I said long term care because I’m not sure how many there are: I’ve heard about assisted living, memory unit and nursing home but I don’t know how they’re connected and who pays for what.

My father has never cooked a meal in his entire life and he’s now pushing 80. First his mother cooked for him, the whole 3 meals a day, then his wife took over. My mother is a person who apparently likes to prepare food in the kitchen on her own while everyone else waits. The idea of independently preparing something quick because you are hungry, you have places to go and don’t want to wait 90 minutes for a full meal is met with hostility and the same kind of language my father used with me when I was a teenager and exactly this happened. It’s no use offering to help my mother because “I don’t do it right”.

If my mother dies before my father, he is going down really fast: no cooking skills whatsoever, knows absolutely nothing about grocery shopping or how much time you need to simply prepare before actually cooking, has never used a washing machine in his entire life. He can still tell you lots about geology, his major and job till he retired, but for some things he is absolutely useless.

I’ve already told him he should prepare, that he should learn at least to cook to be independent as long as possible unless he wants to eat microwaved pizza every day (because he doesn’t know how to use an oven), because eating healthy actually gives you more energy and thinking what to cook keeps you active, but apparently my mother won’t let him cook either.

If my father has to go to LTC, do they offer cooking learning courses? IMO it beats always eating what they put in front of you, it’s an excuse to socialize and learning is always good. Or am I being unfair to my father, expecting him to change now that he’s almost 80 and has been catered to constantly? I know my mother won’t change.