Like a lot of people caught between a young family and elderly parents, Sian Welby feels guilty.
The Capital radio and This Morning TV presenter adores being a mum to her baby daughter, but at the same time, her glittering career in London means she feels she doesn’t see enough of her 85-year-old dad, who has dementia and lives hundreds of miles away from her.
Welby’s dad, Ian, lives with her mum Helen in a Nottinghamshire village, and was diagnosed with dementia around five years ago. He still recognises his family, and has good and bad days, and his daughter explains: “On a good day, you probably wouldn’t even know he had dementia, but on a bad day, and when you’re living with it like my mum is, it’s hard. It’s hard on the families because it’s Groundhog Day every day. Oh, it’s a cruel disease.”
As a result, Welby, 38, feels guilty about not seeing her mum and dad more.
Agreeing it’s stressful, Welby, whose daughter Ruby is nearly one, admits: “You don’t feel like you’re giving anyone enough time.
“I’m living in London, my family are in the Midlands. I want to see my dad and my mum so much more than I do, but physically with my job and the schedule and the hecticness of my life, and on top of that having a baby, it’s becoming really difficult to juggle.
“And with that comes so much guilt, because I just wish I lived around the corner and I could pop in every day. I really do wish I could. And sadly, for me to do the job I’m doing, I need to be in London.
“It’s a catch 22, a really difficult position to be in, because you have to work on your career to support your future family. And yet by being down here, I’m not seeing my mum, my dad, my sister, my niece and nephew as much as I’d like to. So yeah, it’s hard.”
It’s also hard to juggle her busy working life with looking after Ruby, although Welby’s fiancé, Heart radio producer Jake Beckett, has used his paternity leave to look after the baby in the mornings when Welby is at work.
“Some days it works, and other days it doesn’t,” she says. “But in general, the balance is pretty nice – I don’t feel like I’m missing out on Ruby. My other half’s doing the mornings, and I’m seeing her in the afternoons, and I feel like I’m getting a lovely mix of work and life. It’s just some days the work outweighs the life balance, and then that’s hard.
“But honestly, I am absolutely loving being a mum, and yes, I’m exhausted, and at times frazzled, but I really, really love it.”
She says it’s frustrating that her mum and dad can’t see Ruby more, and explains: “I don’t want them to miss out, so I’m FaceTiming them every evening during bath time, just to make sure Ruby knows who they are, and she’s familiar with their faces.
“It’s so important, and it’s lovely, because she does have a connection with them, even if at the minute it’s mainly over FaceTime.
“And they understand – they’re very supportive. My family never make me feel guilty. It’s just in my own head I wish I could do more.”
But because of her busy working life and being a new mum, she simply can’t do more, and she’s facing the reality that her dad will probably have to go in a care home when his condition inevitably deteriorates and her mum can’t cope with the physical strain of looking after him.
“It’s sad,” she says, “but I don’t think it’d be fair on my mum as he deteriorates, which we know eventually he will. It’s just too much on someone who isn’t trained – my mum can’t be lifting him out of bed, and all those kind of things that are going to come with it. I think eventually you need to get professionals.”
So rather than turning a blind eye to what’s likely to happen to her dad in the future, Welby has been to a care home herself to see what they’re like, to mark Care Home Open Week (June 16-22), where care homes open their doors to highlight the positive aspects of care home living.
Welby went to Wandsworth Common Care Home in London, and says: “It was such a lovely place, and it really made me realise we ought to respect getting old a bit more and what our plans are.
“I think ‘care home’ has got some weird connotations to it – it’s almost like a dirty word that all of us joke ‘oh, don’t put me in a home’. And yet some of these places are incredible, and they’ve got a really bad reputation. The one I went to was gorgeous, and the people were so nice, and I thought what a lovely way for these people to spend the last years of their life.”
Welby watched an ABBA tribute band with residents, and joined in an art class with them, and thought the place was so wonderful that she’s convinced the narrative about care homes needs to change.
“I think people are unnecessarily staying in their own home out of principle, because they think a care home is going to be horrible,” she says.
“A lot of these places are really sociable – they’ve just got a terrible reputation in this country, and this is why Care Home Open Week is good because you can go and see for yourself what they’re like. I think people will be surprised.”
And to families who might be struggling with the idea of putting their loved one in a home, she says: “Don’t be hard on yourself. There’s a lot of guilt in thinking you can’t do it all and you can’t manage, and because of the negativity about putting people in a home, there’s so much guilt about when you actually have to, and that’s not fair.
“You’ve got to be realistic. It’s coming from a place of love. If you’re thinking about putting them in a care home, it’s because you care about them and you want them to have a better life. I’ve seen first-hand how amazing they can be.”
But of course, care homes can cost a lot of money, although Welby counters: “If you’ve worked all your life and saved money, you’re allowed to spend it on yourself, on making the last few years of your life really nice and comfortable – although I’m not saying it’d be easy or that everyone will have that kind of money.”
But for families who are struggling to care for an elderly relative, she advises: “If you’re feeling the guilt and wishing you could do more, and you don’t want to put them in a home or get carers in, don’t be ashamed to get help. Because if you’re in a better headspace, and if you’re not exhausted, everyone will be better for it.”
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