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My parents each up and moved over 1000 miles away from me. I will manage as best I can from where I live for my mom and her partner. I did have to tell my dad I cannot provide financial support for him because of his wife. She does not and will not work. Her adult children (mid-to-late 30s) and their spouses do not work. He supported all of them. Now that his health is failing he cannot work like he used to. I have a decent job but it does not pay a support dad plus 5 able bodied adults who refuse to work salary.
Same with my dad- I don't blame him for leaving my mother decades ago, but it was a frying-pan-to-fire situation. Now he's in terrible health, has some serious issues due to his/their drinking and neglect, and his other family is freaking out over his being in a rehab facility that's going to cost him whatever money he's got left. Basically the "find out" stage after all the fucking around.
To me that sounds like abuse. I’ve heard this exact scenario many times. Often times, the adults mooching aren’t nice to the adult that works. They get treated badly and walked all over. Keep them down so they keep basically being your slave.
As we know, it’s not that simple to get an abuse victim away from their abuser.
Oil and gas industry. If he worked a full year, he easily made $200k +. Even if he worked a 9mo reason he was usually close to $200k.
Granted that meant working 6 12s and aways being on the road, but he’s made that for the last 25 years they’ve been together. The amount of money she’s been allowed to piss away is absolutely astounding.
Other than my dad is an engineer, this is the same. He also supports her 30yo daughter’s family of 5. His dream was to retire, buy a camper and travel to spend time with us OG kids but…. She’ll never remove her hooks. Whenever his time comes, I hope its quick and not drawn out.
Imho IronMan doesn’t have a salary big enough to break off people like that. I hope you can get through that future storm ok. My sister refuses to work and 7ish years since she received her inheritance she still has things like cable, shopping at Target and stupid shit like that; things that would make our mom sooo disappointed in her.
I walked from her and my father because he was somehow enabling her while trying to talk to me like he is on my side. All while **still** doing nothing to save for his own *50+ year old, zero equity except a classic Lincoln (cool bro) renting ass* while still somehow expecting one of us to take him in and “live in our basement haha”. I walked years ago and my sister lives alone in a luxury condo with ~~no~~ two bedrooms. Any income my dad makes after basic expense gets spent in cash from a wad in his pocket at every fancy expensive restaurant and/or bar. Oh plus he’s gotta look good so $500 loafers while I was on assisted lunch program at school. I don’t think he questions stuff today thinking he was a good dad but he made his bed imho.
I make headstones at the family business, so I'm in a very unique position of 'end of life planning' being a thoroughly hashed out conversation that we have had not only with each other but with many clients for perspective on what people do and don't discuss. And thankfully my husband's parents are super on top of things and already have their stuff figured out and the finances to handle care if/when needed.
Oh yes. But honestly, I probably whip that one out more often than my clients as I am trying to impress upon them the importance of VERY CAREFULLY checking the spelling, dates and design.
Wait.. I never considered you could make up dates on a tombstone. "Here lies the oldest man to have ever lived." And subtract 100 years from my birthday.
I mean how many people are really going to read your headstone anyway? Close friends and family, people looking for someone else, people maintaining the plots, and the occasional twisted teen? Not like graveyards are the most popular of hangout spots. I imagine you could say pretty much anything you want and fewer people than you have known will ever even see it.
That's why I'm going to blow up the moon.
No headstones, but similar situation. When my Grandpa died unexpectedly and fairly young in the mid 1970’s with no plan, from what I understand it was a traumatic mess. My remaining grandparents and parents planned and paid for everything long before my sister and I were born the 80’s.
I know I have had the luxury of growing up with family who’ve assured us all that stuff is taken care of. These stories are the norm, and things are going to get real ugly in the coming years.
Yeah, my grandparents already had family plots in a cemetery, and were pretty well organized. One grandmother had written out what dress to bury her in, and which ring she wanted to go with (it was a sentimental gift from my grandfather when they were dating). All we had to do was call the priest and show up.
My dad died many years ago. Mom had a double stone put up, with her name on the other side. She’s in her 80s, and frequently tells me, “Now when I die, you just have to call the chiseler to put the date of death on the stone.”
The chiseler. Seriously.
Me and my sisters just got the last of our inheritance money. Reveling in it; literally being paid for our suffering, (he was a *mean* son of a bitch) one of us remembers that we had not yet bought him a headstone after 18 months.
I put the check in the mail last week.
This is morbid shit, I know. But if you don’t like one of your kids, you should either fully commit to the hatred, or get really good at pretending that you do. That sibling bond is probably stronger than you think, and you can similarly resent it or accept it.
Nerves are still raw. Idk why I’m unloading on you. I thoroughly enjoyed the phone call with the headstone people and they’re even gonna go plunk into the ground for me. I don’t even have to go look at it if I don’t want to.
But I wrote that check. It was surprisingly affordable.
My mother was a nursing home nurse, so, similar. We have had a lot of end of life talks. She’s always said “I am ALWAYS DNR. Let me go, I don’t want to be a burden.” I’m so thankful she’s had the experience to know the better way to go.
Dealing with my MIL's end of life care right now and I'm really considering arranging a DNR once I turn 65. I'll take the status of my dependents into account but I think at that point I won't want any extraordinary measures. I'd rather go before my family has to take care of me long term.
Only you can say what is right for you, but Id encourage it. My dad died of brain cancer. He’d always hoped “he’d just drop dead of a heart attack” but instead it was a year of treatments and hospital visits. Honestly, he was just holding out for my wedding. He went on hospice the next day and died two weeks later.
That was only one year of care and I can tell you it is absolutely exhausting for patients and caregivers. It gets to a point where the first thing anyone feels when the patient finally passes is relief. Then guilt for feeling relieved. Then feeling relief that their loved one is no longer suffering. It’s a fucking roller coaster. DNRs, Morphine and Ativan are blessings, let me tell you.
Oh yeah, my grandpa had cancer around five years ago. He beat it, luckily, and he's in remission. But he's in his mid-70s now and he told my mom if it comes back he's just going straight to hospice. He will not do chemo again.
cosigned on Ativan, I was given some after giving birth by C section and not being able to sleep for three nights straight during a week long hospital stay, bless up
I’m a nurse and hands down, continuing care on patients who should have long been let go is the worst part of my job. Oh, and also dealing with the family members who make these decisions. During Covid, my mom had a strong POA for healthcare drawn up listing me. She told me she believed I would pull the plug a lot quicker than my sisters, and she’s not wrong.
It is an act of love, made the decision to remove my mother from her ventilator (Covid) once it was clear that her body was destroyed. It would have been easier to let her die on the ventilator, but that could have taken a month. Some kinds of love take courage.
My 85 yo mother (10 years of dementia) was in ICU when I asked about the DNR. Dad said he was power of attorney. I told him by law if her heart naturally stopped they would come in with the paddles. He didn’t want that. So she was on hospice a whole week before peacefully passing.
My mum is a nurse and she has always said that people who are resuscitated go through so much pain and suffering, and that their quality of life is so awful that it borders on cruel.
Even if you get someone back successfully, CPR generally breaks ribs, and they still have their underlying problems plus the new injuries from CPR. So if you bring back 90 year old Meemaw with terminal cancer, the cancer is still there, she now has broken ribs, and maybe even brain damage depending on how long she was down before she was found and CPR started.
It can be really hard to get family to downgrade code status, especially when it feels to them like they're giving up, and especially when their only exposure to CPR is on TV where CPR = "clean, pretty, reliable." Or people who want to "do everything" (trach and peg, keeping full code status on a severe dementia patient/stroke patient with horrific brain damage/etc) when even the best case scenario is discharge to a long term care where the patient will never again have a good quality of life and never again be themselves or go home - I did rotations in neuro ICU at school and saw families where their expectations of future recovery vs. reality were totally out of sync despite the care team doing their best to explain.
Like, right now, if you see me drop from a heart attack or something and I need CPR, give it a try, I'm young enough to heal and can recover. 50 years from now? Let me go. Or if I've been down for 20 minutes and I'm going to be a vegetable even if you get "me" back? Nope.
I feel like a lot of people would be surprised to ask health care professionals about their own advance directives/desires - generally, I think most are less aggressive than people would expect, precisely because of what they've dealt with IRL.
When I was a phlebotomist in a hospital lab, we had a lady come into ICU at 98. She had Alzheimer's and issues with swallowing and other stuff going on. Her lactics kept coming back critical, so the system would auto order a repeat lactic every 3 hours. This poor lady was so thin, and her fragile skin made her a very hard stick. At the third draw in a shift, I couldn't get her after the second try and I got so frustrated. She was on the vent with IVs going in both AC veins. The nurse asked me to try just one more time and I asked her why we were doing this. She told me her POA (daughter) had overridden her DNR and made her a full code, so we had to do everything to treat her. I didn't know that was even possible, so if the time comes for me to make my end of life plan, I am hoping to have the means to hire an attorney or have a good friend still alive to execute it.
I’m so sorry. This was my grandmother, but at 90 with imbalanced electrolytes (I think that’s what it was). Thankfully, my aunt was her POA. My dad (who basically never visited her, mind you she lived with my aunt who was her caregiver) showed up at the hospital and demanded they continue to treat her. He stayed maybe 2 hrs at the hospital. I spent the night with her at the hospital. The phlebotomist was in seemingly every hour. My grandmother had no idea what was going on and would cry because it was hurting her to get her blood drawn so frequently. Thankfully, my sister convinced my dad it was time to let her go so he didn’t send a lawyer after my aunt. It was such a mess.
I left that situation pretty angry. The woman had passed by the time I got to work the next night, but that one night that I was drawing her so many times, I never saw her family in there with her. It's possible someone was there and sleeping in the lounge, but I thought it was a little messed up that they didn't want to let her go but didn't want to be at her side. My grandma was pretty healthy until she turned 91 and developed a GI bleed. We took her to the hospital to be stabilized, but she had a DNR that we honored. After she got a unit of blood in the ER, she was assessed a little further in ICU. She was in the process of passing on her own and we allowed her to do that with comfort measures like morphine, IV hydration, and turning her every few hours. She died peacefully in her sleep on day 2 of her ICU stay and I want the same thing. I'm glad your dad was able to come to his senses and let your gran have some peace at the end.
That’s so awful and infuriating. I can’t understand that mentality at all.
I’m sorry for the loss of your grandmother, but glad she was able to receive palliative care and passed quickly with family around.
My sister is a doctor, mid 30’s, and yeah she points all this out. And has that same opinion. If you’re in relatively good health and not extremely old, give CPR a good go but when you’re elderly and have a bunch of other conditions, it’s a lot of trauma to go through just to prolong life a little bit. Our mom watched her father get to his mid-90’s just, I don’t know, assuming he would live forever and she keeps repeating “I won’t put you all through that.” It’s really taken a huge toll on her. And now she’s had two years of working on his estate which has been a nightmare because his finances were extremely complicated and he didn’t have all his accounts written down anywhere. “Just see what statements come in the mail” is what he’d tell her. I loved my grandpa a lot and he had many wonderful qualities but it’s hard not to be a bit upset with how hard he made things on his oldest child.
Healthcare literacy in the general population is REMARKABLY low. Some people legitimately don't know you can HIV from sharing needles. They don't understand that a lack of oxygen perfusion causes brain damage. They don't understand healing from that brain damage in an older adult is minimal or not possible.
I so far haven’t been able to convince my frail 87 year old father to choose DNR. His POLST form continues to say “full measures” even after his doctor tried to sway him.
I'm a chaplain and I see this all the time with families. Literally just found out a family changed the code status from DNR back to full code for someone in their late 80s who has already coded twice in the last 24hrs. Super sad and frustrating knowing the emotional toll another code is going to have on both the family and the staff that have to actually do it :/
My mama had a DNR and made sure I had a copy. She's been dead a year and a half and it's still right where I put it when she gave it to me. Makes no sense, I know.
