“I don’t feel well, come at once”: How elderly parents destroy the lives of their grown children
There was once a teacher at my daughter’s school—a kind, dedicated woman named Emma Whitmore. Her mother, Margaret, was elderly but perfectly capable, not in need of constant care. Yet she had made it a habit to call her daughter at all hours, her voice trembling with urgency: “I don’t feel right, you must come immediately.” Those words were never a request—they were a command, an order to drop everything and run.
And Emma did. No matter the hour—deep in the night, at dawn, even in the middle of the school day—she would leave, because she was a good daughter, because she couldn’t refuse. She’d return to work exhausted, teach her lessons, go home, and then race back the moment the phone rang again. This went on for months, perhaps years. Until her body gave out.
First, an accident—she fell and broke her arm. Then, barely recovered, another injury, this time her leg. Still, her mother wouldn’t relent. The moment Emma caught her breath, the calls began anew.
When autumn came, she returned to work, to her students, to the life she had barely held onto. But before she could fully regain her strength, her mother’s voice crackled through the phone again: “I’m unwell. Come now.”
And Emma went. Again, and again. Until the day she collapsed with pneumonia. She died in hospital—young, bright, beloved by her pupils. No one could believe she was gone. The children wept, the parents grieved, the staff mourned. Only her mother, it seemed, failed to grasp that she had lost the one person who had always come running.
A mere month after the funeral, the old woman picked up the phone again—this time to her younger daughter, Claire. But Claire was different. Unlike her sister, she had her father’s steel in her spine. She didn’t come at every summons.
Still, her mother pressed. She called, she moaned, she guilted: “You don’t love me. No one cares. You’ll only come when I’m dead.” Finally, Claire snapped.
“Emma spent her life running to you. Rescuing you. Wiping your tears, carrying your shopping, fetching your pills. And for what? Where is she now? Buried. And I—I want to live. So I’m at work. I’ll come later. If you’re really ill, call 999. If you can dial my number, you can dial theirs.”
Fifteen years have passed. Her mother is still alive. Ambulances have come—more than once. Doctors have helped. But there are no more midnight dashes, no more drama, no more screaming. She lives as she can. Only now, perhaps, the calls come less often.
Sometimes I wonder if old age strips some people of restraint. Instead of protecting their children, letting them live—they shackle them, not with chains of iron, but guilt. Not illness, but bitterness, selfishness, spite. So they call: “I don’t feel well, come at once.” And then, one day, their children are gone.
If I ever live to such an age, I pray I’ll keep my wits. And if I still understand the world—put me in a care home. If I don’t—all the more reason. Let them live. Let them raise their children, build their homes, go on holiday.
I refuse to be the kind of woman who crushes her family with fear of death—who brands everyone guilty just to escape her own loneliness. Who can’t say “thank you” but can upend lives with a single phone call.
Some will say: “How can you speak like this? She’s your mother.” But those people have never sat at a dim kitchen table, swallowing tears of exhaustion. Never answered a midnight call knowing it’s for attention, not true need.
They’re quick to judge. But understanding? That’s harder.
I don’t condone cruelty. But children have a right to their own lives. And sometimes, to save them—you have to stay away.
