Blogging by proxy

Categories: uncategorized

Date: 23 September 2007 09:55:28

My mother in law is in hospital. Medically, there isn't a serious problem. The state of her house, however, means, I gather, that the hospital are unlikely to release her until some sort of care package is in place. The catch 22, however, is that, for health and safety reasons, a professional carer would not enter her house until it has been cleaned and tidied.

So all the health and social service professionals phone my wife, demanding that she clean and tidy the house. At the same time, her mother will not allow her to discuss anything with these professionals. And my wife's mother tells the professionals that they are not allowed to discuss the situation with my wife. In the next breath, this same mother in law tells my wife, and anyone else she happens to be talking to, that it is my wife's responsibility to keep her (my mother in law's) house clean and tidy.

Over the past few weeks, for the first time ever, my wife has had access to the house (which is the place where she grew up) without her mother being there. Previously, my mother in law has wanted my wife to help her with the house, but has insisted on being there, ensuring that whenever my wife wants to throw something out, my mother in law can demand that it stay. To some extent, it has been a revelation to me, to see how willing my wife has been to have a go at doing something about the house, when her mother hasn't been there to frustrate her at every opportunity.

But we are a family where the dad works full time, the mother works part time, the children are 10 and 7, my mother is elderly - it does amaze me how it is that everybody assumes that we have reserves of time and energy to cope with a situation which they, generally, just walk away from.