It’s entirely possible that you might get Alzheimer’s or something along those lines where you’re incapable of making decisions for yourself. You’ll have to rely on someone at that point, whether it’s your children, relatives, or someone you appoint ahead of time.
Otherwise, I agree. These days it’s a bit selfish for parents to just expect grown children (probably with families of their own) to substantially reconfigure their lives to take care of them, including moving, large expenditures, and so forth. If their kids choose to do so without pressure, that’s one thing. But most of the people I’ve known who were in that boat were basically guilted into it by their parents (who didn’t really plan well for the future).
That said, being a full-time, 24-7 caregiver for older parents isn’t the same thing as showing up to visit and doing chores, etc… that they can’t handle themselves. Everyone does that, but not everyone is going to move across the country/get a bigger house/run their bank accounts dry caring for elderly parents. It’s not a reasonable expectation. I feel like there needs to be some consideration of this on the parents’ part- if their kids don’t live near them, maybe they should move nearer their kids, instead of just expecting their kids to figure it out when they’re older and need help.
Poorly, according to everyone who’s done it. It’s thankless in the details and exhausting, and generally takes time and energy away from other things you’d kind of rather be doing.
The thing is, the idea of rugged individualism, where adults are responsible for themselves, doesn’t really work well in one’s 80s and 90s (depends on the person, of course). Cognitive decline, medical issues, medication issues, maintaining a house (or apartment, or whatever)… all these things get more difficult. You just can’t do it on your own. I mean, you can, but you die earlier.
We bullied my mother into moving near us (several thousand miles) precisely because she had no other family, and her church, sadly, was very half-assed in coming through for her when she reached out to them in her need. (I mean, it was her decision, but we made a strong case and forced the conversation: she saw the sense in it.)
This leads to the follow-up, though: when they were kids what were their parents doing with the older generation? Growing up, I saw my grandparents (in their 50s at the time) caring for my grandmother’s elderly aunt. When my grandparents hit their 80s and 90s, my aunts and uncles stepped in and cared for them (and yeah, they had kids and jobs). Now that my aunts and uncles are in that age range, the cycle is repeating with my cousins caring for them. One of my aunts opted for moving to an assisted-living place when she retired, but caring for family is the expectation.
The last sentence suggests you may live in a highly westernized country, or in some westernized bubble elsewhere. (Not that there aren’t two-parents with full-time jobs in African villages, just that it might not be phrased that way.)
The phrase “majority of human beings” suggests that it might not apply to the majority in the U.S., but does apply to the majority elsewhere.
My mother is 96 and is strongly of the not-want-to-be-a-burden school. Someone checks in on her daily, but she can still do a lot for herself. This could obviously change at any time.
Because in past generations people expected their children to take care of them as their due in life. Hence, the moving in next door and expecting adult children to drop whatever plans they might have had to take care of the elderly parents. Quite selfish, IMO, but then such people probably regard not doing this as the younger people being selfish.
Get an 80 year old raised under the old system, someone who doesn’t live on line or have a smart phone, and you have a clash with the 21st Century notions of independence and on-line shopping.
It’s a real problem for people who become old and don’t have family to watch over and care for them. Which state I will probably find myself because it looks like I’ll be the last one standing in my generation.
Believe me, many of us in that category are thinking about it. I’ve already mentioned that a number of my friends and I are making plans to retire together and watch over each other. There are community organizations that do some work towards this.
It’s also a problem for people who have family but that family won’t or can’t take care of them.
Hello, I’m Broomstick and I’ve played that role. Spoilered for those who want to skip over the details.
Summary
Granted, it was only for a few months, my mother’s final ones, but basically I dropped everything and moved hundreds of miles away to live in with my parents while mom was dying, leaving my spouse to run the household. I was unemployed at the time so no job to worry about, but the rest of the family pitched in to pay our rent. Unfortunately, that also meant some of our social benefits were nearly yanked because society really does shit on caregivers when not simply neglecting them (my state of residence thought I should be looking for a job in my state instead of caring for a dying mother, then assumed my family was moving out of state and would no longer be a problem, and… it was a mess).
My sister in Buffalo did this for our father. He initially moved into a mother-in-law apartment attached to her house when he was able-bodied and able-minded, but towards the end it got… difficult. I was spending my vacation time from my job living with dad so Sis and her husband could take a vacation once a year. When he was dying there was hospice to help with things, but that was only for a few months at the end.
