Short answer

Yes. It can be normal to resent caring for an elderly parent, especially when the care is unequal, invisible, emotionally complicated, or impossible to sustain alone.

Resentment does not mean you are a bad person. It usually means something about the role, the workload, or the family arrangement needs to be looked at honestly.

The sentence people are afraid to say

You may love your parent and still hate what caregiving has done to your life.

You may feel compassion for their fear and still feel angry that every appointment, call, bill, emergency, and decision seems to find its way to you.

You may remember their sacrifices and still want your own time, body, marriage, workday, or quiet back.

Resentment often grows where care has no edges

At first, you do what needs to be done.

Then the temporary arrangement becomes permanent. The exception becomes the expectation. The person who was simply helping becomes the emotional operations center for the whole family.

That is often when resentment appears. Not because you are unloving, but because the care no longer has a shape that a person can realistically live inside.

Resentment toward a parent

This can feel especially shameful.

Your parent may be frightened, ill, lonely, or losing independence. You can understand that and still feel angry when they refuse help, reject every option, call repeatedly, or expect you to absorb their anxiety.

Understanding someone's suffering does not mean you have to become the place where all of it lands.

Resentment toward siblings

Sibling resentment has its own sting.

It is hard to keep being gracious when someone gives opinions from a distance, visits occasionally, questions the cost, or says, "Let me know if you need anything," while you are already drowning in things.

Sometimes the resentment is not about one task. It is about being left alone inside the role.

What resentment may be trying to tell you

  • This is too much for one person.

  • I agreed to help, not disappear.

  • I need real support, not praise.

  • The family story about who I am is costing me too much.

  • Something has to change, even if guilt comes with the change.

When therapy can help

Therapy can help you bring resentment into the room without turning it into an indictment of your parent or yourself.

The work is not to become cold. It is to understand what care can look like when it includes your limits too.