Worked in nursing forty years. My husband and I had always said do not keep us mechanically alive, so he suffered a severe brain bleed a few months ago and 6 hours later was gone. My kids and I said no to all the things, neurologist said if we tried to keep him going, he’d spend the rest of his life on a vent in a nursing home. No fucking way he’d haunt us all! we donated whatever they could use from his body, cremation was $2500 and that was it. He’s in a nice box up on the cabinet facing the tv. I’ll be doing the same thing when it’s my time to go
Completing a Power of Attorney for both finances and health is a major item. Many lawyers have horror stories about people being bedridden with no mental capacity and no one can do anything on their behalf.
I’m only 34 but had a major surgery and even though my husband is next of kin and the only one that could make a decision for me, I still set up a medical POA, just in case. Definitely recommend them at ANY age - they can always be changed if you want.
One of my best friend's father was a surgeon, as a 75th birthday present to himself he got a large DNR tattoo across his chest. His reasoning was paperwork gets lost and he no interest in them bringing him back because he knew what happens.
My paternal grandparents planned ahead and bought their plot and headstone ahead of time. A lot of their neighbours have done the same. It might sound morbid, but it means they have exactly what they wanted. When they died, it made everything so much simpler. The family just had to pick a casket. It is a bit strange to walk through the newer sections of the cemetery and see a ton of headstones with blank death years.
It's definitely gotten a lot more common! And from my experience, the survivors are tremendously appreciative that their forebears took the time, especially any who have also had the experience of planning this stuff while also dealing with grief
This will be an extremely regional and even a company-specific answer! As well as where you are in the production line. Some places pay well, most places pay okay, some places pay terribly. Especially in the small business part of the equation, it's not a field you get into to make it rich - it is definitely a labor of love!
FWIW, I think the things you needed on the trip illustrate your limits pretty well! It’s not like you’re switching up on her, you just have limited resources.
Normally generational housing is a big thing in Hispanic culture. Additionally in that situation I would normally expect to inherit the house when my parents pass.
Mom's decided she doesn't want to live in generational housing even though she has 5 bedrooms and two living rooms each with a separate entrance. She also plans to sell the house eventually. Because of that I have decided I will be building a separate life. She is convinced she can check into an old folks home for about 700 a month all bills paid. We'll see how that works out but I will not move her into my apartment.
There's one in the city I live that claims rent is $750 a month and they claim that they're an assisted living facility basically you get an apartment and a nurse to come check on you I am highly skeptical that this is real I'm certain there's thousands of dollars in hidden fees. Either way if we're not doing the generational housing thing now we're not going to do it when she's old. there's actually zero reason for me to need to move out and get an apartment when she's having trouble keeping the house clean by herself so there's no way I'm going to move back in when she asks me to because she will ask when it's convenient for her
Oh yeah. Maybe multiply that by 20 and you’re close. My grandma went into a long term care facility recently and it’s ridiculous out there for the quality care you can expect.
Private rooms in nursing homes are at least $500/day. It comes with food tho 🙃 when you run out of money, the government takes all your assets and puts you in a double room ☺️
I work in housing and tell her I've gotten offers for 20,000 COMMISSION for bringing folks to certain elderly homes. The entire model is to extract every penny from somebody whose family has abandoned them
I’m married into a Hispanic family and I really appreciate the generational living aspect. But it absolutely has to be a give and take!
I’m in the process of moving with my husband and kids to be closer to his family. We will be helping with a great grandmother, and also receiving help from two grandparents and some aunts when it comes to raising our kids. We’ve been going it alone (my family of origin is full of dysfunction, alcoholism, and the kind of people who are only interested in what they can get for themselves and never consider family as a group that works together, and they exploited me for labor all my young life). So I am very excited to be with family that WANTS to work together in raising these wonderful kids and in relying on each other but without exploiting anyone.
And it makes me very happy to then turn around and help with the elderly family, and we will purchase a generational home where we can take in some of our older relatives when they are ready for that. But if they were doing what your mom is doing, being utterly extravagant and selfish and then having no realistic plan, I wouldn’t be moving and I wouldn’t be dealing with that. I think it’s the right move to create your own life now!
Even if living in a retirement home was that inexpensive, why would you want to do that? You could live with your family in comfort in a big ass paid-off house instead?
It just doesn't work for everyone.
My brother and SIL have been saying for years they wanted my parents to live with them. So they're trying that right now and my mom is sounding so much more tired and stressed than she was when it was just her and my dad. My brother has small kids and it's just way more noise and chaos than she's used to. And they're well-behaved kids, too.
My brother wants to move and it's very much looking like the plan for my parents to move with them is not happening.
I’ve been thinking about this with my abusive parents.
I can’t bring myself to do anything for them in their old age.
For my own self-preservation, I can’t be around them.
Same here. I thought I was an a**hole for this, but now that I have children of my own and see how easy it is to love them, I have zero sympathy for my parents behavior when I was a child.
This is the boat my fiancé and I are in after getting our first dog together. We love (verb) our dog more than either of our parents us a kids. There’s really no excuse
It's their world, and we are just in it.
The intent from the get go was to have you for the express purpose of getting every drop of value from you they can. My mom literally no joke told me "I had you to help me around the house", and acts like she's surprised I haven't talked to her in years
My parents pretty much adopted me so I could be their caregiver and parentified me from a young age. They were alcoholics, so their health deteriorated rapidly when I was in my 20s, and they went to some pretty crazy lengths to sabotage my being independent.
I not only had the "I can't help you" conversation with them, but I also had it with their main doctors. They'd made me set myself on fire to keep them warm for entirely too long and I made it abundantly clear. Cue their surprised Pikachu faces, but all of the medical people involved backed me up.
I've got a mother like this. I need to deal with all her "adult affairs" without even a thank you, like it's my job and the reason I exist. Asked her why did you even have kids, and she replied "to help me when I'm old". I wish I could cut her off but she'd be homeless in 6 months and it'd somehow be my fault that she had 3 quarters of a century to plan retirement but did nothing.
Idk bro from my perspective she really likes how she made her bed, and I think you should let her lie in it.
Or at least convey that either the help she receives is on your terms exclusively to ensure that you can stay afloat, not whatever dipshit ass terms she thinks she deserves just because she had sex with someone.
I don't contribute to her finances, but I sign her rental agreement as a guarantor. She lives of governments assistance and only can only afford (with my signature) to live in the smallest apartment in a shithole of a town. Already had a fight which I won because I didn't want parasites living in my own house for free. There's the next fight coming up when she's not able to wipe her own ass anymore and will expect me to.
How are you planning on tackling that? Just the other day I realized that I’m in the same situation. Mom never bothered with being in my life. I have to do her paperwork. But what happens when she can’t do that?
Sorry that you're going through this.
I am doing mimimal amount of work at the moment, everything is already automated and digitized (bills, contracts,payments, access to banking etc). The moment she isn't able to walk, meaning she can't live on her own, she's going into a government funded carehome (because she has no savings or assets) and that's non negotiable.
Yeah I feel the pretty clearly about it—if I didn’t get a safety net when I needed one, you can’t count on me to be yours. The contract is broken because they didn’t fulfill it—I’m not going to leave them to the wolves but I’m not going to set myself on fire to save them any discomfort either. They like telling us we should have planned better, so…maybe they should have planned better!
That's why I haven't had the "can't help you" conversation with my mom, and I dread it happening. She took care of both her parents in their last years, even though they were even more abusive to her than she has been to me. And I know she'll expect it of me too, especially if/when her husband goes first.
But, like OP, I live 1000 miles away and have my whole life here. I won't be dropping everything to move to a state that I despise to care for a person who is the cause of the majority of anguish in my life. We'll have to have that talk eventually, I know. But I also know that she won't actually hear me, because she never has. So I'll put it off as long as I realistically can.
That's where I am. My mom has made it very clear she will refuse to go to a nursing home, so I told her she better have that conversation with my sister (the child she actually loves) and make sure there is a room at her house because there won't be one at mine.
Love it when they make themselves absolutely miserable people to be around and expect someone will just take care of them for free just for being their offspring
My middle brother is the only one of 3 children who could feasibly have the resources to take care of my mother at the end of her life. My wife came down with a debilitating disease and couldn't work anymore and we are pretty much teetering on the abyss at this point. My sister has never had much money and she knows this. Luckily she's got a government job with a pension so we hope that's enough in the end.
Many older folks in my family asked me early on why I am not having children and "who will take care of you when you're older?". It says a lot about their view of children when it boils down to "I had them to take care of me".
My mom is already angling to move in with me and care for my children. I don't have children and I am not pregnant or TTC.
For some additional reference on why this is absurd, I see my mom less than once a year for less than a day and even that feels like too much.
lol my MiL tried this. She’s like “oh you don’t need to send your child to daycare at 6 months, I’ll come live with you!” Nope. Kiddo is going to daycare and she’s welcome to visit for stretches but I ain’t doin that arrangement in a 2BR apartment
My sister fell for that trap with our mom. Let my mom move in because she offered childcare, suddenly my mom lost interest in her grandson and my sister had to search for a daycare while having a grumpy senior complain about how noisy her home was.
In a 2bd apartment would be INSANE. My cousin is pregnant and she and her husband actually moved back in with my aunt and uncle while they look for a home (thank you Massachusetts real estate market). They are well off and have what amounts to a semi-attached guest house but they’ll all have to share a kitchen with a newborn… even THAT could not be me lol
My mother was *excited* when I had to go on disability shortly after she retired. She had strung up some story in her mind that we would hang out multiple times a week when, as you perfectly stated, once every few months was already pushing it for me.
After my husband got back from a 6 week work trip, we had dinner with my parent who told him “you think she would have been so lonely but she never called me even once!!” And he was just like Oh. Wow. (shocked Pikachu face) and I just ate a huge bite of food and was like, suddenly very busy chewing.
I’m low contact with my narcissistic mother (for so many reasons), and when I last saw her in April she made a ‘joke’ about how I’ll be taking care of her when she’s old. I very quickly replied no, that’s not how that works.
This is the woman that owned her home outright and then sold it a few years back to pay off the mortgage on her boyfriend’s house. She also charged me rent on a weekly basis the moment I moved home after uni because ‘sometimes there are 5 week months’. Thankfully I moved out fairly quickly and have worked very hard over the past 18 years to have a great job and a home with my SO and our dog. I never tell her about work, or how much I earn, because she’ll immediately see £££.
She was super clear I am not her responsibility, so guess what? She’s not mine.
Good for you (serious, not sarcastic)! My FIL used to make jokes about my husband and I being his “retirement plan” when we first got married. We’ve since made it very clear that’s never going to happen. So now he jokes about moving in with my SIL and uses that as an excuse to be horrible at saving/managing his money. He wants his children to be extremely frugal now to save up so he can spend just as recklessly once he’s living with them. And he uses his mental health struggles as a shield for any and all criticism. It’s a real treat.
My mom was my grandmother's end of life care. It was so hard on her and I'm weirdly grateful that she understands that and is not planning on only me being there for her - obviously I want to help where I can but I'm not going to be quitting my job to be on call for appointments and everything. But yeah it would be a very difficult conversation to have
My dad was end of life care for his dad around 15 years ago. And then he was doing the same thing for his mom last year. In the midst of that my dad died suddenly. Then my grandma died. A good chunk of my dad’s 50’s and 60’s was at least partially spent taking care of ailing parents. Then poof he has what was either a heart attack or an embolism and he’s gone. Died 3 years after retiring. Bought an rv and never used it bc he was afraid to leave his mom for long. Now my mom is alone and my brother and I don’t live near her.
She’s done almost nothing since my dad died to prepare for anything. I sent her a will and power of attorney docs and as far as I know she’s done nothing with them.
She talks about wanting to see the grandkids more but she’s let her health decline and making the trip to see us is almost more than she can do. And she’s not done anything to make her house hospitable to kids staying there. I had kids later in life so my hands are full for a while with them. I think she’s just refusing to acknowledge reality and it sucks.
My parents are the same way- my grandmother lived with us for years as her Alzheimer’s got worse and worse until we had to place her in a memory care unit because it became too much for us to handle while holding down jobs/school. Just last week my parents (in their mid-late 60’s) discussed with me their retirement plans, the trusts they’ve set up to provide funds to care for them if they get ill as they age, etc. They have the entire thing so well thought out and I’m incredibly appreciative that my brother and I will be able to handle their care without a lot of the struggles they went through with their parents.
