When one sibling takes care of parents, good intentions can result in caregiver exhaustion, resentment, and challenges with other siblings who may not understand the importance of their ongoing involvement until it’s too late.
One sibling may offer to be the caregiver in families with multiple children. When one sibling takes care of parents, the other siblings may breathe a sign of relief.
While you may think your sister or brother’s agreement to care for mom is great, when one sibling takes care of parents, many things can go wrong.
When Good Intentions Turn Into Sibling Caregiver Exhaustion
While a sibling may have the best intentions to care for aging parents; eventually, good intentions wear out when
caregiver exhaustion sets in. Caregivers who want to be helpful without knowing what’s ahead can eventually become resentful.
A caregiver’s life often isn’t their own. Life is overcome with medical appointments, dealing with insurance companies and other health providers, managing daily care, and the expectations of aging parents.
Then there is the caregiver’s life, which may include being married, raising children, pursuing a career, and a social life that quickly deteriorates when these parts of life are traded for caregiving responsibilities.
Caregivers miss out on many parts of life. Non-Caregiver Siblings: Out of Sight, Out of Mind
As a sibling, you appreciate the commitment of your brother or sister to care for your mom or dad. But it is impossible to know the daily life of a caregiver unless you live it day in and day out.
You may have no idea of the extent of your parent’s health conditions or dementia and how this affects your sibling’s family. You probably don’t know the number of hours your brother or sister is involved in activities related to your parents each day.
So, while this is an excellent situation for you, your sibling may be experiencing significant challenges. What can you do if you cannot offer 1:1 time to assist?
- Hire a caregiver to care for your parents one weekend day so that your sibling has a break.
- Pay for groceries, a housekeeper, or other expenses for your parents.
- Send your sibling for a spa day or pay for an evening out for your sibling and spouse once a month.
- Visit and send your caregiver sibling on a week’s vacation.
- Visit and call as much as possible so you can understand the time your sibling devotes to the care of your parents and the health, care, and financial needs of your parents.
Showing appreciation for the sacrifices made by your sibling is important if you want to maintain a good relationship. Ongoing contact with a sibling can avoid unexpected issues.
Visiting shows your commitment to your parents so that even if you are not the son or daughter providing ongoing care, everyone knows you are interested and want to be updated.
Avoiding sibling battles is essential for good family relationships and the care of aging parents.
Dealing with caregiving conflict in families as soon as issues arise is a proactive step.
The Unexpected Dangers of Caregiving When One Sibling Takes Care of Parents
Unexpected situations often crop up in families where not all parents and their children or brothers and sisters have trusted relationships. The child who becomes the caregiver may have the best relationship with aging parents or may live far away with another sibling who lives closest, taking on caregiving responsibilities.
Adult children move away from a parent’s home city to attend college, take advantage of a career opportunity, or change scenery. This doesn’t mean the child living the furthest away is not the child with the closest relationship.
Often, children living at a distance are appointed the agent under the power of attorney, personal representative, or trustee for parents. When this situation occurs, and another sibling living near the parent becomes the day-in-day-out caregiver, this should be a warning sign to the child, who is the power of attorney agent, to become more involved.
The Sibling Providing Care Has Influence Over Aging Parents
If you are the power of attorney agent for a parent and your sibling is the day-to-day caregiver, know that this situation becomes an imbalance of influence and power. A diagnosis of dementia or Alzheimer’s presents an even greater opportunity for influence.
The sibling caregiver, who interacts with your parents in their home, at doctor appointments, at the bank, and in other relationships, greatly influences your parents, who become dependent on this sibling.
Dependency is part of caregiver relationships as aging parents need more help, and the caregiver offers more time and assistance. This dependency places aging parents in a vulnerable situation.
When parents have significant health problems, it is vital to be vigilant and understand the impact on parents daily abilities and the added responsibilities of the caregiver
If you are a son or daughter caring for an aging parent and want to avoid the appearance of wrongdoing, be fully transparent with your siblings. Hold regular family meetings. Discuss significant decisions that need to be made. Share all information.
Siblings who are burned out and feel ignored or unappreciated for their efforts present a significant risk to a parent’s estate plan. The risk is that power of attorney documents, wills, or trusts will be changed for the caregiver’s benefit. Siblings previously named may be entirely removed from documents. Inheritances can be changed.
How Does Caregiver Sibling Abuse Happen?
A caregiver sibling begins telling mom or dad that their other children don’t care as much, don’t visit, aren’t interested, and aren’t doing the work.
The caregiver sibling who has given up much of their life—including possibly moving in with mom or dad or moving parents to live with them—becomes resentful. The caregiver sibling wants more control and even compensation for their efforts.
Even in the best families, the primary caregiver gives up parts of their life they will never regain. Parts of life traded for caregiving responsibilities include the caregiver’s health, marriage, relationships with their children, career, friendships, social activities, dreams, and the ability to save for retirement.
The other siblings live their lives, work, have families, take vacations, and are not burdened by care responsibilities for aging parents. Most of the time, siblings not involved in care
do not realize the personal and financial sacrifices the caregiver sibling makes.
Expert Advice About Tough Family Discussions
So, if you are an adult child, alone or with siblings, early and ongoing discussions about the care of aging parents are critical to avoid the potential for family battles later. Naïve siblings believe their caregiver sibling has the best intention—and maybe he or she does.
But eventually, exhaustion, burnout, caregiver health problems, life tradeoffs, and feeling unappreciated become a reality. Few caregivers imagine or predict they will be in this situation.
However, if enough time is spent in caregiving for 1, 3, 5, 10, or more years, burnout is inevitable. So, if you and your family want to avoid family battles and damaged relationships, consider all the possibilities.
While restoring family relationships in the early stages of caregiving is possible, it’s much more difficult later.
Don’t wait until the point of no return when legal action to resolve potential situations of elder abuse, isolation,
power of attorney abuse, or financial abuse may be the only course of action to protect your aging parents.
©2025 Pamela D Wilson, All Rights Reserved.