I have lost count, but I think my mother has gone through about 25 aides in the last 3 years.  I kid you not.  According to her, they are alternately dumb, dirty, slovenly, speak poor english, wear tight clothing, don’t wear shoes, don’t pay attention, pay too much attention, and so on and so forth.

She has always been a control freak.  There are only 2 ways to do something.  Her way and the wrong way.  Period.  If you don’t understand what she wants done then it’s your fault.  If you argue, she will argue longer and louder.  And the less control she has, the worse she behaves.  This is not a product of old age.  Old age has just exacerbated the trait.  For years, my husband has taken a certain devilish pleasure in imitating my mother by cutting me off repeatedly in mid-sentence for several minutes by repeatedly saying, “You’re wrong.”

Granted, it would be difficult for anyone to adjust to being completely dependent on others, especially if you have always been fiercely independent.  Requiring assistance to bathe, dress, walk, eat and use the toilet must be excruciatingly frustrating and depressing.  Not to mention having a stranger in your home 24/7.  It would make a person cranky.  The extreme level of hostility and vitriol directed at these women who are just trying to do their job is another matter, however.

The saga with the aides started when she was in residential rehab for a few months after a fall shattered her shoulder and she had to have a partial joint replacement.  We had found a woman named Ruth whose business is being a health care advocate for the elderly.  She helps manage medical appointments, staffing, medication and other details for people who don’t have a relative on hand to help them.  While in rehab my mother went through half of Ruth’s roster of aides.  She was so nasty and abusive that they just refused to stay.  Or she decided they were incompetent and fired them.

Back in her own apartment, a rotating group of three women had to pass through the 7th circle of hell in order to keep their job.  It wasn’t long before Mom went through the rest of Ruth’s roster, basically alienating the entire Filipina nursing community in New York.

One was a hypochondriac and always had to go to doctors appointments.  One made the arm rest on the chair dirty with her hair oil so she was banned from the living room and my mom hid the remote for the TV.  One wore a lotion that made my mother sick and she was accused of lying about it.  One brought food that smelled disgusting.  One went barefoot.  Several were fat and wore clothing that was too tight.  They were all stupid.  They had accents and bad english.  They couldn’t be trusted to shop for groceries or cook or manage medications.  They ate all of the candy and cookies.  They were either bossy, argumentative, passive or lazy.  They were nosy, thieving liars.  They were incapable of engaging in conversation.  They had too many problems in their own lives.  They hovered or hid in their room and had to be called.

I was present for some of the abuse during my visits.  She would scream at them and order them and complain loudly about them in insulting or racist terms while they could hear in the next room.  It would start within a couple of days of their arrival.  I could do little but offer sympathetic looks and the occasional confidential apology to acknowledge my embarrassment.  I would try to explain that it wasn’t personal, but it sure seemed like it was.  How were they to know that she was nasty to everyone?

Ruth was not trusted to handle any of my mom’s affairs except finding aides and she finally told me there was nothing else she could do for us because all of the women talk and they all know about my mother.  Mom simply wondered how Ruth could run her business if she didn’t have any good people.

We tried an agency, but my mother threw the woman out and refused to pay her after getting in a screaming match about lying, so that was the end of that.

We finally have a relatively stable situation with three women who are probably going to be up for sainthood.  The evening woman is lovely and smart and only has to spend a couple of hours with my mom watching crime shows on TV before she goes to sleep.  I interviewed the new weekday woman myself and gave her frank and fair warning.  I also gave her detailed instructions on how to scramble an egg. She has lasted a couple of weeks and, so far, seems to have a good handle on the situation. The weekend woman is calm and strong and pretty unflappable.  She saved my mother’s life with the Heimlich Maneuver when she was choking on vitamins.  Of course, my mom complains that her ribs still hurt from that episode because she was too strong.

I’m keeping my fingers crossed.  While I am thankful that she can afford private care, I have witnessed first hand that sometimes you can’t pay someone enough to put up with being abused.  And if they don’t stay, it becomes my problem again and again and again.  I am at the mercy of her temper, even when it is not directed at me.  I guess, in the end, I’m in the same boat as the aides.  Except I can’t quit.