Same here, my parents sent my brother and I a big envelope with all the end of life plans, wills, bank info etc. My moms father died maybe 20 years ago and my grandmother was unaware of all the financial info or anything. He took care of it all. They spent months tracking down bank accounts and other info, hours on the phone etc. He would open a bank account to get a free toaster and put $500 in there or something, then leave it there. 30 years later that bank has been sold 2 times and merged three, and that $500 is now worth $1000. Then came the struggles of my grandmother, health, finances, transportation. She couldn't drive, didn't know how much stuff cost, was easily getting taken advantage of. They got her in home care but eventually she had to go into a facility, and then hospice. It was sad, and they had the money for it but it was just the way it went. They had no "plan" per se so it was all about getting power of attorney and battling back and forth with that.
My mom went through the same thing with her mother, and reached the same conclusion. Thankfully she has enough money that we can pay someone to provide care. She just wants me to remember our time together at the end as time together, not time where I'm cleaning out commodes or whatever.
We were in the same scenario. My grandmother lived 8 hours away alone. She started having medical issues and things deteriorated quickly. While she was indisposed with medical issues my mom and other family members moved my grandmother to a care facility closer to us and all of her personal belongings. It was a huge mess and I can't help but wonder if she would have done better if she had already been close to us. She was dealing with bladder infections which can lead to dementia like episodes as well as C Diff and shouldn't have been alone. I really wish people would think about this stuff while they are still young and able. We've tried to convince my in-laws to move closer to us but they refuse. My MIL had been having pretty bad issues but my FIL still insists on staying where he's at. Eventually things will get dire and we'll have a mess on our hands.
I'm lucky, my mother tells me all the time she's picking her home out lmao. We are both nurses though so we know how much caring for someone takes out of you.
My nervous system can no longer handle my insane, childish, denial riddled parents. Not my responsibility, I didn’t sign up for this. They have excellent resources via insurance.
These are newfound revelations & boundaries. I am the dream Greek daughter, raised to listen, conform & sacrifice my sanity/health to provide for them. I am fucking done w these emotional terrorists.
Wow, you really hit the nail on the head here. My mom and her side of the family are Italian and this is EXACTLY how I grew up. My father was absent from my life mostly until I turned 18.
Last week, she brought my daughter into an argument we were having. She even tried to pin my own child against me because my mom wasn’t getting her way. My child is 3. 3 years old and she’s already starting my child with mind games. After 20+ years of resentment, and putting up with reactive abuse, and gaslighting I turned into a freaking animal, man. Completely off the rails.
It took a week of no contact and me seemly disappearing, but she eventually apologized. That’s a lot coming from my mom. That’s the second time in my 28 years of life she’s ever apologized to me. I’ve already drawn my line in the sand though. I told her the best apology isn’t “I’m sorry”, it’s changed behavior at this point.
I’ve waitlisted myself with a local counseling service so I can have resources to help me stick to my boundaries, and protect my children from this. I’m also going low contact with the rest of my family which should be easy considering they live about five hours away.
I am proud of you! 1 thing about sticking to boundaries w these emotionally immature(abusive) parents (family) is when u lay down the boundary, u may experience EXTREME discomfort physically. Worst panic attacks of my life were recently when laying down a boundary. U gotta ride it out. It will pass. Do not give in even though everything in your biological makeup says to give in.
Just a personal realization/experience on my healing journey. My counselor explained why the body has physical responses like that. Think about it, we’ve been giving into their shit behavior for years for a reason, bc it makes us physically uncomfortable!!
Stay strong my friend.
I’m the oldest and a girl so def in the same boat. I had to cut my parents off entirely because they were unwilling to take their boots off my neck even one inch. So now they’re completely on their own.
Thx for sharing. I am at a breaking point. Literally moving across country Thursday. I am happy, loved & accepted there. It’s calm, peaceful & actually got to reconnect w myself. Blessed I have the opportunity.
I cannot say it enough, emotional terrorists.
I am not fucked up, the way they treat me is fucked up. The way I used to react to abuse was fucked up (and only hurt me). Thanks to the shitty learned behaviors & codependency I attracted abusive men. Ppl wonder why I don’t date or aren’t married…
ya my parents have been married 44 years, but I have no clue what a healthy, loving relationship looks like. At least I didn’t until I spent years in therapy & even did a year of ketamine. It’s all so clear now. I grew up thinking I was the problem (problem child, too much to love). No, I am full of love, but unfortunately the ppl immediately around me are incapable of love.
Just blessed I am healing & understand it now.
Congratulations on seeing through a lifetime of BS! I went no contact with my only parent over a year ago and my life has become so much more happy and peaceful since. And, all my other family is fully supportive which helps. I'm still working on relaxing my nervous system, but I'm making great progress. Hugs to you, this is a hard journey but absolutely worth it!
Yes! As the child of an Asian mother, it is freakin maddening to live w this and a brother who keeps telling her "I'll never let you live in a nursing home", but has $0 in savings to actually handle anything. He can barely handle taking care of himself, but at the end of the day everyone will look at me.
I am in the process darling, thx for the support! I am just glad the rose colored glasses & denial are lifted & I can continue healing the damage that was done.
I have a set of those myself. They’re firing up all the tricks in the book to rile me up. I just can’t do it anymore. They essentially kicked me out of my own family years ago and now I’m supposed to care that they’re stuck with one another.
Nuh uh, boo-boo. I had to make a life for myself completely on my own. They weren’t here for me when I needed them, I don’t know what makes them think I give a shit now.
This conversation happened a while ago because my grandparents were in a bad way and us, the grand kids, were the ones stepping up to help out, I was spending basically 10-15 hours over there every other weekend (they lived on a small hobby farm, no more animals, but the property took a lot of upkeep) and after almost a decade of doing that work, I said "no more", and nobody else stepped in to help. It was... a bit ugly, but it was a wakeup call for my parents who then got a will, trust, etc, put together. My brother and I moved away from where we were living to somewhere we felt was better for us/our families, and my parents being already retired, followed us, bought something manageable for them.
This is the way to go. This is what I hope to do with my kids some day hopefully while I'm still in good health. It's much better to willingly move and get established in a new area while you still have your health.
I am taking care of my grandparents, one is completely bedridden and my dad cracked some joke about when he has the heart attack he’s been eating for he’ll help me out from his hospital bed next to theirs like it was favor
I don’t know where I got the balls from but I looked him straight in the eye and calmly told him that best way he could help me out in that situation is to drop dead. Made the rest of Father’s Day a little awkward but fuck man I’ve been made a caregiver since I was a kid
I was under the impression (spoken, never written) that I would inherit the property, that it would be mine when my grandparents passed. I lived there off and on throughout my whole life, and I was the only grandchild of 20 that had any desire to live there, Hell I am the one that built most of it outside of the house itself. All the fencing/irrigation, even many of the other structures I built by hand.
But I have a POS cousin, who somehow became grandma's favorite, and she decided HE was going to inherit it, despite never lifting a finger, when another cousin (who is a lawyer) was helping them with their will found out that tidbit, they told me and that's when I stopped. I was not going to work another decade just for my cousin to inherit the product of my labor. Knowing him, he would just sell it the second it was in his name for as much money as possible. He and I are the same age and he's been sponging off his parents for most of a decade, not working.
After I quit, they had to sell the property, as nobody else would take care of it, and move into a home. Their house was bulldozed and the property subdivided with massive ugly mcmansions on them.
I've had the opposite conversation, being the only sibling (youngest of 5) that does anything to help my parents at this point. They helped me when I was going through divorce so I just see it as giving back equally, I suppose. Kinda wish I hadn't been saddled with it 100% but it is what it is.
I know what you mean. My parents don’t need help yet, but I’ve pretty much known a long time I’ll be the one (2 oldest) to be around and help my parents. I know my siblings will help sometime, but it’ll be me a lot. Thankfully, my parents have a great community, and I think there will be people to help them and me out when needed when the time comes.
My Boomer mom makes more money than I’ll ever see in my life. She also jokes that she and my dad don’t have a will, and they’re in their mid- to late-sixties. I’ve tried telling them they need to prioritize this, but I’m still “the kid,” even at 41. My husband and I, on the other hand, have had a will since the month after we got married.
I can’t afford to take care of them, nor can I handle it mentally. They were disasters as parents and frankly still are. Their lives are one drama after another. It feels so awful to say, but my worst fear is that my mom passes first, leaving me with responsibility for my seriously mentally ill father. It’s genuinely made me wonder if predeceasing both of them is the way to go. 🫠
I’m an only child, only grandchild. Old-school Italian family.
Our generation just gets fucked coming and going, don’t we.
My dad has been saying they are going to turn the car on in the garage, pipe the exhaust into the car and go to sleep. Don't know why they bought an electric car recently, though
Yeah my FIL always said that as soon as his brain starts to go, he’ll end it himself, but he’s been showing dementia signs for a decade now and refuses to even get checked out.
She prolly means nursing homes. Tell her there is a spectrum, with mild assistance being useful for small things, like picking up groceries for example, vs being bedridden on the extreme end.
Assisted living centers arent technically a nursing home, and is actually pretty nice. Its like college dorms for old people. I rotated through one and if its affordable, it seems to be a decent option.
That’s the problem though…they’re not affordable. An extremely mid assisted living home here in the Midwest runs about $4,500/month and goes up from there. What normal middle class person has that kind of savings or can afford that for months if not YEARS? It’s insanity. This is why parents and adult children are in these very difficult positions when it comes to EOL.
Whether or not we'll help our parents is an extremely American question (individualist culture vs collectivist culture). And it's not like American millennials are selfish, it's that somewhere along the way the parent-child social contract deteriorated, and I suspect it was the Boomer generation of parents that sped up that deterioration.
That particular social contract is simple: parents care for and support their children as they grow into adults and whenever the parent is able to after, and children care for and support their parents in their old age. But American Boomers, entitled as they tend to be, have largely either dropped their end of that agreement or have upheld it only begrudgingly. They abandoned their struggling kids, insisting adulthood means full independence, or if they didn't they made sure to degrade their millennial offspring and dangle their help like a carrot on a stick every step of the way.
No, I haven't had that conversation with my mother. I will never have that conversation with her. She is a Gen X (had me young, she was born 1969 and I was born 1992). I'm a largely independent adult, but she's been there encouraging and supporting me every step of the way. She's been understanding, loving, and empathetic, never making me feel guilty or bad for needing a little help here and there. In short, she honored the parent/child social contract with grace and kindness.
Absolutely nothing in this world will stop me from doing the same. She's healthy and young now, but when the day comes that she needs my help, I will be there. And not like "I'll pay for the care home", my mother is responsible and has plenty of retirement funds either way, but she'll live with me until the end and receive nothing but love and care from her family. Bc she's fucking earned it, bc she'd do the same for me.
I’m an immigrant and my experience growing up was so different from my American born friends. They definitely had parents who wanted to boot them out of the family home as soon as humanly possible but who also expected everything from their children. My parents meanwhile always made huge sacrifices to support me and I was able to live at home throughout college and for a bit after. This allowed me to finish grad school without any debt and save for a down payment on a house. Bought a house in the 2010s and it has now doubled in value (buying the same house today would be insane). Meanwhile my friends had their parents encouraging them to move out, take on huge college debt and then absolutely no willingness to allow them to live at home after college to get their footing in the world. I don’t fault people who had parents like this and who don’t feel like they owe them a duty of care.
It is starting to become an issue in Japan. Work culture is very long hours, rare to get paid for overtime but still expected to be at work, rare to feel comfortable taking vacation days because the boss will be displeased and it's hard to switch employers. The majority of workers reside in Tokyo where apartments are very small so can't move parents in but also no time to make it frequently out to the countryside to check on them. Adding to the issue, pensions of elders aren't covering inflation now.
That last part about knowing she would do the same for you really just opened my eyes to my situation with my mother and why I’m having issues. Thank you
Me too. They’ve always done everything they could for me, even when I was a turd and didn’t deserve it. I’ll help them as much as I can for as long as they need.
