Do you look at your kids as your future caretakers?

[Anonymous]

I want my boys (I don't have girls) to help safeguard me. Not to take care of me. DH and I are attempting to provide well for ourselves in the future and hope to have things set up. When we get much older, I have told them that I hope that they will step in and direct things if we are unable to do so ourselves. Don't bring us home, don't manage a team of caretakers and repairs in our house from afar but help us move into a nice facility (we hope to have the money) near-ish to them so they can live their lives and easily check on us from time to time. We plan to move into the nice facility ourselves and under our own power without their assistance but we also understand that sometimes crap happens.

[Anonymous]

Data suggests that implementing social security systems suppresses the birth rate, so quite a few people do have that in consideration.

Including me - children are a significant portion of my retirement portfolio. And yes, my parents live in my basement.

Note that this is not just financial -- even if you are rich, as you get older, you're going to need someone who cares enough to make doctor appointments, find a good nursing home, make sure the staff at that nursing home actually care about you, and help manage all the minutiae that gradually accumulate as aging takes hold.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was told i should try for a girl for this reason. I couldn’t believe my friend said this. Then she went on to say, well why else do you have kids…i guess some view their kids this way but I never have.

This actually occurred to me as a reason not to try for a daughter. I have two boys and felt that if I had a girl for a third, she would be unfairly burdened as a future caretaker and it would give the boys a free pass. With only boys, they know it's on them.

True but it also means you would expect that of her, as most people do of women.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes.

Just selfish.

[Anonymous]

My friend cares for her mom. She works also so no time to date and find a mate which she desires. She has put her life on hold for the past 5 years to care for her mother. Yes, she has a sibling but the responsibility “fell” on her as the oldest single did with no family.

[Anonymous]

*oldest single daughter

[Anonymous]

I think there’s a lot of gray area in caretaking. We are going through this stage with DH’s mom and it’s very complicated because we live far away and she has no family close by (other son also lives far away). It has been stressful and certainly makes it so in the future we’d like to live near our children not so that they’d be physical care takers but to help with financial decisions, to visit us and check in on us at a nursing home, etc.

I know a lot of you are saying you’d move before the time comes to not be a burden. But my MIL slowly is becoming more cognitively impaired. She did some right things like she moved to a 55+ community that’s all one level when her home got too much to manage. Then she fell a couple of times. So we got her a home health aide. But she got PE and pneumonia so she went to rehab for a month. Now they are recommending assisted living but the big thing about assisted living is that you can be rejected depending on number of services you need and things like insulin injection alone count as more than one service (even though it’s just one shot). It doesn’t take much to be rejected. So she’s been rejected from assisted living, because she requires too much care. But a nursing home level of care is also not what she needs right now. Nursing homes are notoriously bad in terms of outcomes—just look at the data. It’s why there’s lots of programs to help seniors age in place. Her other option is home health aide—but once you get to 8-12 hours a day every day it gets expensive.

As I mentioned this takes a ton of coordination and oversight from us even though we are not there—I hope my children (male or female) are able to help us in the same way in the future but know it’s not a guarantee. It has made me worry about all our friends that don’t have kids—I know they say their money will take care of them but I am more worried about the advocacy needed and the oversight to prevent abusive and predatory situations. And like a PP nurse said, my husband and I have taken a good look at our advanced directives. We do way too much to prolong life in the end.

[Anonymous]

I wouldn't want them to be my caretakers but keeping an eye on my hired caretakers would be kind.