My mom is 78 and she has been guilt tripping me to be her care taker. She is currently living with my brother to help raising his kids.
She constantly tells me once they are old enough, she will move in with me so that I can take care of her.
The thing is I don’t know if I am capable. I can’t guarantee the future.
I also don’t want to shoulder the financial burden. She has money but she wants me to pay for her expenses so that she can leave (my brother’s) a generous inheritance. She always tellsd me I won’t get anything since 'i have no kids and I have enough money, and he needs more."
Now we are not talking. It hurts. Why can’t she understand not everyone can be a caretaker? Why is she expecting me to help raising his kids indirectly?
I don’t have a whole lot to add but one piece of actionable advice, I agree with several posters that you won’t find answers on the internet. Looking at some of the vitriolic responses I read as I skimmed through the thread, I actually advise you to STOP reading these because some people are intentionally/unintentionally egging you into more anger and conflict, which will definitely not help. None of us understand your mother, your brother, or your family dynamics. Passing judgment is easy on the Internet but only you should be judging whether your mother is selfish, narcissistic, abusive etc, don’t let faceless rabble rousers on lemmy exacerbate the situation in your mind
Anyways, the one thing I think is that if your mother actually intends to leave her money to her grandchildren (which is not wholly unreasonable even if it hurts), you should recommend that she leave it in a trust instead of just willing it directly to your brother. First of all, just willing it would leave the inheritance open to legal challenges from you or other family members (whether you intend to challenge the estate in court or not, you can, and would likely win), and second, there’s no guarantee that your brother would actually use any money for college or whatever and not just blow it on a boat.
If she’s serious about wanting her money to go to the grandkids she needs to work with an estate attorney and get it set up in a trust to protect her wishes. If she doesn’t want to do that then it gives less credibility to what she is claiming as her intent, and you can address that accordingly as you figure out what the best way forward is.
All the rest, her living arrangements whether with you or your brother or in a home, you guys just have to figure it out. I will tell you from experience that assisted living is ridiculously expensive and in general they are NOT good places. Whatever inheritance she wants to leave for the kids might not even be there if she spends some years in a home, and quality of life will likely suffer. Just stating generalities, not trying to sway you one way or another, and I’m sure there’s plenty of exceptions. My perspective is from USA if that matters.
Situation sucks. Sorry about that. You’ll get it figured out and I hope it’s not too painful but the reality is that it might not have a happy outcome.