I'm suggesting you abandon your parents. I'm not.
Definitely continue to take care of them, but do be prepared to decide
on some limits. Take time for yourself. Decide how on what's
appropriate and dutiful and what's caving in to manipulation.

I'll take it to another thread, but I do want you to know that I'm
wrestling with this myself. I'm about to uproot my life in New England
where I love it to move my parents home town for a month so I can be
there to cook and help take care of my mother after her heart surgery.
I say this to make my above message sound less horrible. A certain
amount of inconvenience and sacrifice is appropriate-- but not an
unlimited amount.

--Lia