What if the elderly parent's house is more luxurious than the adult child's house?

[Anonymous]

You sound very ignorant.

The elderly generally want to stay in familiar surroundings, ie, their own home. Practically none of them move because they want to. They move because they have to. Usually their executive functioning declines and they are not able to maintain their home or navigate risks such as steps/stairs/driving in a safe manner. So they need to live with other, more functional people to compensate for their declining abilities. Sometimes caregivers can be hired and ramps/lifts installed so they can stay in their home. Sometimes they need to move to a relative's home, or a nursing home.

Not sure why this would confuse you, OP.

[Anonymous]

Sometimes because where they live doesn't have the right medical care.

Sometimes because they no longer wish to deal with cold and snow, the risk of falling on ice.

Sometimes because the adult children are not able to quit their jobs and relocate, or the grandparent does not live in a good school district.

Sometimes because the house needs major maintenance and they and their adult children don't want to deal with it.

If you think this is about which house is more "luxurious", OP, you are in for a learning experience.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've seen a lot of comments on here about about adult children moving their parents in with them. What I can't understand is why an elderly parent would have a problem with their own house. I mean, my parents live in a 4-bedroom house and I live in a 1-bedroom apartment, something which I never plan to change, as there's a lot of responsibility with owning a house. Now, if my parents' house burned down or was taken away from them for some reason, I would absolutely squeeze them in with me. But I could never understand my parents preferring my apartment to their house.

Sometimes people need companionship more than they need space and luxury. They can sleep better on a couch than a king size Sleep Number with 10 settings.

[Anonymous]

I've no plans to move in with my kids but my big nice house feels more and more like a money and energy drain with every passing year. I don't need this much space, don't like climbing stairs and certainly don't want to spend my old age taking care if the house, yard and the pool.

[Anonymous]

*time to consider downsizing

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Also stairs become very difficult as you age. My in-laws are really struggling with their split level house right now. They don't want to move, but they have already suffered several falls.

Once they start falling, falling is often what kills them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A four bedroom house is incredibly difficult and time consuming to keep up with general maintenance and cleanliness, particularly as you get older. If you’ve only ever lived in a one bedroom apartment as an adult, this is something you wouldn’t understand. So, no, I don’t think your elderly parents would actually want to move in with you, but at some point they might want to live somewhere easier for them to manage.

My parents have a 4 bedroom house. They do not use all the space obviously, but they have kept their home pretty minimalistic in terms of possessions, and so they do not have a problem in keeping the house maintained.

Oh FFS. It's a problem of keeping their bodies and minds healthy enough that they can safely live there. It's not even about maintenance really.

Oh FFS. You and your parents take steps to keep their bodies, minds, social engagement and spirit healthy and happy for the longest time and do everything possible to keep them in their home. Americans treat their elderly parents like a burden. Actually, they treat their children as a burden too. It is a terrible cycle.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A four bedroom house is incredibly difficult and time consuming to keep up with general maintenance and cleanliness, particularly as you get older. If you’ve only ever lived in a one bedroom apartment as an adult, this is something you wouldn’t understand. So, no, I don’t think your elderly parents would actually want to move in with you, but at some point they might want to live somewhere easier for them to manage.

My parents have a 4 bedroom house. They do not use all the space obviously, but they have kept their home pretty minimalistic in terms of possessions, and so they do not have a problem in keeping the house maintained.

Which is great, for now. My parents were happy with their 3 bedroom house with a few stairs (no full flight of stairs) until my dad died at 84 and mom (80) started having trouble with her mobility and managing all of it. She and my sister bought a new place together with a 1st floor master for mom, 2nd floor master + a couple other bedrooms for my sister and her two teens (sister is divorced). It works well for all of them. Mom has company, sister can easily see how she's doing, the teens help out. If mom had wanted to her own apartment we'd have helped that happen but it would have been more of a burden on my sister (the rest of us siblings live across the country) to check in on her and help with stuff vs. being in the same home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My parents have three beds three baths with a nice view. I have three beds one bath (all much smaller than theirs) with a view of the neighbors' houses.
I told my mother of course she could move in with me when the time comes instead of going to a nursing home and she asked "But it's not going to be this house, right? This is just your starter house. I was hoping you'd move somewhere waterfront."
I think the point OP is making is that many boomers especially are rather spoiled housing-wise and will be underwhelmed by their adult children's downwardly mobile lifestyles.

Not sure if OP was actually making that point, but I think it's true. My parents would never want to move in with us. They turn up their noses at our home every time they visit. And my dad persists in being confused as to why we haven't upgraded to something larger yet, despite me repeatedly explaining to him unlike when they were upgrading to a larger home, we'd have to pay twice as much, maybe more, than we paid for our current home just to get an extra bedroom or more square footage. Or we'd have to move well out of the metro area. My dad still can't wrap his head around the idea that our current home cost 600k, when they bought a similar but actually larger home back in the mid 80s for like 80k. He thinks we got ripped off.