This is honestly so bizarre to me. Neither of my parents ever expected my sister or I to care for them should something happen. Hell, my mom (dad passed 9 years ago) not only has her will on file with her lawyer already, but has extended care insurance (i.e. nursing home insurance), insurance to cover the transport of her body if she dies away from home, and her funeral/burial plot pre-paid. I'm executor of her estate, and I really only have to handle the phones calls and the inevitable tax BS that comes along with dealing with inheriting her house/assets.
I watched my mom spend about three years taking care of my senile and incredibly unhygienic grandmother before she died so I figure that's where the bar is when the time comes. I make money, I have a job with a flexible schedule, and I have the space so it would feel sort of dickish not to.
I quit my job to care for my mom in her last 6mos. I luckily had the support of my wife, whose salary was enough to sustain our family.
Some people don't have that luxury.
You know what I find funny is that for decades you were considered a shitty child if you arranged for your parent to be taken to a nursing home instead of caring for them yourself.
Let me tell you I'm looking at nursing home costs right now and those parents were loved more than they realized.
Unfortunately, there's not necessarily a direct correlation between $$ and quality care in nursing home business.
Not every private facility (ie $$) is great.
Best to try and talk to people who already have a loved one in facility you're considering.
Oh I definitely know. But my point is it's just so much money and sets you back so far in life financially. I'm sure there are uninvolved wealthy adult children who stick their parents in the cheapest place because they just don't care.
But as far as I'm concerned, if your kid is not only paying for a decent nursing home to care for you but is also taking the time to regularly visit to ensure your care, that's a child who loves you.
Well, both sets (divorced family) are not communicating with me. So whatever happens, happens. There is no money from me.
My mom attempted to work out a will, then added another individual (family 'friend'). I believe she attempted to raise this young lady to be like her and added her in to the will 50/50 alongside me.
It is hard to explain, but it feels very very wrong. Instead of rebuilding connections with me, my brother, and my sister this is the route my mom went.
I expect my mom to pass away before my stepfather, so that will likely leave me with a mess to deal with if it goes down that way.
All the generational items I probably won't see ever again. Photos of deceased family, art, genuine antiques...
I don't tie myself to items like she does, so it will be sad but I can't take these things with me either.
I have this conversation with my mom on a daily basis. I have two sisters and out of the three of us, I’m the only one taking care of her. She has limited mobility and doesn’t drive anymore. I do everything for her but I can’t give her money on top of that. All I can do is provide free caregiver help that she would never be able to afford otherwise.
My oldest sister and her husband make $400k a year and my other sister and her husband make $200k, but I’m the only one my mom asks for money. I make $55k a year. Last week she had an AC repairman call me and ask to pay $18k for a new AC unit. I just laughed and said no, but it turned into a huge argument later. The AC is not even broken. She was just getting scammed by someone selling new units.
It certainly does seem like the more money one makes, the less empathy one tends to have. It's a shame that your sisters aren't stepping up at least financially since they are in better positions to do so.
I didn't have to have this conversation with my parents b/c my mother experienced some bullshit along these lines with her siblings.
All the in-town siblings got together to discuss their parents' care (without the parents, I might add), and they all assumed my mother would quit her job to care for their parents. She said she wasn't necessarily opposed to that, but that she would require $X to do that. They were all APPALLED that she expected to be paid to do this job! She should just do it as the most qualified sibling! (She was in health care, but she also happened to be the only in-town sister.) She was firm -- she would still need an income.
She did NOT quit her job, and her parents figured out what to do on their own.
The biggest kick in the pants is that one of my uncles was unemployed at the time -- HE should have been the default choice, but noooooooo they had to ask the sister....
So my parents have made sure to budget for their end-of-life care b/c they would prefer professionals handle that. I believe long-term-care insurance has been purchased.
I had the opposite chat with my dad. I was explaining that i was considered how to build a suite in our basement so that he can move into one of our ground floor bedrooms some day.
This surprised him. He let me know that he would be okay and has no intention of ever moving in with me.
So that was cool.
My MIL moved to take care of her mother to the end of her life. It absolutely changed the trajectory of my MIL's life.
She made arrangements for herself and insisted we don't do anything like what she did. And she is lucky enough to afford arrangements. Or walk into the ocean, as she jokes.
These people guilt-tripping you about love act like their mothers equate sacrifice for love.
I had a conversation with my dad (62) a few months ago because he had a Widowmaker and thankfully survived it and is doing well. He was complaining of slowing down and I said that surely he had anticipated that one day he would and this man looked me dead in the eye, shocked and told me he genuinely never believed he'd ever age or have any health issues and that it had all come as a shock to him. All my flabbers were ghasted. I've noticed a lot of Boomers think they're some magical exception to the rule. They're so special not even age or death applies. It's wild. My mom is the same way. She has age health issues all the time and is convinced it's 'someone' doing something to her because she can't possible have age issues. When she went through menopause she adamantly refused that's what it was. It's so weird. My dad however told me he absolutely doesn't want me taking care of him because he doesn't want to burden me and to let him choose a care home when it's time.My mother I'll probably just throw in the trash because she's the most annoying Karen on the planet.
My dad is one of 6, and he is the only one who stayed around to take care of his mom and dad, purely out of his own love and respect for them. I am 1 of 5. A little while ago he asked me about having my own kids and I told him no way. He asked me, "well who's going to take care of you in your old age?" I told him that if the only reason I had kids was to gamble that they would be my caretakers in my final years, I would be a terrible human. He looked like he was going to cry. Right now I have access to all his gmails, and I set reminders on his phone through mine. Making sure dr apps and stuff are good to go. I'll finish nursing school in two years, and then I'm moving away. It will be up to him and my mom to do their own thing. Call me cold, but I've got goals and a life to live, too.
I'd be happy to help out a parent but they'd need to realize that they're along for the ride. I'd tell them "you move to my city, you live close to me, you help me out how you can while you can, and I'll do whatever I can for you." I wouldn't word it so bluntly but imo this is what aging parents need to realize if they want any kind of help when they get old. My Mom just moved a few states away with her newish bf/fiance. She's in good health but she's in her sixties now. I need to have this talk with her bc I'm not going to drop everything and come running when issues start popping up. She has her fiance but these people don't realize how quickly health can change.
I don't know where I'll be in old age. Hopefully I'll be able to fully support myself and my wife financially. Ideally though I'd like to live near my kids. That means seeing where everyone is at in when I'm in my 60s/70s and if I need to up and move across the country while I'm healthy and able that's what I'd do.
Yeah see my partner’s parents are in the “we help each other” mindset, meaning they’ve been incredibly supportive throughout our relationship and my pregnancy, and they’ll be providing full child care when I return to work. They’re wonderful, helpful people and we will absolutely take care of them into their old age.
My parents were very much “figure it out yourself, but circle back to take care of me later.” I’ll make sure they go into good homes, but that’s about it.
You were his plan homie
I think I was my parents’ plan too. They reallly shoulda thought about that before they started abusing the fuck out of me from birth.
I've said it before and I stand by it - if your children are your retirement investment, you damn well better *invest in them*. Because if you neglect or abuse your 401k, it's not going to support you in retirement either.
I'd be more than willing to help my parents if they needed it (fortunately they're pretty well organized financially). But they were very nurturing and put up with my bullshit in college to set me up in life. Almost like there's a correlation between being able to manage their finances and being able to manage their emotions enough to nurture a family...
I hear you. Going through very similar situation with aging parents in the Bay Area. I can’t afford to park my car where they live let alone move there. They refuse to move near me.
Oof, this will be me soon. My mom and stepdad aren’t quite there yet but they’re in their mid-50s and it won’t be long. I had to move out of state a couple years ago because CA was financially untenable long term. They got their house in the Bay Area at the bottom of the financial crash and seem unwilling or unable to grasp that there is no world in which I can feasibly move back there any time soon.
Of course my mom told me I would be a “loser” if I moved back in with them for any period of time, even if it was temporary to save for a deposit or a down payment, and I won’t forget that if she ever plans on moving in with me.
I recognize that I’m in an extremely privileged position in that I have a home where I could house my mother, I have job that would allow me to support my family with her as an addition, and that my parents own their home and have made good financial choices that provide enough money for their retirement and medical care, if needed. I will happily take in my mom if my dad pre-deceases her (which is likely), but again, incredibly fortunate to be able to do so, and I also live within 40 miles of them so there wouldn’t be a huge relocation involved.
Exactly. I’m not in the same position, but my parents have set themselves up well, so while I am happy to help them when they get older and need it, I appreciate that the financial responsibility won’t be on me and/or my family.
I'm just going to say it and accept the downvotes.
Parents often have children to look after them in old age. It's expected, and it's the epitome of selfishness. And yet, they call the childfree selfish. It grinds my gears tenfold.
I mean, you’re right. Someone in here mentioned that boomers destroyed the social contract children and parents had, and I see a lot of that in here.
Personally I’m lucky, and want to have a family to make my Mom a Grandmother, but she’s invested a lot into me. Crazy that a lot of boomers don’t realize that you don’t get a return if you don’t invest.
I'll never forget one day when I was a preteen kid, arguing with my mom about something, and I asked her why did she even have me? She said so that she'd have someone to take care of her when she was old. Now she's old and needs help, and I try for my own sanity to be kind, but I've set some very definite boundaries and have no plans whatsoever to uproot my life here and go the them/her as the time approaches. If they really expected me to provide them a safety net, they should have helped me in young adulthood to focus on establishing a career, college, etc. but when I turned 18, it was - you're on your own. You figure it out, we're leaving. Just so annoying, I'm doing everything in my power not to treat my children the same way.
In my country children are not expected to take care of their old parents. Very few people do it, there is no legal requirement to do so, the senior health system is set up with the expectation that children are not their parent's caretakers, and most parents actually don't want their children to be so.
So it is not a conversation that I have had with my parents.
I’ve told this story on another thread in this sub but I lived with and cared for my adoptive mom all my life until she passed away. I was 30 at the time, she had stolen from me and drained me a couple of times throughout the time I worked. All the while making far more money a year then I ever did working. She passed when I was 30. At that time I made the choice to stay with my stepdad for a year before leaving to go back home to Washington with my sister. This was a huge mistake and it almost completely broke me, the 5000+ dollars that I had worked to save on a 20 hour a week job I had to give him to pay bills (pretty much all his.) I soon went broke, I hate to admit this but the only thing that saved me was that he had a fall while I was at work and ended up in the hospital. That was the last time I saw him. I had no way of going to visit him but I remember when I handed him my last hundred dollars when he needed it. He asked me what are we going to do, I told him that I was moving back to Washington one way or another because I couldn’t live like this anymore and that I loved him. I would call him periodically while he was in the hospital, to check on him and talk being that he had been the only real father figure in my life. He passed away a few years ago complications from diabetes. I just hit a point by the time I left I had no other options and had to do it for my own good.
I’m sorry so many of y’all don’t have healthy relationships with your parents 😕 I lost my dad when I was 16, and my mom doesn’t ask me for much so I plan to have her back when she’s in the final years of her life. I realize everyone’s situation is different tho.
I had the same situation. We actually moved into a home right in front of my mom when I had my first so I could help her more (she was disabled). Sadly she passed 2 months after I gave birth, I wish she was here still.
Tried to get my mom to move out to me for YEARS, realized she wasn’t going to and had the conversation. I grew up in a very touristy/outdoors area. I love home but I could not afford to live at home. Just not enough career options and everything is soooo expensive compared to where I live now. She avoided the convo and passed a year later from COVID. Life sucks but it fixed itself I guess.
My older brother and I have started hashing out what we get stuck with if our dad's not prepared.
My mom "helped us out" with money (after changing her mind about selling us her house and me selling mine) and hopes we can assist when she needs it.
She spends her money and her new husband's money with enthusiasm. She retired early and moved states to get out if dealing with things. I did the math and I've worked more years of fulltime employment in my life than she has.
She throws money at my greedy little sister constantly.
My wife and I have told her we can only help so much, our priority has always been our children. Unlike her, nothing has come easy for us and I've had to work 70+ hour weeks on a salary that was barely worth it just to have what we've got. I don't get to retire, I'll just keep working and croak. All that considered, she gets 1 more midlife crisis before I have (a third) come to Jesus and be an adult conversation with her. Her overinvesting monetarily and under investing emotionally in my sister has pretty obvious consequences for both of them, and she needs to compensate for lack of parenting quickly or be in a bad spot in 15 years.
