I take my 85 year old mother out to food shop and doctor/dentist appts on Tuesdays and to Walmart and other shopping and lunch on Thursdays. I have her and my 89 year old aunt, who lives with her in an apartment, over to my house once a month for dinner with the family. As my aunt is getting more needy, my mother is wanting me to add another day, so she can get out again to shop some more! I left a well-paying job to work from home so I could help her out, but have my own obligations at home and work on weekends to keep up. My mother is never happy, always complaining and criticizing, and plays the victim all the time. They have a lovely senior citizen center and trips, a neighbor who would clean for them, and many other options, including in-home care or a beautiful senior living place with activities. My mother is bored and expects me to make up for the isolation she has imposed upon them. She says she has no options, but that is simply not true. Now my mother is saying that she and my aunt won't come for dinner on Easter because she's annoyed at me. I refuse to rescue her further, because she'll always want more, and is never appreciative. I do my best to be respectful and patient, and even spoke to her doctor privately. He said that given how manipulative and stubborn my mother and aunt are, it's bound to end badly. I told her that not coming for dinner was not going to solve anything, and that it would just make everyone feel badly. Any suggestions as to how to handle her?
SO prepare to set two fewer plates for Easter this year and let it be okay that her Easter gift is to learn a lesson about boundaries.
But the bigger "gift" here, in my view, isn't so much about teaching your Mom/my Dad where some boundaries are. It's in teaching OURSELVES that there are boundaries. They can't push beyond them unless we let them. You Mom has drawn a very bright, very public line in the sand. Don't go get her and pull her across it. Let her live on the that side of it or erase it.
Happy Easter, no many how many people you have at your table!
(BTW, they are still coming to dinner, once my mother had time to think about what she'd said. I even got a rare apology, but only because she was afraid of offending my husband, not me. I'll take what I can get, though!)