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][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]No one is actually talking about the hardest questions here.

Potential social isolation can be solved.

But if you are alone and become cognitively impaired, who will administer your finances? If you get physically sick, who will be your advocate in the medical system and potentially make decisions for you?

Finding someone who will do these things and act in what is truly your best interest, with thought and care and competence, is the hard part, imo.

Why is no one talking about this? [/quote]

It was talked about early on. You can hire people. If you think that is risky I can assure you plenty of adult children do shady things that screw parents and siblings. Also, your family has a right to say "no" especially if they aren't close to you or feel you suddenly got close to them for favors.[/quote]

Be real. You can't really hire people who are going to show up at the ER to pick you up at 1am when you have been released from being fixed up from a breaking an arm and you are gaga on painkillers. And no, you will not be taking an Uber as a frail, semi out of it, elderly person.

Hiring someone to truly be your advocate when you are sick is very challenging.

Hiring someone to manage your finances and not screw it up or steal from you is also challenging.  Sure, family members could steal from you, but it is less likely they are going to steal from you. Or leave you stranded at the ER.

[/quote]

You also need to keep in mind that the first say dozen incidents over a span of years your family may be advocating. As you get more difficult and the emergencies increase you would be surprised how many families burn out. We should all hope to die peacefully in our sleep. Also, you may NOT want someone to advocate. My father was kept alive in a vegetable state because mom felt she needed to ADVOCATE because he might miraculously recover completely. I get the sense you have an idealized view of what this all looks like. Sure if you have one emergency during old age you might have a network rallying around you. This reminds me a lot of my mother. She didn't help much with her own family or inlaws and she had all sorts of magical ideas about how things work and what everyone else much do. The first time she had to do anything to help dad she fell apart and became bitter and resentful. It was downhill from there and even with our help, round the clock hired help and more she could not cope and was erupting often. We are talking about someone with money who wasn't working and had her faculties. Imagine balancing it with a job and parents and kids of your own. She had caregivers to do everything and had the option of putting him in residential and she was angry at HIM for having issues.[/quote]

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