How to make sure DH and I are not a burden on our children someday when we are elderly?

[Anonymous]

First off OP, you are awesome for caring and not burying your head in the sand.

I disagree with the person who said there is little you can control. Don't under-estimate scaling down, especially if you have hoarding tendencies like my parents. It will take me possibly years to deal with the mess they left in their over 40 years in a house where they never even got rid of any tax returns let alone all the magazines, junk, etc. It will be a nightmare just figuring out what needs to be shredded, what can be recycled and donated and what is pure trash and don't even get me started about my crazy siblings who will expect me to send them things like FURNITURE and the fights we'll have when I insist they travel down here and do it THEMSELVES.

Having a plan in place for nurse's aide/nurse and assisted living etc is huge.

GRATITUDE goes a long way. If my parents showed less ATTITUDE and more GRATITUDE I would be so much happier. Also an APOLOGY would go a long way. I would like my parents to just acknowledge some abysmal behavior and show remorse nd EMPATHY-something my mother used to have, but may have lost to aging and/or stress.

Get AARPs driving test yearly to prove to your kids, you are a safe driver so they don't have to argue with you.

If you are a stressed out caregiver, get every form of help including therapy and/or support groups. It is OK to vent some to adult kids, but please don't ever badmouth and threaten divorce. Even as an adult is is painful for me to hear "I could just strangle your father" and "I may just divorce him and leave you to deal." (Yes, we threw a fit to get her into therapy).

Get your finances in order. If your kids don't get along, don't expect them to work together harmoniously when the time comes. Have a plan and spell it out in writing.

Make all your plans clear.

This is morbid, but plan your funeral. Nobody wants to arguing over what dad would have wanted and some people are crazy enough to do this. Buy your plot and have it all prepped so that one kid who was estranged from you doesn't try to make everyone miserable with his rigid ideas about how it must be done.

[Anonymous]

Definitely avoid dating someone who isn't financially solvent. My mom did this, and he was a very sweet man and treated her well interpersonally, but he was broke. She spent a lot of her assets supporting him, not really giving him money but picking up the tab for things that they both did. Eventually she realized it was unsustainable and now they're in separate retirement places. But if she had kept on going down that road, she would have run out of money.

[Anonymous]

My MIL is the perfect example.

She has had Parkinson's for many years. She saw that she and her husband would need more help soon, so she moved from the exurbs to the Chinese quarter (not in this country) in a handicap-accessible apartment building. The Chinese quarter is a hotbed of potential housekeepers and elder caregivers who speak her language and cook her native food, and sure enough, she hired two to rotate for daytime care 6 days a week. Now, FIL has passed away (never having lifted a finger to plan any of this), and my MIL has aged in place, necessitating close medical supervision and more caregivers to fill in for the main two's schedule gaps and vacations. One of my BILs visits on Sundays, when she has no care, for company and to check she takes all her meds. She has a cast of grandchildren and other relatives who visit occasionally.

The secrets to this is that she planned well, both financially and to be closer to caregivers and doctors. And that she has always been a rational, courteous person, who is careful not to alienate anyone.

I hope to be able to plan this way myself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My wife works as a nursing home administrator. If you think this is possible, well I don’t see it. Biggest thing you can do is have money. But people change when they get old. While you think now that you will be fine moving out of your house and you think insurance will pay for your care, when people get old they have a skewed view of what they are capable of and your kids think you are less capable than you actually are.

FWIW, my wife says that rarely does LtC insurance pay for more than Medicare and she thinks it’s a waste of money.

DP. This is very interesting, thank you. I have been wondering about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
My MIL is the perfect example.

She has had Parkinson's for many years. She saw that she and her husband would need more help soon, so she moved from the exurbs to the Chinese quarter (not in this country) in a handicap-accessible apartment building. The Chinese quarter is a hotbed of potential housekeepers and elder caregivers who speak her language and cook her native food, and sure enough, she hired two to rotate for daytime care 6 days a week. Now, FIL has passed away (never having lifted a finger to plan any of this), and my MIL has aged in place, necessitating close medical supervision and more caregivers to fill in for the main two's schedule gaps and vacations. One of my BILs visits on Sundays, when she has no care, for company and to check she takes all her meds. She has a cast of grandchildren and other relatives who visit occasionally.

The secrets to this is that she planned well, both financially and to be closer to caregivers and doctors. And that she has always been a rational, courteous person, who is careful not to alienate anyone.

I hope to be able to plan this way myself.

We are hoping to be as thoughtful and forward-thinking as your MIL. It is a work in progress! I love how she set up her lifestyle and living arrangements so far in advance!

[Anonymous]

From my own experience I would say - stay positive and stay involved in as many activities as possible.

My relative was in long term care. What made it difficult was how much she hated being there. If she had a positive attitude and attended activities and gone out etc, it would have been much easier on us.

I felt guilty every time I visited as she was so miserable. It was an emotional burden on us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Money. Money, money, money. Save it. All of it.

Pick an early age to give up your house and move to a retirement community that "steps up care." Like age 55. But, you can't guarantee one of you won't have a heart attack or debilitating stroke or develop a degenerative disease by then, so maybe you should move now.

Write iron-clad end-of-life agreements that say to pull the plug in almost every circumstance, and give the power to make that decision to someone other than your children.