When my spouse was dying he wasn’t elderly but he did need care. For a time I simply worked myself ragged, to the point my health was starting to suffer. Eventually, when he needed 24/7 care he wound up in a nursing home. Which was stupid - rather than pay for in-home care to delay that, or authorize him for hospice, which might have also delayed that, both of which are a HELL of a lot cheaper, the state would only pay for him to be in a nursing home. By that point I had taken unpaid leave from work to care for my spouse. People offered the “helpful” suggestion of us hiring in-home care ourselves… .but with what money? For damn sure money makes everything easier. If you don’t have money you’re screwd. If you don’t have money or family you’re doubly screwed.
Throughout my spouse’s final illness there was this assumption by too many that I could simply drop everything - including making a living - to care for a sick relative. There was absolute disbelief that no, we had NO family within 500 miles to help out. Friends? The only reliable one we had wound up having a family emergency of his own and suddenly he was 200 miles away dealing with his own dying relative.
If my spouse hadn’t had me? He would have been in a nursing home the whole time, whatever cheap-ass one the hospital social worker would have dumped him into (oh, and about that bitch - she had set up to transfer him without our discussion or consent to a crap place in a dangerous part of town. Nevermind I had just spent two weeks researching and visiting and negotiating with various nursing homes in my non-existent “spare” time. When confronted: “Oh, you mean they really are married? I just assumed she was a girlfriend, who would want to marry someone disabled like that?” I only found out about the planned transfer by accident, she would have simply shuffled him off to that place without telling anyone - including him!)
TL:DR - it can be really bad.
A lot of people STILL expect that. Especially in the medical profession. See spoilered section for more detail if you want it.
That is a great plan except that when you are in your eighties, your peers are also. What the old need for bodily care is the young, not the equally decrepit.
One system well-established in, where else, Europe, is co-housing. The elderly might have their own enclave within it, with concentric rings of increasing care levels up to hospice. But there are also families with young children (which retired folks watch for the working parents). Just like in the olden days when the very young were cared for by the old, the able-bodied cared for the less able-bodied, and everyone looked out for each other out of varying combinations of love, sacrifice, and enlightened self-interest.
If you unmake societal bonds in the name of personal liberty, the consequences are far-reaching and often unintended. Homo sapiens spent millions of years surviving through intense family and tribal connections. Now people imagine that we really don’t need that any more. I find this bizarre.
Don’t the Navajo have a saying connoting the depths of opprobrium, “he acts like he doesn’t have family”?
If that occurs, I consider myself fortunate that 2 of my 3 kids have promised to “take care of” me.
All of this talk about prior generations doesn’t account for the fact that today’s medical science and practice keeps incompetent old people alive well into their senescence…
When I saw the thread title I thought this was going to be the crux of the argument, moving from so-called high-tax, high cost-of-living regions to lower-tax lower cost-of-living ones. My parents made that exact move 20 years ago, in part for weather and golf and all that jazz, but NC is a prime location for retirees due to their tax structures. Unfortunately that means the people who do want to raise a family there are burdened with lousy schools because the olds vote down any and all tax levies and anything else that would benefit younger demographics. There’s an “I’ve got mine…” attitude that does come across to me as selfish above and beyond the familial relationship issues discussed above.
My parents retired a couple of western states away, and while they were in decent health, it was fine for us to go visit or have them travel to visit us. After a few years they became less healthy and started having serious illness, but instead of coming closer to us, they moved across the country for a warmer climate. That’s where their health was in steeper decline. I remember trying to find help for them from 3,000 miles away. Near the end they moved again, close to us so we could be of some help to them, but it was too late, IMHO.
My wife and are are likely to stay put and let our kids follow whatever path, with no expectation they’ll come back here, or that we’ll follow either of them around. When I retire I am much more keen on the flexible idea of staying someplace a while, maybe a month or three and keeping my primary residence, than “moving” somewhere else. And I have no effing expectation of burdening my children during my infirm years.
I will admit that the state income tax policy was one factor in my decision; my Federal pension is not taxable so the only time I’ve had to pay income tax since I moved here was the one year I had a substantial capital gain payment when I sold some stock so I could pay mostly cash for my house.
However, I have no problem supporting schools even though I have no children who would be attending them. I see proper education as an investment in the future. I have complained about the low teacher salaries in the state, as well as attempts to (without getting into the political issues) control what is taught in the schools.
I don’t think there’s an easy answer on this one.
