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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My parents moved across the country for retirement in a warm weather area. About ten years later, one sibling moved her family out there also. That sibling had had an unpleasant divorce and she wanted her kids as far away as possible from their dad. My parents did a lot of caretaking for her kids over the years.

My sister ended up doing a lot to take care of our parents because she lived right there. I was on the other side of the country. My parents made the choice to move out there, knowing my job would keep me here and that I had no desire to live in the state they had moved to.

So, yes, my sister did a lot to take care of them, but she also had benefitted from them taking care of her kids in a way they never could for my kids. In the end, they did divide things equally, but I admit I would have been annoyed if they hadn’t under these circumstances. (Also, I am aware that they always reimbursed her for her time and mileage when she was helping them and always gave her a bit extra, so I don’t think there was any resentment on her part.)
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Are you divorced? If not, you are fortunate that you didn't go through the brutal process of a divorce with kids, and then feel compelled for the benefit of your kids to move away from your friends, support system, and start anew as a single mom. And if you are married, you have a life partner to share childrearing and all the joys and challenges that presents.

So your sibling moved to be close to family, a support system, while she re-built her life. That's wonderful your parents could help her and provide her kids with love and stability. And I'm sure she was happy to help your parents as they aged, but she's doing that as a single mom, with a job, probably leaving her precious little time for herself. But all I hear from your post is tit-for-tat score keeping, and grumpiness that your sibling got extra help with her kids when she needed it most.

What I don't hear is compassion for how she had to manage all of this, and gratitude that your situation is different. THIS is what rips families apart. Utter lack of empathy and a focus on who got how much. [/quote]

To be fair, my sister remarried less than a year after her divorce was final and had two more children with her second husband. My parents helped them a lot with child care and driving kids around to activities. The older two kids spent a few months each year with their dad and other grandparents, so that relived her physical caretaking duties for them during that time.

Her kids were all adults and had moved to the east coast years before my parents ever needed any help from her. And both my parents were pretty healthy until a year for one and about three years for the other before they died. She didn’t really need to help much when my mom was I’ll because my dad was able to do all the caretaking at that time.

So yeah, I do think that my sister benefitted greatly from many years of very intense help with her children from my parents. And I think that the help she gave them in the last few years before they died was a very well deserved payback to them for all they had done for her for years and years. 
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Soooo - what's the problem? Why are you keeping such careful score of what your sister received and when? I'm sorry but you sound super bitter.[/quote]

Wow, I was just making the point that different families have different situations. Someone upthread was saying that parents should give extra to the child that helped them in their old age. I was just pointing out that sometimes the person helping the parents had received a lot of extra help from them, so maybe they shouldn’t be getting “extra” for their help as the parents age and decline.

Also, most experts advise that it is best to split the estate evenly and pay children for help before death, rather than after. My sibling was totally aware that she had received far more help from my parents than I ever did, so she was perfectly fine with doing the bulk of the caretaking. Especially since I live in the opposite coast from where they live and it’s a full day to travel there and then another full day for me to return home.

Not sure why my family’s situation has triggered you so much. 
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TBH, you seem very triggered by your family's situation. What kind of sum is in play?

Look, my parents would be mindful that someone had been more helpful, but also cognizant about why that may be the case. They had an equal split across siblings, but there were no assets remaining to be divvied up in the end due to LTC.[/quote]

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