Reply to How do you prepare for a lonely old age? And how to avoid being lonely when you're old?

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Reply to "How do you prepare for a lonely old age? And how to avoid being lonely when you're old?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]No guarantees that children will be able to look after you.  We are far away from our parents who live alone in another country.  We are of no use to them because we cannot go there and they cannot come and live with us.

I am prepared in my mind to continue staying in the house that I live in currently and hopefully die here.  It will be great if my kids and I can stay together at some point but it may not happen.

The only family I have seen it work was a multi-generational family where the parents and one adult son and his wife bought a huge house by combining resources.[b] The MIL looked after the house and grandkids[/b] (with paid help) and the rest of the family worked in their jobs.  Finally, as people got older, frail, with health problems and passed away, the survivors were not left without any people around them.  But, things are changing all the time. There are no guarantees in life.

I am in my 50s.  My aim has been to continue with my Swedish Death Cleanse that I have started recently and hopefully in 5 more years I will have a minimalistic life.  The rest of my life will probably go in being useful as a grandparent to my children's kids  and then just pass away.  If I had the money, I would certainly go and live in the 55+ community and age in place.[/quote]

This is something my elderly mother cannot fathom. I stay connected, but have stopped doing so much for because all she is a drain on an incredibly stressful life. She has buckets of money and hasn't worked in decades and everything is "me, me,me", guilt trips, pity parties for herself, etc. She tries to make me feel guilty talking about her neighbors and acquaintances who see their adult children and grandchildren all time and it's downright comical. Every person she mentions is the giving tree type. They are the type who take the grandchildren for a week or even a month. They prepare meals for the family when there is a new baby, work stress, someone ill. They are always contributing to the family system and building their daughters and sons up not stomping on them, manipulating them and guilt tripping them.

My MIL actually would rant about how much more gracious Asian adult children are and all of them (because all Asians are alike) do it right. My husband and I have plenty of 1st generation friends. Their parents who live with them clean, cook and provide childcare. My MIL would have been shamed for being a lazy alcoholic.

If you want support you have to be a support, but here's the kicker. You have to create friendships and give out of love in your heart, not with all sorts of expectations and just be grateful if it is reciprocated. My great-grandma was very giving. Some of her kids appreciated it and helped her in old age and others didn't.

Also, as someone said, you cannot sit at home feeling sorry for yourself watching netflix and expect community to appear. You also can't make new friends and join more things and expect those people to be there to wait on you. Over the years I have become friends with 2 ladies who didn't have many friends and over time it became clear their motivation was to have a community to be at their beckon call if they became ill or needed someone. One had a minor surgery and I helped her some. She complained endlessly about those who didn't help and also made it clear she expected more from me. I drifted. I already have an entitled mother. My husband and kids come first and I don't need lack of appreciation.[/quote]

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