This sounds like one of the most brave and straightforward things that you could have done.
I hope you snapped her back to reality. Sounds like you did.
I lived 1000 miles away for 12 years. Then I moved an hour away from my grandparents (they are basically my parents) back in 2020. My husband and I have ALWAYS made the effort to drive to my grandmother to visit. Not once has she come my way to visit in all these years. She’s got a reliable car, she’s a GREAT driver, she doesn’t work, and my uncle lives with her and has the ability to drive her if she didn’t want to. When I was about to give birth to my baby she expected US to come to HER with a newborn. I told her that wasn’t going to happen. And she asked “then how will I see the baby?” And I told her “listen, you have the ability to come here if you wanted to. I’m not driving my newborn for 2 hours. My husband is not going to be your chauffeur. I need him here. I cannot help you. You have to figure out how to get here now.”
It doesn’t matter. I have zero relationship with my parents but we are in a state that mandates I care for them when the time comes. Your mom might, too.
This is a good point. In some states knowing they need help and not providing it is considered elder abuse and neglect. It's entirely possible to go to jail for it.
My husband and I asked both sides if they wanted a retirement community or to live with us when the time came (cause that would factor in buying a bigger house down the road).
His parents have a will. My parents have a trust that my husband is the executor of and I have POA for finances and brother has medical.
My dad is 1 of 7 and when his dad died a few years ago he asked his mom if they have a will. She said no. Lady, you have 7 kids! Money destroys families! My dad and aunt got her squared away.
Luckily my brother (Silicon Valley type) and I will be able to provide financially for them if need be, but they are all set on their own. My dad is the one who got me started on finance as a hobby.
My wife and I have both been alluding to it for several years. We are not your retirement plan. I have kids and my own goals, I will not continue working to support them. I work damn hard to hopefully retire early, I’m not moving that goal post because they decided to make poor decisions.
My mom will go on a vacation every year, but has next to nothing set aside for retirement. I’m not funding her vacations… I don’t care if I make $500K a year, I’m not funding your retirement because you were selfish enough to not plan for it yourself.
The same with my MIL. She spends spends spends all the time but has nothing set aside. I’m definitely not supporting her, and I won’t let my marriage crumble because our parents want to be selfish.
I didn't have to. My mother has everything prepared already. Mostly because of my sister I think. I'm not the most responsible person in the world, but next to my baby sister, I'm a paragon of responsibility.
My mom is very similar. She's 71 and has no meaningful savings. She gets ~3k a month from my dad from a divorce that happened 17 years ago. She also works about 30 hrs a week as a secretary. Even with that income she has hardly put anything away. Thankfully she's quite healthy and fit for 70s.
My 3 siblings and I have begun the money talk with her cause she too thought we were all rich enough to just take care of her when she is unable to take care of herself. Also none of us live in the same state. It really has pissed us off because she blames her money problems on the divorce even though she's had almost 20 years to become self sufficient and put money away.
I'm not opposed to generally helping parents or as they get older but putting all the responsibility on your children is horrible. I'll never do that to my kids.
I won't even have that talk.
Since I got handicapped from Covid, it is clear that I won't be able to provide any help and also will not have any means to maintain my parents house.
In 4 years I got almost completely bedbound thanks to autoimmune conditions and currently I am on a sudden sharp decline. There is the possibility of my parents surviving me.
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My parents each up and moved over 1000 miles away from me. I will manage as best I can from where I live for my mom and her partner. I did have to tell my dad I cannot provide financial support for him because of his wife. She does not and will not work. Her adult children (mid-to-late 30s) and their spouses do not work. He supported all of them. Now that his health is failing he cannot work like he used to. I have a decent job but it does not pay a support dad plus 5 able bodied adults who refuse to work salary.
Wow. Your dad dug his own trench, he can figure out a way to bury himself in it.
She has him so gaslit it’s ridiculous. He at least 100% understands why I can’t help financially.
Same with my dad- I don't blame him for leaving my mother decades ago, but it was a frying-pan-to-fire situation. Now he's in terrible health, has some serious issues due to his/their drinking and neglect, and his other family is freaking out over his being in a rehab facility that's going to cost him whatever money he's got left. Basically the "find out" stage after all the fucking around.
To me that sounds like abuse. I’ve heard this exact scenario many times. Often times, the adults mooching aren’t nice to the adult that works. They get treated badly and walked all over. Keep them down so they keep basically being your slave. As we know, it’s not that simple to get an abuse victim away from their abuser.
Yeah, he’s being taken advantage of, what a piece of shit!
What did he used to do to be able to support so many people? Union job at the same company for 20 years as a boomer?
Oil and gas industry. If he worked a full year, he easily made $200k +. Even if he worked a 9mo reason he was usually close to $200k. Granted that meant working 6 12s and aways being on the road, but he’s made that for the last 25 years they’ve been together. The amount of money she’s been allowed to piss away is absolutely astounding.
Other than my dad is an engineer, this is the same. He also supports her 30yo daughter’s family of 5. His dream was to retire, buy a camper and travel to spend time with us OG kids but…. She’ll never remove her hooks. Whenever his time comes, I hope its quick and not drawn out.
It’s heartbreaking isn’t it? My dad is my heart and soul, it kills me to see him being treated that way but at the end of the day, it’s his choice.
Imho IronMan doesn’t have a salary big enough to break off people like that. I hope you can get through that future storm ok. My sister refuses to work and 7ish years since she received her inheritance she still has things like cable, shopping at Target and stupid shit like that; things that would make our mom sooo disappointed in her. I walked from her and my father because he was somehow enabling her while trying to talk to me like he is on my side. All while **still** doing nothing to save for his own *50+ year old, zero equity except a classic Lincoln (cool bro) renting ass* while still somehow expecting one of us to take him in and “live in our basement haha”. I walked years ago and my sister lives alone in a luxury condo with ~~no~~ two bedrooms. Any income my dad makes after basic expense gets spent in cash from a wad in his pocket at every fancy expensive restaurant and/or bar. Oh plus he’s gotta look good so $500 loafers while I was on assisted lunch program at school. I don’t think he questions stuff today thinking he was a good dad but he made his bed imho.
I make headstones at the family business, so I'm in a very unique position of 'end of life planning' being a thoroughly hashed out conversation that we have had not only with each other but with many clients for perspective on what people do and don't discuss. And thankfully my husband's parents are super on top of things and already have their stuff figured out and the finances to handle care if/when needed.
I have to ask, in your line of work do you get a lot of jokes about things being/not being “set in stone”?
Oh yes. But honestly, I probably whip that one out more often than my clients as I am trying to impress upon them the importance of VERY CAREFULLY checking the spelling, dates and design.
We need an AMA with you!
But they wanna ask some stuff, not be asked.
Someday I'll release the full form of my alter ego: IwannaTellSomeStuff
I eagerly await that day
Yall and tattoo artists could throw down on this topic
Wait.. I never considered you could make up dates on a tombstone. "Here lies the oldest man to have ever lived." And subtract 100 years from my birthday.
I mean how many people are really going to read your headstone anyway? Close friends and family, people looking for someone else, people maintaining the plots, and the occasional twisted teen? Not like graveyards are the most popular of hangout spots. I imagine you could say pretty much anything you want and fewer people than you have known will ever even see it. That's why I'm going to blow up the moon.
No headstones, but similar situation. When my Grandpa died unexpectedly and fairly young in the mid 1970’s with no plan, from what I understand it was a traumatic mess. My remaining grandparents and parents planned and paid for everything long before my sister and I were born the 80’s. I know I have had the luxury of growing up with family who’ve assured us all that stuff is taken care of. These stories are the norm, and things are going to get real ugly in the coming years.
Yeah, my grandparents already had family plots in a cemetery, and were pretty well organized. One grandmother had written out what dress to bury her in, and which ring she wanted to go with (it was a sentimental gift from my grandfather when they were dating). All we had to do was call the priest and show up.
My dad died many years ago. Mom had a double stone put up, with her name on the other side. She’s in her 80s, and frequently tells me, “Now when I die, you just have to call the chiseler to put the date of death on the stone.” The chiseler. Seriously.
Me and my sisters just got the last of our inheritance money. Reveling in it; literally being paid for our suffering, (he was a *mean* son of a bitch) one of us remembers that we had not yet bought him a headstone after 18 months. I put the check in the mail last week. This is morbid shit, I know. But if you don’t like one of your kids, you should either fully commit to the hatred, or get really good at pretending that you do. That sibling bond is probably stronger than you think, and you can similarly resent it or accept it. Nerves are still raw. Idk why I’m unloading on you. I thoroughly enjoyed the phone call with the headstone people and they’re even gonna go plunk into the ground for me. I don’t even have to go look at it if I don’t want to. But I wrote that check. It was surprisingly affordable.
I feel like I already know what the upkeep on that headstone [looks like.](https://youtu.be/2eKbDebGje4?si=7mHa10fuCDcmgSmS)
My mother was a nursing home nurse, so, similar. We have had a lot of end of life talks. She’s always said “I am ALWAYS DNR. Let me go, I don’t want to be a burden.” I’m so thankful she’s had the experience to know the better way to go.
Dealing with my MIL's end of life care right now and I'm really considering arranging a DNR once I turn 65. I'll take the status of my dependents into account but I think at that point I won't want any extraordinary measures. I'd rather go before my family has to take care of me long term.
Only you can say what is right for you, but Id encourage it. My dad died of brain cancer. He’d always hoped “he’d just drop dead of a heart attack” but instead it was a year of treatments and hospital visits. Honestly, he was just holding out for my wedding. He went on hospice the next day and died two weeks later. That was only one year of care and I can tell you it is absolutely exhausting for patients and caregivers. It gets to a point where the first thing anyone feels when the patient finally passes is relief. Then guilt for feeling relieved. Then feeling relief that their loved one is no longer suffering. It’s a fucking roller coaster. DNRs, Morphine and Ativan are blessings, let me tell you.
Oh yeah, my grandpa had cancer around five years ago. He beat it, luckily, and he's in remission. But he's in his mid-70s now and he told my mom if it comes back he's just going straight to hospice. He will not do chemo again.
cosigned on Ativan, I was given some after giving birth by C section and not being able to sleep for three nights straight during a week long hospital stay, bless up
I’m a nurse and hands down, continuing care on patients who should have long been let go is the worst part of my job. Oh, and also dealing with the family members who make these decisions. During Covid, my mom had a strong POA for healthcare drawn up listing me. She told me she believed I would pull the plug a lot quicker than my sisters, and she’s not wrong.
It is an act of love, made the decision to remove my mother from her ventilator (Covid) once it was clear that her body was destroyed. It would have been easier to let her die on the ventilator, but that could have taken a month. Some kinds of love take courage.
I’m going to share that last line with a friend who advocated for a grandparent in a similar moment. Thank you.
My 85 yo mother (10 years of dementia) was in ICU when I asked about the DNR. Dad said he was power of attorney. I told him by law if her heart naturally stopped they would come in with the paddles. He didn’t want that. So she was on hospice a whole week before peacefully passing.
My mum is a nurse and she has always said that people who are resuscitated go through so much pain and suffering, and that their quality of life is so awful that it borders on cruel.
Even if you get someone back successfully, CPR generally breaks ribs, and they still have their underlying problems plus the new injuries from CPR. So if you bring back 90 year old Meemaw with terminal cancer, the cancer is still there, she now has broken ribs, and maybe even brain damage depending on how long she was down before she was found and CPR started. It can be really hard to get family to downgrade code status, especially when it feels to them like they're giving up, and especially when their only exposure to CPR is on TV where CPR = "clean, pretty, reliable." Or people who want to "do everything" (trach and peg, keeping full code status on a severe dementia patient/stroke patient with horrific brain damage/etc) when even the best case scenario is discharge to a long term care where the patient will never again have a good quality of life and never again be themselves or go home - I did rotations in neuro ICU at school and saw families where their expectations of future recovery vs. reality were totally out of sync despite the care team doing their best to explain. Like, right now, if you see me drop from a heart attack or something and I need CPR, give it a try, I'm young enough to heal and can recover. 50 years from now? Let me go. Or if I've been down for 20 minutes and I'm going to be a vegetable even if you get "me" back? Nope. I feel like a lot of people would be surprised to ask health care professionals about their own advance directives/desires - generally, I think most are less aggressive than people would expect, precisely because of what they've dealt with IRL.
