Who looks after the childless elderly?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:they get long-term care and pay people.

This. And my parents did this even though they had 3 successful kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:they get long-term care and pay people.

This. And my parents did this even though they had 3 successful kids.

This has been discussed...

[Anonymous]

I think even if you do have kids you need to plan as though you don't. When people live into their late 80s and 90s and have endless issues there are only so many times you can take off from work to help them. When they are difficult it takes a toll on your own health and next thing you know you and your husband have your own major health issues. Sorry, but if it's between caring for my husband and my verbally and emotionally abusive mother who gets worse with age, my husband wins every time.

I think some people just plan to eat their young to live. They don't save and expect you to pay for things. They don't take care of their health, but expect you to show up at the drop of the hat while keeping a job that helps them with money.

At least people without kids hopefully make appropriate plans and then are grateful if a niece of nephew or friend visits them in the hospital. Some people with kids have endless emergencies and then wonder why everyone gets burned out after 8 years and gives us.

[Anonymous]

Why so smug OP? You do know that elderly parents get abandoned by their adult children too, right?

[Anonymous]

Form a committed roommate relationship. Get plugged into a church community.

My friend is a social worker who acts as the decision maker for many of these unattended elderly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is why I'm saving money for my childless younger sister. It will go in a trust that my children can use to cover the costs of visiting her (travel, mainly) and also some of the care she may need when her money runs out. I'll probably be dead by then so I can only hope it helps.

wow, that is truly amazing. I don't think I've ever heard of something so generous.
-childless younger sister

[Anonymous]

DH has an aunt that he does not care for and is not in regular touch with, but is expecting him to take care of her. She put him on all of her bank accounts, he is the executor of her will, and she gave him power of attorney over her estate if she is somehow incapacitated. She's family, so of course we will take care of her. Hopefully DH's sister pitches in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why so smug OP? You do know that elderly parents get abandoned by their adult children too, right?

More than half of my siblings do nothing for my parents. One will assist occasionally with my dad if I pester him. One will only assist with small, emergency financial contributions. Three do nothing at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We tried to support an out of town terminally ill sibling who was childless and single. It was hard for everyone and insufficient. It would have been better if he had a wife or partner to advocate for him daily. I noticed there were a lot of people dying by themselves in the hospital.

Money cannot buy family.

Family also cannot buy family.

My mother was a geriatric nurse at a Catholic hospital with attached longterm care. It was rare that there was any significant presence of the children in the elders' care -- at least, not until the very end, when these previously unknown daughters or sons would swoop in to demand "everything possible be done for my mother!" Sucks, but it is what it is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is why I'm saving money for my childless younger sister. It will go in a trust that my children can use to cover the costs of visiting her (travel, mainly) and also some of the care she may need when her money runs out. I'll probably be dead by then so I can only hope it helps.

wow, that is truly amazing. I don't think I've ever heard of something so generous.
-childless younger sister

I know someone who did that and it caused a major reparable rift in the marriage. The adult children barely helped her and made it clear they were not helping the sister. In their defense, they had their own mental and physical health issues and had jobs to keep and kids to raise. It was unrealistic to put so much on them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is why I'm saving money for my childless younger sister. It will go in a trust that my children can use to cover the costs of visiting her (travel, mainly) and also some of the care she may need when her money runs out. I'll probably be dead by then so I can only hope it helps.

wow, that is truly amazing. I don't think I've ever heard of something so generous.
-childless younger sister

I know someone who did that and it caused a major reparable rift in the marriage. The adult children barely helped her and made it clear they were not helping the sister. In their defense, they had their own mental and physical health issues and had jobs to keep and kids to raise. It was unrealistic to put so much on them.

Forgot to add, the husband basically ended up moving out because she was planning for the sister and not making decisions as a couple.

I don't think people understand the stress you put on the next generation when you don't do what you can to take care of your health and plan for your future. If you want them to hold down jobs, have marriages and raise children they cannot be at your beckon call. There were countless emergencies with one of my parents and I at one point I had to figure out if I was having a heart attack from all the stress of it or heartburn. I am so very fortunate it was heartburn because I didn't go to the ER and the pain took my breath away. You know why i didn't go to the ER? After dealing with an ill father and a mother who has tantruming right and left, I had to make dinner and help one kid study for an exam and comfort the other who was very upset after witnessing grandma's abusive behavior toward me. Fun times!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hopefully a niece or nephew. They are very vulnerable to abuse. People on DCUM think having money will protect them as they age, but they just don’t realize how vulnerable you can be when you you are elderly. This story haunts me, and the couple even had a daughter looking after them, and they were still abused. They’d never have been found if it weren’t for her.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/10/09/how-the-elderly-lose-their-rights

This is so sad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hopefully a niece or nephew. They are very vulnerable to abuse. People on DCUM think having money will protect them as they age, but they just don’t realize how vulnerable you can be when you you are elderly. This story haunts me, and the couple even had a daughter looking after them, and they were still abused. They’d never have been found if it weren’t for her.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/10/09/how-the-elderly-lose-their-rights

This is so sad.

Haven't read the article, but I have news for you, even when you have adult children, you can get taken advantage of. My mother is of sound mind supposedly, yet she is being conned by a niece and a few other people. If you dare bring it up you deal with enough venom to make you want to jump off a bridge. My siblings expect me to monitor her giving away of money, yet I am supposed to look the other way that they both have her funding cars, private school and much more. I have a spouse, a job and kids of my own. According to tests she is of sound mind. Meanwhile she has no problems being verbally abusive toward me. If you think I want to do in my health and sanity trying to keep her from blowing her money all while wondering when/if her tirades will turn physical with me, you can forget it. At some point you have to step back and decide I have to protect my own family. I have no doubt the niece will try to move her in and "take care of her" all while spending her money and claiming to be a saint. She is shady as F. Even when I agreed my mother was of sound mind she fell for the nieces endless dramas and would throw a little money at her now and then, the amount has just increased.

For me, I will track my cognitive abilities and past a certain age, I will stop screeners and if I get cancer I will not fight it. I have been through a living hell helping my aging parents and I will not do this to my own children even if it means going somewhere to legally end things on my own terms at a certain age.

Children cannot sit and guard you 24-7 and deal with every emergency and wipe your tush because the tushy wiper you hired may steal all the money too.

What is so fascinating to me with my dad is at the very end he would have been unable to walk, talk, eat independently or do anything he enjoyed and hospice made it clear the humane thing to do would be to let him go peacefully. Nope, the siblings felt if there was another year of him living, if you can call it that, they wanted it. So he spend a month in a hospital in misery constantly needing pain meds adjusted trying to pull off tubes with what little strength he had so they could feel less guilty collecting their part of an inheritance perhaps? It's not like they spent that much time with him when he was truly living.