Some places are definitely more convenient to live in your retirement than others. But I’ve also known some people who started to miss regular meetings with family and some of the familiarity of their former home, at the same time as it got difficult to make the journey.
This is especially true when moving abroad (I know the OP is talking about US states, but I’m just making a broader point). I guess my only advice is to consider very carefully moving very far away from family or abroad, and bear in mind that there may come a time where you cannot move back.
My sister does it. But, she’s likely atypical, and not the kind of person you’re thinking of. She hasn’t worked full-time since COVID started – she’s a massage therapist, but closed down her studio when the pandemic started, and has only recently returned to doing a little bit of massage work, on a part-time basis.
Also, she lives with my parents, and has done so for over a decade. She’s suffered from “failure to launch” for her entire adult life, and my parents have helped to support her, to a greater or lesser degree, her entire life.
She doesn’t make much money, but she lives rent-free with my parents, who also pay for the groceries, utilities, etc.
In the three years since she stopped working full-time, our parents’ health has declined, and it would be difficult, if not impossible, for her to go back to a full-time job while also providing them with care. Note that neither of our parents are (yet) in need of 24/7 care, or in need of assistance with basic daily activities (eating, showering, etc.), and if they ever get to that point, it’s likely that they will overwhelm even my sister’s ability to provide that for them.
Yeah, no shit. Where did you think I live? I assumed from the OP when they talked about “moving to a new state” it was one of the United ones in North America.
Frankly I don’t really care about elderly care in African villages or even some Old European notion of multi-generational family units because that is not relevant to my particular Greater Metro NYC culture or circumstances.
@Ulfreida - tell us again about how homo sapiens survived “for millions of years” (more like 300,000) through “intense tribal connections” until they died before age 40 of some common ailment easily curable with modern medical technology.
In my experience, which I assume is universal around the world, it’s nice having my dad and my wife’s older family within a few hours drive so we can stay in touch and help out if needed. Like when my dad needed hip replacement surgery, I was able to drive him home from the hospital and spend a week with him helping with stuff.
But if we are talking about an indefinite stay requiring extensive care, that’s probably not going to happen for anyone in our family. They would probably need to go to some sort of assisted care facility.
Everything has to be taken on a case by case basis though.
It’s the last one for me, and not someone I expect to do it for free. I have a professional fiduciary who will take over the responsibilities, including getting me nursing and other medical care, if it becomes necessary. If something gradual happens, like Alzheimer’s, then the transition can be gradual. If it’s something like a sudden stroke, the mechanism is in place for the transition to happen quickly, especially if I’m the survivor in my marriage. I’m not rich by a long shot, such care will certainly use up whatever resources I have, but at least I’m not in the position of feeling obliged to leave an inheritance to anyone.
Which brings to mind a consideration on the general topic: how much of the cycle of adult children caring for aging parents is driven by the expectation of inheritance? Where the next generation believes they are “earning” their share of the inheritance by taking care, or helping to take care, of their parents? This is an ugly pattern that almost always results in dissension among the heirs.
Well, that was ugly. Probably true for some, but ugly.
Family is family. My parents would like to leave me money; that’s entirely up to them. Maybe there won’t be any left. But family is reciprocal, not transactional. I wouldn’t be able to look at myself in the mirror if I thought I was doing this for money.
Maybe the concepts of honour and integrity are just dead.
A lot of people lived to 70 or 80 before modern medicine. Yes, more died in their prime of infections and such, but our lifespan is only a bit longer than BC. Neither farming nor the industrial revolution did us any service in terms of quality or length of life, they just made it possible for the same land to support more people.
And a lot of what leaves you reliant on others can’t be cured by modern medicine. Dementia is common. So is extreme frailty. In fact, modern medicine probably makes it possible for more people to survive to that stage of life.
In my small immediate circle of friends in their sixties and seventies, most of whom I made in my twenties, I can say that easily a dozen of them either are caring or have cared for their parents, in-laws or spouses (and in some cases all three) until death. Sometimes it’s a short time, sometimes unbearably long. It’s just what women do for their families. All of those above friends are women. Like others, I feel that it is just the same as either caring for your children, or abandoning them, only at the other end.
If you are a man with mostly male friends who are younger than fifty, who live an upscale urban lifestyle, well, that would explain a lot.
And by the way, if you imagine that longterm care facilities are often pleasant, or that it’s fairly simple to find competent in-home care, or that either one is affordable for an average person, you are in for a rude awakening.