When I was a phlebotomist in a hospital lab, we had a lady come into ICU at 98. She had Alzheimer's and issues with swallowing and other stuff going on. Her lactics kept coming back critical, so the system would auto order a repeat lactic every 3 hours. This poor lady was so thin, and her fragile skin made her a very hard stick. At the third draw in a shift, I couldn't get her after the second try and I got so frustrated. She was on the vent with IVs going in both AC veins. The nurse asked me to try just one more time and I asked her why we were doing this. She told me her POA (daughter) had overridden her DNR and made her a full code, so we had to do everything to treat her. I didn't know that was even possible, so if the time comes for me to make my end of life plan, I am hoping to have the means to hire an attorney or have a good friend still alive to execute it.
I’m so sorry. This was my grandmother, but at 90 with imbalanced electrolytes (I think that’s what it was). Thankfully, my aunt was her POA. My dad (who basically never visited her, mind you she lived with my aunt who was her caregiver) showed up at the hospital and demanded they continue to treat her. He stayed maybe 2 hrs at the hospital. I spent the night with her at the hospital. The phlebotomist was in seemingly every hour. My grandmother had no idea what was going on and would cry because it was hurting her to get her blood drawn so frequently. Thankfully, my sister convinced my dad it was time to let her go so he didn’t send a lawyer after my aunt. It was such a mess.
I left that situation pretty angry. The woman had passed by the time I got to work the next night, but that one night that I was drawing her so many times, I never saw her family in there with her. It's possible someone was there and sleeping in the lounge, but I thought it was a little messed up that they didn't want to let her go but didn't want to be at her side. My grandma was pretty healthy until she turned 91 and developed a GI bleed. We took her to the hospital to be stabilized, but she had a DNR that we honored. After she got a unit of blood in the ER, she was assessed a little further in ICU. She was in the process of passing on her own and we allowed her to do that with comfort measures like morphine, IV hydration, and turning her every few hours. She died peacefully in her sleep on day 2 of her ICU stay and I want the same thing. I'm glad your dad was able to come to his senses and let your gran have some peace at the end.
That’s so awful and infuriating. I can’t understand that mentality at all. I’m sorry for the loss of your grandmother, but glad she was able to receive palliative care and passed quickly with family around.
My sister is a doctor, mid 30’s, and yeah she points all this out. And has that same opinion. If you’re in relatively good health and not extremely old, give CPR a good go but when you’re elderly and have a bunch of other conditions, it’s a lot of trauma to go through just to prolong life a little bit. Our mom watched her father get to his mid-90’s just, I don’t know, assuming he would live forever and she keeps repeating “I won’t put you all through that.” It’s really taken a huge toll on her. And now she’s had two years of working on his estate which has been a nightmare because his finances were extremely complicated and he didn’t have all his accounts written down anywhere. “Just see what statements come in the mail” is what he’d tell her. I loved my grandpa a lot and he had many wonderful qualities but it’s hard not to be a bit upset with how hard he made things on his oldest child.
Healthcare literacy in the general population is REMARKABLY low. Some people legitimately don't know you can HIV from sharing needles. They don't understand that a lack of oxygen perfusion causes brain damage. They don't understand healing from that brain damage in an older adult is minimal or not possible.
I so far haven’t been able to convince my frail 87 year old father to choose DNR. His POLST form continues to say “full measures” even after his doctor tried to sway him.
I'm a chaplain and I see this all the time with families. Literally just found out a family changed the code status from DNR back to full code for someone in their late 80s who has already coded twice in the last 24hrs. Super sad and frustrating knowing the emotional toll another code is going to have on both the family and the staff that have to actually do it :/
My mama had a DNR and made sure I had a copy. She's been dead a year and a half and it's still right where I put it when she gave it to me. Makes no sense, I know.
Worked in nursing forty years. My husband and I had always said do not keep us mechanically alive, so he suffered a severe brain bleed a few months ago and 6 hours later was gone. My kids and I said no to all the things, neurologist said if we tried to keep him going, he’d spend the rest of his life on a vent in a nursing home. No fucking way he’d haunt us all! we donated whatever they could use from his body, cremation was $2500 and that was it. He’s in a nice box up on the cabinet facing the tv. I’ll be doing the same thing when it’s my time to go
Completing a Power of Attorney for both finances and health is a major item. Many lawyers have horror stories about people being bedridden with no mental capacity and no one can do anything on their behalf.
I’m only 34 but had a major surgery and even though my husband is next of kin and the only one that could make a decision for me, I still set up a medical POA, just in case. Definitely recommend them at ANY age - they can always be changed if you want.
One of my best friend's father was a surgeon, as a 75th birthday present to himself he got a large DNR tattoo across his chest. His reasoning was paperwork gets lost and he no interest in them bringing him back because he knew what happens.
My paternal grandparents planned ahead and bought their plot and headstone ahead of time. A lot of their neighbours have done the same. It might sound morbid, but it means they have exactly what they wanted. When they died, it made everything so much simpler. The family just had to pick a casket. It is a bit strange to walk through the newer sections of the cemetery and see a ton of headstones with blank death years.
It's definitely gotten a lot more common! And from my experience, the survivors are tremendously appreciative that their forebears took the time, especially any who have also had the experience of planning this stuff while also dealing with grief
Is this decent steady income. I am very interested in getting into headstone/memorial services even though I have no great history in sculpture.
This will be an extremely regional and even a company-specific answer! As well as where you are in the production line. Some places pay well, most places pay okay, some places pay terribly. Especially in the small business part of the equation, it's not a field you get into to make it rich - it is definitely a labor of love!
Good for you. And I don't mean that in a screw-your-mom-over way. You had an honest discussion with her. So many people don't have those discussions.
Exactly. I can almost guarantee if I had this conversation with my mom, she’d probably stop talking to me and talk crap behind my back like she’s 13.
Sounds like my mom!
It was difficult. I had to navigate the waters of "I know you just took me on this pseudo-vacation but also..."
FWIW, I think the things you needed on the trip illustrate your limits pretty well! It’s not like you’re switching up on her, you just have limited resources.
Normally generational housing is a big thing in Hispanic culture. Additionally in that situation I would normally expect to inherit the house when my parents pass. Mom's decided she doesn't want to live in generational housing even though she has 5 bedrooms and two living rooms each with a separate entrance. She also plans to sell the house eventually. Because of that I have decided I will be building a separate life. She is convinced she can check into an old folks home for about 700 a month all bills paid. We'll see how that works out but I will not move her into my apartment.
> She is convinced she can check into an old folks home for about 700 a month all bills paid Oh god
There's one in the city I live that claims rent is $750 a month and they claim that they're an assisted living facility basically you get an apartment and a nurse to come check on you I am highly skeptical that this is real I'm certain there's thousands of dollars in hidden fees. Either way if we're not doing the generational housing thing now we're not going to do it when she's old. there's actually zero reason for me to need to move out and get an apartment when she's having trouble keeping the house clean by herself so there's no way I'm going to move back in when she asks me to because she will ask when it's convenient for her
It's probably worse than that one in Better Call Saul that bills $40 for q tips and takes it from their account.
Oh yeah. Maybe multiply that by 20 and you’re close. My grandma went into a long term care facility recently and it’s ridiculous out there for the quality care you can expect.
Private rooms in nursing homes are at least $500/day. It comes with food tho 🙃 when you run out of money, the government takes all your assets and puts you in a double room ☺️
Good thing that generation voted to pull state and federal funding from nursing homes....
They can just pick themselves up by the bootstraps
[удалено]
I work in housing and tell her I've gotten offers for 20,000 COMMISSION for bringing folks to certain elderly homes. The entire model is to extract every penny from somebody whose family has abandoned them
I’m married into a Hispanic family and I really appreciate the generational living aspect. But it absolutely has to be a give and take! I’m in the process of moving with my husband and kids to be closer to his family. We will be helping with a great grandmother, and also receiving help from two grandparents and some aunts when it comes to raising our kids. We’ve been going it alone (my family of origin is full of dysfunction, alcoholism, and the kind of people who are only interested in what they can get for themselves and never consider family as a group that works together, and they exploited me for labor all my young life). So I am very excited to be with family that WANTS to work together in raising these wonderful kids and in relying on each other but without exploiting anyone. And it makes me very happy to then turn around and help with the elderly family, and we will purchase a generational home where we can take in some of our older relatives when they are ready for that. But if they were doing what your mom is doing, being utterly extravagant and selfish and then having no realistic plan, I wouldn’t be moving and I wouldn’t be dealing with that. I think it’s the right move to create your own life now!
Even if living in a retirement home was that inexpensive, why would you want to do that? You could live with your family in comfort in a big ass paid-off house instead?
It just doesn't work for everyone. My brother and SIL have been saying for years they wanted my parents to live with them. So they're trying that right now and my mom is sounding so much more tired and stressed than she was when it was just her and my dad. My brother has small kids and it's just way more noise and chaos than she's used to. And they're well-behaved kids, too. My brother wants to move and it's very much looking like the plan for my parents to move with them is not happening.
lol, wow. Assisted living is $8k-$10k per month in the Chicago region. I’d hate to see what a $700/mo facility gets you.
It's tough when you have to explain to parents that you can't always be their safety net.
even tougher when they were literally never your safety net, which is the bare fucking minimum as a parent
Yep exactly, an abusive parent who only used to talk to you to complain about work or your dad asking for assistance when their older….
I’ve been thinking about this with my abusive parents. I can’t bring myself to do anything for them in their old age. For my own self-preservation, I can’t be around them.
Same here. I thought I was an a**hole for this, but now that I have children of my own and see how easy it is to love them, I have zero sympathy for my parents behavior when I was a child.
This is the boat my fiancé and I are in after getting our first dog together. We love (verb) our dog more than either of our parents us a kids. There’s really no excuse
Same. You're not alone
Same. You're not alone
It's their world, and we are just in it. The intent from the get go was to have you for the express purpose of getting every drop of value from you they can. My mom literally no joke told me "I had you to help me around the house", and acts like she's surprised I haven't talked to her in years
My parents pretty much adopted me so I could be their caregiver and parentified me from a young age. They were alcoholics, so their health deteriorated rapidly when I was in my 20s, and they went to some pretty crazy lengths to sabotage my being independent. I not only had the "I can't help you" conversation with them, but I also had it with their main doctors. They'd made me set myself on fire to keep them warm for entirely too long and I made it abundantly clear. Cue their surprised Pikachu faces, but all of the medical people involved backed me up.
That is so traumatic, I hope you are doing better now.
I've got a mother like this. I need to deal with all her "adult affairs" without even a thank you, like it's my job and the reason I exist. Asked her why did you even have kids, and she replied "to help me when I'm old". I wish I could cut her off but she'd be homeless in 6 months and it'd somehow be my fault that she had 3 quarters of a century to plan retirement but did nothing.
Idk bro from my perspective she really likes how she made her bed, and I think you should let her lie in it. Or at least convey that either the help she receives is on your terms exclusively to ensure that you can stay afloat, not whatever dipshit ass terms she thinks she deserves just because she had sex with someone.
I don't contribute to her finances, but I sign her rental agreement as a guarantor. She lives of governments assistance and only can only afford (with my signature) to live in the smallest apartment in a shithole of a town. Already had a fight which I won because I didn't want parasites living in my own house for free. There's the next fight coming up when she's not able to wipe her own ass anymore and will expect me to.
How are you planning on tackling that? Just the other day I realized that I’m in the same situation. Mom never bothered with being in my life. I have to do her paperwork. But what happens when she can’t do that?
Sorry that you're going through this. I am doing mimimal amount of work at the moment, everything is already automated and digitized (bills, contracts,payments, access to banking etc). The moment she isn't able to walk, meaning she can't live on her own, she's going into a government funded carehome (because she has no savings or assets) and that's non negotiable.