Even my MIL, who has simpler tastes, wouldn't deign to live with us. She thinks it's pitiful we don't have a proper front porch and that our home doesn't have a true basement. Our house actually is nicer than hers, but it's not filled with her billion tchotchkes so it will never feel like home to her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A four bedroom house is incredibly difficult and time consuming to keep up with general maintenance and cleanliness, particularly as you get older. If you’ve only ever lived in a one bedroom apartment as an adult, this is something you wouldn’t understand. So, no, I don’t think your elderly parents would actually want to move in with you, but at some point they might want to live somewhere easier for them to manage.

My parents have a 4 bedroom house. They do not use all the space obviously, but they have kept their home pretty minimalistic in terms of possessions, and so they do not have a problem in keeping the house maintained.

Oh FFS. It's a problem of keeping their bodies and minds healthy enough that they can safely live there. It's not even about maintenance really.

Oh FFS. You and your parents take steps to keep their bodies, minds, social engagement and spirit healthy and happy for the longest time and do everything possible to keep them in their home. Americans treat their elderly parents like a burden. Actually, they treat their children as a burden too. It is a terrible cycle.

Have you met my parents? Good luck with managing them, their health and minds, planning their social engagement, etc. You live in a fantasy world. They are adults with free will who have - for better or worse - made their own choices about how to live. I, their child, have been dutifully counseling them for years on ideas for how they could prepare better for old age. Needless to say, they have not been receptive to my trying to "micromanage" their lives in this way.

Which is how we got to the present: they live in their 4000+ square foot home, have a large puppy they struggle to care for, refuse to modify home for mobility even though one parent is completely wheel-chair bound and stuck in one room. And guess who they expect to drop everything and fly down to save them from their bad choices? Me. The one with lots of teenagers to raise (not a burden, but certainly a responsibility) and her own long term health problems. So it's not a matter of looking at them as burden, it's a matter of them burdening me with their denial and poor choices.

[Anonymous]

When your father is violently screaming at your 80 year old mother every waking second while she pretty much kills herself trying to savor even one second of happiness with him in the home they raised their children, come back and talk, you evil being.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A four bedroom house is incredibly difficult and time consuming to keep up with general maintenance and cleanliness, particularly as you get older. If you’ve only ever lived in a one bedroom apartment as an adult, this is something you wouldn’t understand. So, no, I don’t think your elderly parents would actually want to move in with you, but at some point they might want to live somewhere easier for them to manage.

My parents have a 4 bedroom house. They do not use all the space obviously, but they have kept their home pretty minimalistic in terms of possessions, and so they do not have a problem in keeping the house maintained.

Oh FFS. It's a problem of keeping their bodies and minds healthy enough that they can safely live there. It's not even about maintenance really.

Oh FFS. You and your parents take steps to keep their bodies, minds, social engagement and spirit healthy and happy for the longest time and do everything possible to keep them in their home. Americans treat their elderly parents like a burden. Actually, they treat their children as a burden too. It is a terrible cycle.

Oh, what sage advice! If only my Dad had done that instead of getting Parkinsons...I guess we didn't keep him engaged enough?

Where the elderly parents will live really varies so much. My parents moved down south shortly after I did, from the NE. We have mostly one story no steps houses here and they -with a few ramps at the doors and bathrooms with safety features-live relatively safely there despite limited mobility. Their house 'up north' would be completely inaccessibly to them at this point due to stairs and layout. Had we not moved away, they would have had to leave that house.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My parents have three beds three baths with a nice view. I have three beds one bath (all much smaller than theirs) with a view of the neighbors' houses.
I told my mother of course she could move in with me when the time comes instead of going to a nursing home and she asked "But it's not going to be this house, right? This is just your starter house. I was hoping you'd move somewhere waterfront."
I think the point OP is making is that many boomers especially are rather spoiled housing-wise and will be underwhelmed by their adult children's downwardly mobile lifestyles.

No, OP couldn't imagine how he/she could manage moving his/her parents from their house to his apartment. Newsflash: all DCUM advice does not apply to everyone in every situation.

[Anonymous]

i kept my parents in their house until they couldn't live there anymore. but my dad in particular couldn't understand that changing his $2000/mo mortgage payment on the farm in the middle of nowhere to a rent payment near his kid would get him a 1-bedroom apartment.

"Please identify 5 pieces of furniture and 10 boxes of stuff you'd like to keep" was something he just could not understand.

[Anonymous]

I live in a row house that's supposedly 2/3 of the size of my parents' suburban house on 3 acres, but feels more like half. They've made very clear they have zero interest in living in my house or anywhere like it! I do worry that they won't even have the option of moving closer though, they are in a LCOL area. Maybe I'm a bad daughter for leaving but there are no jobs in my field there at all and i didn't think about planning my life around eldercare as a young adult when my parents weren't even in their 50s. It is what it is now.