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[quote=Anonymous]My parents are mid 70s, both in pretty good health (surprisingly good, actually, given their medical histories). Some early signs of dementia for my mom. They are totally independent and both still work (they run a business), my dad in particular is super socially active.

I live a flight away, married with one kid. We both work and do find for ourselves. I have not relied on my parents financially since college -- self-funded graduate school and paid for own wedding and down payment. They have given us a few cash gifts over the years, like a few thousand when my DC was born to help with expenses. But we've never asked for anything and when we have been given money, it either pays directly for whatever it was given for (once my mom gave me $500 for a birthday towards a new couch and I used it for that), or we put it into savings, whether DC's college fund or general savings. We visit them once a year and they visit us once a year. My DC has regular video calls with them and I join in on those often. I don't consider myself close to my parents but we don't have a bad relationship either. We get along but don't really depend on or confide in each other.

I have two siblings who both live very close to my parents. Both have actually lived with them for long stretches. Both also have families. One of them works for my parents' business full time (and is paid a good salary), the other used to work for it but now has their own business (that is complementary to my parents business, and they do a lot of cross-referral work). One is divorced, the other is still married. Six kids between the two of them.

My parents paid for both of their weddings (actually hosted one of them too), provided extensive childcare to both, and helped one of them buy two different houses, helped fund the other one to custom build a home (providing both funding and actual labor). Their lives are very intertwined.

As my parents near 80, I do have some concerns about their independence and safety/well-being. I would like to be helpful in this transition, as it happens, but have limited money to contribute (we are not broke but most of our money is tied up in our home and any extra goes in retirement and college accounts). Being so far away limits how I might be able to help on a day to day basis. I think my mom would actually embrace moving into assisted living, my dad will fight it. Neither of them will be interested in coming to live with us because they don't like where we live.

What would you view my obligation to my parents to be? How would you help them as they become less independent? I'll state here that one of my siblings will have very strong opinions about what should be done and will view my lack of participation as negligent, but will also view input or involvement from me as meddlesome unless I do exactly as she instructs. This was the dynamic recently with a health issue and I wound up just backing away and staying very hands off after being told my involvement wasn't welcome, but now there is resentment that I did not do enough. So I am wary about navigating that dynamic.

Would love to hear from people who have BTDT.[/quote]

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