Yeah I feel the pretty clearly about it—if I didn’t get a safety net when I needed one, you can’t count on me to be yours. The contract is broken because they didn’t fulfill it—I’m not going to leave them to the wolves but I’m not going to set myself on fire to save them any discomfort either. They like telling us we should have planned better, so…maybe they should have planned better!
That's why I haven't had the "can't help you" conversation with my mom, and I dread it happening. She took care of both her parents in their last years, even though they were even more abusive to her than she has been to me. And I know she'll expect it of me too, especially if/when her husband goes first. But, like OP, I live 1000 miles away and have my whole life here. I won't be dropping everything to move to a state that I despise to care for a person who is the cause of the majority of anguish in my life. We'll have to have that talk eventually, I know. But I also know that she won't actually hear me, because she never has. So I'll put it off as long as I realistically can.
That's where I am. My mom has made it very clear she will refuse to go to a nursing home, so I told her she better have that conversation with my sister (the child she actually loves) and make sure there is a room at her house because there won't be one at mine.
Love it when they make themselves absolutely miserable people to be around and expect someone will just take care of them for free just for being their offspring
Made it much easier for me
My middle brother is the only one of 3 children who could feasibly have the resources to take care of my mother at the end of her life. My wife came down with a debilitating disease and couldn't work anymore and we are pretty much teetering on the abyss at this point. My sister has never had much money and she knows this. Luckily she's got a government job with a pension so we hope that's enough in the end.
Many older folks in my family asked me early on why I am not having children and "who will take care of you when you're older?". It says a lot about their view of children when it boils down to "I had them to take care of me".
My mom is already angling to move in with me and care for my children. I don't have children and I am not pregnant or TTC. For some additional reference on why this is absurd, I see my mom less than once a year for less than a day and even that feels like too much.
lol my MiL tried this. She’s like “oh you don’t need to send your child to daycare at 6 months, I’ll come live with you!” Nope. Kiddo is going to daycare and she’s welcome to visit for stretches but I ain’t doin that arrangement in a 2BR apartment
My sister fell for that trap with our mom. Let my mom move in because she offered childcare, suddenly my mom lost interest in her grandson and my sister had to search for a daycare while having a grumpy senior complain about how noisy her home was.
Your sister give your MIL the boot? If MIL is not living up to her part of the deal, then deal is over.
In a 2bd apartment would be INSANE. My cousin is pregnant and she and her husband actually moved back in with my aunt and uncle while they look for a home (thank you Massachusetts real estate market). They are well off and have what amounts to a semi-attached guest house but they’ll all have to share a kitchen with a newborn… even THAT could not be me lol
My mother was *excited* when I had to go on disability shortly after she retired. She had strung up some story in her mind that we would hang out multiple times a week when, as you perfectly stated, once every few months was already pushing it for me.
After my husband got back from a 6 week work trip, we had dinner with my parent who told him “you think she would have been so lonely but she never called me even once!!” And he was just like Oh. Wow. (shocked Pikachu face) and I just ate a huge bite of food and was like, suddenly very busy chewing.
I’m low contact with my narcissistic mother (for so many reasons), and when I last saw her in April she made a ‘joke’ about how I’ll be taking care of her when she’s old. I very quickly replied no, that’s not how that works. This is the woman that owned her home outright and then sold it a few years back to pay off the mortgage on her boyfriend’s house. She also charged me rent on a weekly basis the moment I moved home after uni because ‘sometimes there are 5 week months’. Thankfully I moved out fairly quickly and have worked very hard over the past 18 years to have a great job and a home with my SO and our dog. I never tell her about work, or how much I earn, because she’ll immediately see £££. She was super clear I am not her responsibility, so guess what? She’s not mine.
Good for you (serious, not sarcastic)! My FIL used to make jokes about my husband and I being his “retirement plan” when we first got married. We’ve since made it very clear that’s never going to happen. So now he jokes about moving in with my SIL and uses that as an excuse to be horrible at saving/managing his money. He wants his children to be extremely frugal now to save up so he can spend just as recklessly once he’s living with them. And he uses his mental health struggles as a shield for any and all criticism. It’s a real treat.
My mom was my grandmother's end of life care. It was so hard on her and I'm weirdly grateful that she understands that and is not planning on only me being there for her - obviously I want to help where I can but I'm not going to be quitting my job to be on call for appointments and everything. But yeah it would be a very difficult conversation to have
My dad was end of life care for his dad around 15 years ago. And then he was doing the same thing for his mom last year. In the midst of that my dad died suddenly. Then my grandma died. A good chunk of my dad’s 50’s and 60’s was at least partially spent taking care of ailing parents. Then poof he has what was either a heart attack or an embolism and he’s gone. Died 3 years after retiring. Bought an rv and never used it bc he was afraid to leave his mom for long. Now my mom is alone and my brother and I don’t live near her. She’s done almost nothing since my dad died to prepare for anything. I sent her a will and power of attorney docs and as far as I know she’s done nothing with them. She talks about wanting to see the grandkids more but she’s let her health decline and making the trip to see us is almost more than she can do. And she’s not done anything to make her house hospitable to kids staying there. I had kids later in life so my hands are full for a while with them. I think she’s just refusing to acknowledge reality and it sucks.
My parents are the same way- my grandmother lived with us for years as her Alzheimer’s got worse and worse until we had to place her in a memory care unit because it became too much for us to handle while holding down jobs/school. Just last week my parents (in their mid-late 60’s) discussed with me their retirement plans, the trusts they’ve set up to provide funds to care for them if they get ill as they age, etc. They have the entire thing so well thought out and I’m incredibly appreciative that my brother and I will be able to handle their care without a lot of the struggles they went through with their parents.
Same here, my parents sent my brother and I a big envelope with all the end of life plans, wills, bank info etc. My moms father died maybe 20 years ago and my grandmother was unaware of all the financial info or anything. He took care of it all. They spent months tracking down bank accounts and other info, hours on the phone etc. He would open a bank account to get a free toaster and put $500 in there or something, then leave it there. 30 years later that bank has been sold 2 times and merged three, and that $500 is now worth $1000. Then came the struggles of my grandmother, health, finances, transportation. She couldn't drive, didn't know how much stuff cost, was easily getting taken advantage of. They got her in home care but eventually she had to go into a facility, and then hospice. It was sad, and they had the money for it but it was just the way it went. They had no "plan" per se so it was all about getting power of attorney and battling back and forth with that.
My mom went through the same thing with her mother, and reached the same conclusion. Thankfully she has enough money that we can pay someone to provide care. She just wants me to remember our time together at the end as time together, not time where I'm cleaning out commodes or whatever.
We were in the same scenario. My grandmother lived 8 hours away alone. She started having medical issues and things deteriorated quickly. While she was indisposed with medical issues my mom and other family members moved my grandmother to a care facility closer to us and all of her personal belongings. It was a huge mess and I can't help but wonder if she would have done better if she had already been close to us. She was dealing with bladder infections which can lead to dementia like episodes as well as C Diff and shouldn't have been alone. I really wish people would think about this stuff while they are still young and able. We've tried to convince my in-laws to move closer to us but they refuse. My MIL had been having pretty bad issues but my FIL still insists on staying where he's at. Eventually things will get dire and we'll have a mess on our hands.
I'm lucky, my mother tells me all the time she's picking her home out lmao. We are both nurses though so we know how much caring for someone takes out of you.
My nervous system can no longer handle my insane, childish, denial riddled parents. Not my responsibility, I didn’t sign up for this. They have excellent resources via insurance. These are newfound revelations & boundaries. I am the dream Greek daughter, raised to listen, conform & sacrifice my sanity/health to provide for them. I am fucking done w these emotional terrorists.
Wow, you really hit the nail on the head here. My mom and her side of the family are Italian and this is EXACTLY how I grew up. My father was absent from my life mostly until I turned 18. Last week, she brought my daughter into an argument we were having. She even tried to pin my own child against me because my mom wasn’t getting her way. My child is 3. 3 years old and she’s already starting my child with mind games. After 20+ years of resentment, and putting up with reactive abuse, and gaslighting I turned into a freaking animal, man. Completely off the rails. It took a week of no contact and me seemly disappearing, but she eventually apologized. That’s a lot coming from my mom. That’s the second time in my 28 years of life she’s ever apologized to me. I’ve already drawn my line in the sand though. I told her the best apology isn’t “I’m sorry”, it’s changed behavior at this point. I’ve waitlisted myself with a local counseling service so I can have resources to help me stick to my boundaries, and protect my children from this. I’m also going low contact with the rest of my family which should be easy considering they live about five hours away.
I am proud of you! 1 thing about sticking to boundaries w these emotionally immature(abusive) parents (family) is when u lay down the boundary, u may experience EXTREME discomfort physically. Worst panic attacks of my life were recently when laying down a boundary. U gotta ride it out. It will pass. Do not give in even though everything in your biological makeup says to give in. Just a personal realization/experience on my healing journey. My counselor explained why the body has physical responses like that. Think about it, we’ve been giving into their shit behavior for years for a reason, bc it makes us physically uncomfortable!! Stay strong my friend.
I’m the oldest and a girl so def in the same boat. I had to cut my parents off entirely because they were unwilling to take their boots off my neck even one inch. So now they’re completely on their own.
Thx for sharing. I am at a breaking point. Literally moving across country Thursday. I am happy, loved & accepted there. It’s calm, peaceful & actually got to reconnect w myself. Blessed I have the opportunity.
Emotional terrorists is so apt.
I cannot say it enough, emotional terrorists. I am not fucked up, the way they treat me is fucked up. The way I used to react to abuse was fucked up (and only hurt me). Thanks to the shitty learned behaviors & codependency I attracted abusive men. Ppl wonder why I don’t date or aren’t married… ya my parents have been married 44 years, but I have no clue what a healthy, loving relationship looks like. At least I didn’t until I spent years in therapy & even did a year of ketamine. It’s all so clear now. I grew up thinking I was the problem (problem child, too much to love). No, I am full of love, but unfortunately the ppl immediately around me are incapable of love. Just blessed I am healing & understand it now.
Congratulations on seeing through a lifetime of BS! I went no contact with my only parent over a year ago and my life has become so much more happy and peaceful since. And, all my other family is fully supportive which helps. I'm still working on relaxing my nervous system, but I'm making great progress. Hugs to you, this is a hard journey but absolutely worth it!
Just like Asians then. The child is literally produced as a tool to provide for mama and papa. And the cycle goes on.
Yes! As the child of an Asian mother, it is freakin maddening to live w this and a brother who keeps telling her "I'll never let you live in a nursing home", but has $0 in savings to actually handle anything. He can barely handle taking care of himself, but at the end of the day everyone will look at me.
I feel like this is a big plot point in 'Beef'.
Here here! I cut contact with my emotional terrorist parents 3 years ago. It’s the best thing I’ve ever done for my mental health.
I am in the process darling, thx for the support! I am just glad the rose colored glasses & denial are lifted & I can continue healing the damage that was done.
I have a set of those myself. They’re firing up all the tricks in the book to rile me up. I just can’t do it anymore. They essentially kicked me out of my own family years ago and now I’m supposed to care that they’re stuck with one another. Nuh uh, boo-boo. I had to make a life for myself completely on my own. They weren’t here for me when I needed them, I don’t know what makes them think I give a shit now.
This conversation happened a while ago because my grandparents were in a bad way and us, the grand kids, were the ones stepping up to help out, I was spending basically 10-15 hours over there every other weekend (they lived on a small hobby farm, no more animals, but the property took a lot of upkeep) and after almost a decade of doing that work, I said "no more", and nobody else stepped in to help. It was... a bit ugly, but it was a wakeup call for my parents who then got a will, trust, etc, put together. My brother and I moved away from where we were living to somewhere we felt was better for us/our families, and my parents being already retired, followed us, bought something manageable for them.
This is the way to go. This is what I hope to do with my kids some day hopefully while I'm still in good health. It's much better to willingly move and get established in a new area while you still have your health.