Have no attachment to any "thing." Not your home, not art, not pictures, knickknacks, or keepsakes. Throw out as much as possible, and make it clear the kids can throw the rest away as soon as you have to move to the "independent living" area of the retirement community.

In other words, you want to GUARANTEE you won't be a burden to your kids? Then you have to be able to become disabled tomorrow and leave no loos end untied.

Or, you could just try having an open conversation with your children as you get older about being loving and caring to one another, and model that same behavior with your own parents. As someone else said, a lot of the bad feeling comes from being overworked and overwhelmed to begin with, and then there's no way to plan for every eventuality when your parents decline. And it could be YEARS of the unknown. Conversations now, where you absolve them of guilt now for not being perfect caregivers later, is probably the best thing you can do.

55?!?!?! Are they going to allow our high schoolers to live with us in the retirement community?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I see so many complaints here about adults having to take care of their elderly parents, and how awful it is, and how it seems to ruin the relationship.

How can our generation avoid this fate for our children? Is the key to avoid having to ask your kids for absolutely anything?

I love my kids and don't want to be a burden to them in the future. DH and I have been successful in our professions, and hope to not have to ask our kids to do anything for us (like even take us to doctors' appointments).

Everyone is a burden. Its part of being human. The only suggestion i can give is dont live too long.

[Anonymous]

Downsize your stuff and your home. Get long term care if not too late. Get will and trusts drawn up. Let your know do know you love them and what your wishes are. Rest is not up to us.

[Anonymous]

Not surprisingly, so many posts mention having lots of money.

It's a bummer to think how our saving and investing over the years will be burned through paying caregivers in our 80s and 90s. I love life, but would rather not burn through a substantial portion of our savings on caregivers. We love SO long now -- is there much of a quality of life when you can no longer take care of yourself?

[Anonymous]

I have no kids to dump on so have no choice but to be a super planner. I will just choose medical aid in dying with any cancer I get which makes me very strange. I live in a medical aid in dying country so that is a better way to go. I do my own cognitive testing as 95% of people avoid the elephant in the room, too busy worrying about losing their driving licence than their mind. You have a really long window of cognitive decline where you are still competent and can check out in Switzerland if you really want to. Most people do not, they would rather just bury their head in the sand and try to live forever.

I find the concept of care workers tending to me to be morally repugnant, very "massah and the slaves," so again I will choose medical aid in dying in the early stages. I agree with Emmanuel Ezekiel and don't see any point to living to old-old age, certainly to any age where you can't look after yourself. Most people think they are doing society a favour by living as long as possible, so they mask their fear of death with a veneer of moral indignation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have no kids to dump on so have no choice but to be a super planner. I will just choose medical aid in dying with any cancer I get which makes me very strange. I live in a medical aid in dying country so that is a better way to go. I do my own cognitive testing as 95% of people avoid the elephant in the room, too busy worrying about losing their driving licence than their mind. You have a really long window of cognitive decline where you are still competent and can check out in Switzerland if you really want to. Most people do not, they would rather just bury their head in the sand and try to live forever.

I find the concept of care workers tending to me to be morally repugnant, very "massah and the slaves," so again I will choose medical aid in dying in the early stages. I agree with Emmanuel Ezekiel and don't see any point to living to old-old age, certainly to any age where you can't look after yourself. Most people think they are doing society a favour by living as long as possible, so they mask their fear of death with a veneer of moral indignation.

UnfortunAtely, Most of us on dcum don’t have that option.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My wife works as a nursing home administrator. If you think this is possible, well I don’t see it. Biggest thing you can do is have money. But people change when they get old. While you think now that you will be fine moving out of your house and you think insurance will pay for your care, when people get old they have a skewed view of what they are capable of and your kids think you are less capable than you actually are.

FWIW, my wife says that rarely does LtC insurance pay for more than Medicare and she thinks it’s a waste of money.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have no kids to dump on so have no choice but to be a super planner. I will just choose medical aid in dying with any cancer I get which makes me very strange. I live in a medical aid in dying country so that is a better way to go. I do my own cognitive testing as 95% of people avoid the elephant in the room, too busy worrying about losing their driving licence than their mind. You have a really long window of cognitive decline where you are still competent and can check out in Switzerland if you really want to. Most people do not, they would rather just bury their head in the sand and try to live forever.

I find the concept of care workers tending to me to be morally repugnant, very "massah and the slaves," so again I will choose medical aid in dying in the early stages. I agree with Emmanuel Ezekiel and don't see any point to living to old-old age, certainly to any age where you can't look after yourself. Most people think they are doing society a favour by living as long as possible, so they mask their fear of death with a veneer of moral indignation.

I agree. I don't want to be 90 years old and helpless, depending on various paid support staff.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My wife works as a nursing home administrator. If you think this is possible, well I don’t see it. Biggest thing you can do is have money. But people change when they get old. While you think now that you will be fine moving out of your house and you think insurance will pay for your care, when people get old they have a skewed view of what they are capable of and your kids think you are less capable than you actually are.

FWIW, my wife says that rarely does LtC insurance pay for more than Medicare and she thinks it’s a waste of money.

+1

Can you ask your wife (the nursing home administrator) for any tips she can share with us on this forum of how to avoid being a burden?