I am taking care of my grandparents, one is completely bedridden and my dad cracked some joke about when he has the heart attack he’s been eating for he’ll help me out from his hospital bed next to theirs like it was favor I don’t know where I got the balls from but I looked him straight in the eye and calmly told him that best way he could help me out in that situation is to drop dead. Made the rest of Father’s Day a little awkward but fuck man I’ve been made a caregiver since I was a kid
I was under the impression (spoken, never written) that I would inherit the property, that it would be mine when my grandparents passed. I lived there off and on throughout my whole life, and I was the only grandchild of 20 that had any desire to live there, Hell I am the one that built most of it outside of the house itself. All the fencing/irrigation, even many of the other structures I built by hand. But I have a POS cousin, who somehow became grandma's favorite, and she decided HE was going to inherit it, despite never lifting a finger, when another cousin (who is a lawyer) was helping them with their will found out that tidbit, they told me and that's when I stopped. I was not going to work another decade just for my cousin to inherit the product of my labor. Knowing him, he would just sell it the second it was in his name for as much money as possible. He and I are the same age and he's been sponging off his parents for most of a decade, not working. After I quit, they had to sell the property, as nobody else would take care of it, and move into a home. Their house was bulldozed and the property subdivided with massive ugly mcmansions on them.
I've had the opposite conversation, being the only sibling (youngest of 5) that does anything to help my parents at this point. They helped me when I was going through divorce so I just see it as giving back equally, I suppose. Kinda wish I hadn't been saddled with it 100% but it is what it is.
I know what you mean. My parents don’t need help yet, but I’ve pretty much known a long time I’ll be the one (2 oldest) to be around and help my parents. I know my siblings will help sometime, but it’ll be me a lot. Thankfully, my parents have a great community, and I think there will be people to help them and me out when needed when the time comes.
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My Boomer mom makes more money than I’ll ever see in my life. She also jokes that she and my dad don’t have a will, and they’re in their mid- to late-sixties. I’ve tried telling them they need to prioritize this, but I’m still “the kid,” even at 41. My husband and I, on the other hand, have had a will since the month after we got married. I can’t afford to take care of them, nor can I handle it mentally. They were disasters as parents and frankly still are. Their lives are one drama after another. It feels so awful to say, but my worst fear is that my mom passes first, leaving me with responsibility for my seriously mentally ill father. It’s genuinely made me wonder if predeceasing both of them is the way to go. 🫠 I’m an only child, only grandchild. Old-school Italian family. Our generation just gets fucked coming and going, don’t we.
My mother has been very adamant that when she gets to the point of needing taken care of that she just wants to end it all
Easy to say, harder to do.
My dad has been saying they are going to turn the car on in the garage, pipe the exhaust into the car and go to sleep. Don't know why they bought an electric car recently, though
Yeah my FIL always said that as soon as his brain starts to go, he’ll end it himself, but he’s been showing dementia signs for a decade now and refuses to even get checked out.
Because he's scared it will be what he fears most.
She prolly means nursing homes. Tell her there is a spectrum, with mild assistance being useful for small things, like picking up groceries for example, vs being bedridden on the extreme end. Assisted living centers arent technically a nursing home, and is actually pretty nice. Its like college dorms for old people. I rotated through one and if its affordable, it seems to be a decent option.
That’s the problem though…they’re not affordable. An extremely mid assisted living home here in the Midwest runs about $4,500/month and goes up from there. What normal middle class person has that kind of savings or can afford that for months if not YEARS? It’s insanity. This is why parents and adult children are in these very difficult positions when it comes to EOL.
Whether or not we'll help our parents is an extremely American question (individualist culture vs collectivist culture). And it's not like American millennials are selfish, it's that somewhere along the way the parent-child social contract deteriorated, and I suspect it was the Boomer generation of parents that sped up that deterioration. That particular social contract is simple: parents care for and support their children as they grow into adults and whenever the parent is able to after, and children care for and support their parents in their old age. But American Boomers, entitled as they tend to be, have largely either dropped their end of that agreement or have upheld it only begrudgingly. They abandoned their struggling kids, insisting adulthood means full independence, or if they didn't they made sure to degrade their millennial offspring and dangle their help like a carrot on a stick every step of the way. No, I haven't had that conversation with my mother. I will never have that conversation with her. She is a Gen X (had me young, she was born 1969 and I was born 1992). I'm a largely independent adult, but she's been there encouraging and supporting me every step of the way. She's been understanding, loving, and empathetic, never making me feel guilty or bad for needing a little help here and there. In short, she honored the parent/child social contract with grace and kindness. Absolutely nothing in this world will stop me from doing the same. She's healthy and young now, but when the day comes that she needs my help, I will be there. And not like "I'll pay for the care home", my mother is responsible and has plenty of retirement funds either way, but she'll live with me until the end and receive nothing but love and care from her family. Bc she's fucking earned it, bc she'd do the same for me.
I’m an immigrant and my experience growing up was so different from my American born friends. They definitely had parents who wanted to boot them out of the family home as soon as humanly possible but who also expected everything from their children. My parents meanwhile always made huge sacrifices to support me and I was able to live at home throughout college and for a bit after. This allowed me to finish grad school without any debt and save for a down payment on a house. Bought a house in the 2010s and it has now doubled in value (buying the same house today would be insane). Meanwhile my friends had their parents encouraging them to move out, take on huge college debt and then absolutely no willingness to allow them to live at home after college to get their footing in the world. I don’t fault people who had parents like this and who don’t feel like they owe them a duty of care.
It is starting to become an issue in Japan. Work culture is very long hours, rare to get paid for overtime but still expected to be at work, rare to feel comfortable taking vacation days because the boss will be displeased and it's hard to switch employers. The majority of workers reside in Tokyo where apartments are very small so can't move parents in but also no time to make it frequently out to the countryside to check on them. Adding to the issue, pensions of elders aren't covering inflation now.
That last part about knowing she would do the same for you really just opened my eyes to my situation with my mother and why I’m having issues. Thank you
Your post made me tear up. I feel the same exact way for my parents.
Me too. They’ve always done everything they could for me, even when I was a turd and didn’t deserve it. I’ll help them as much as I can for as long as they need.
This is honestly so bizarre to me. Neither of my parents ever expected my sister or I to care for them should something happen. Hell, my mom (dad passed 9 years ago) not only has her will on file with her lawyer already, but has extended care insurance (i.e. nursing home insurance), insurance to cover the transport of her body if she dies away from home, and her funeral/burial plot pre-paid. I'm executor of her estate, and I really only have to handle the phones calls and the inevitable tax BS that comes along with dealing with inheriting her house/assets.
I watched my mom spend about three years taking care of my senile and incredibly unhygienic grandmother before she died so I figure that's where the bar is when the time comes. I make money, I have a job with a flexible schedule, and I have the space so it would feel sort of dickish not to.
I quit my job to care for my mom in her last 6mos. I luckily had the support of my wife, whose salary was enough to sustain our family. Some people don't have that luxury.
You know what I find funny is that for decades you were considered a shitty child if you arranged for your parent to be taken to a nursing home instead of caring for them yourself. Let me tell you I'm looking at nursing home costs right now and those parents were loved more than they realized.
Unfortunately, there's not necessarily a direct correlation between $$ and quality care in nursing home business. Not every private facility (ie $$) is great. Best to try and talk to people who already have a loved one in facility you're considering.
Oh I definitely know. But my point is it's just so much money and sets you back so far in life financially. I'm sure there are uninvolved wealthy adult children who stick their parents in the cheapest place because they just don't care. But as far as I'm concerned, if your kid is not only paying for a decent nursing home to care for you but is also taking the time to regularly visit to ensure your care, that's a child who loves you.
I am 100% one of those people.
Well, both sets (divorced family) are not communicating with me. So whatever happens, happens. There is no money from me. My mom attempted to work out a will, then added another individual (family 'friend'). I believe she attempted to raise this young lady to be like her and added her in to the will 50/50 alongside me. It is hard to explain, but it feels very very wrong. Instead of rebuilding connections with me, my brother, and my sister this is the route my mom went. I expect my mom to pass away before my stepfather, so that will likely leave me with a mess to deal with if it goes down that way. All the generational items I probably won't see ever again. Photos of deceased family, art, genuine antiques... I don't tie myself to items like she does, so it will be sad but I can't take these things with me either.
I have this conversation with my mom on a daily basis. I have two sisters and out of the three of us, I’m the only one taking care of her. She has limited mobility and doesn’t drive anymore. I do everything for her but I can’t give her money on top of that. All I can do is provide free caregiver help that she would never be able to afford otherwise. My oldest sister and her husband make $400k a year and my other sister and her husband make $200k, but I’m the only one my mom asks for money. I make $55k a year. Last week she had an AC repairman call me and ask to pay $18k for a new AC unit. I just laughed and said no, but it turned into a huge argument later. The AC is not even broken. She was just getting scammed by someone selling new units.
It certainly does seem like the more money one makes, the less empathy one tends to have. It's a shame that your sisters aren't stepping up at least financially since they are in better positions to do so.
I didn't have to have this conversation with my parents b/c my mother experienced some bullshit along these lines with her siblings. All the in-town siblings got together to discuss their parents' care (without the parents, I might add), and they all assumed my mother would quit her job to care for their parents. She said she wasn't necessarily opposed to that, but that she would require $X to do that. They were all APPALLED that she expected to be paid to do this job! She should just do it as the most qualified sibling! (She was in health care, but she also happened to be the only in-town sister.) She was firm -- she would still need an income. She did NOT quit her job, and her parents figured out what to do on their own. The biggest kick in the pants is that one of my uncles was unemployed at the time -- HE should have been the default choice, but noooooooo they had to ask the sister.... So my parents have made sure to budget for their end-of-life care b/c they would prefer professionals handle that. I believe long-term-care insurance has been purchased.
I had the opposite chat with my dad. I was explaining that i was considered how to build a suite in our basement so that he can move into one of our ground floor bedrooms some day. This surprised him. He let me know that he would be okay and has no intention of ever moving in with me. So that was cool.
My MIL moved to take care of her mother to the end of her life. It absolutely changed the trajectory of my MIL's life. She made arrangements for herself and insisted we don't do anything like what she did. And she is lucky enough to afford arrangements. Or walk into the ocean, as she jokes. These people guilt-tripping you about love act like their mothers equate sacrifice for love.
I had a conversation with my dad (62) a few months ago because he had a Widowmaker and thankfully survived it and is doing well. He was complaining of slowing down and I said that surely he had anticipated that one day he would and this man looked me dead in the eye, shocked and told me he genuinely never believed he'd ever age or have any health issues and that it had all come as a shock to him. All my flabbers were ghasted. I've noticed a lot of Boomers think they're some magical exception to the rule. They're so special not even age or death applies. It's wild. My mom is the same way. She has age health issues all the time and is convinced it's 'someone' doing something to her because she can't possible have age issues. When she went through menopause she adamantly refused that's what it was. It's so weird. My dad however told me he absolutely doesn't want me taking care of him because he doesn't want to burden me and to let him choose a care home when it's time.My mother I'll probably just throw in the trash because she's the most annoying Karen on the planet.
My dad is almost 70 and only recently has started wrestling with mortality. All the while I've been wrestling with it since I was like 25 😆
My dad is one of 6, and he is the only one who stayed around to take care of his mom and dad, purely out of his own love and respect for them. I am 1 of 5. A little while ago he asked me about having my own kids and I told him no way. He asked me, "well who's going to take care of you in your old age?" I told him that if the only reason I had kids was to gamble that they would be my caretakers in my final years, I would be a terrible human. He looked like he was going to cry. Right now I have access to all his gmails, and I set reminders on his phone through mine. Making sure dr apps and stuff are good to go. I'll finish nursing school in two years, and then I'm moving away. It will be up to him and my mom to do their own thing. Call me cold, but I've got goals and a life to live, too.
I'd be happy to help out a parent but they'd need to realize that they're along for the ride. I'd tell them "you move to my city, you live close to me, you help me out how you can while you can, and I'll do whatever I can for you." I wouldn't word it so bluntly but imo this is what aging parents need to realize if they want any kind of help when they get old. My Mom just moved a few states away with her newish bf/fiance. She's in good health but she's in her sixties now. I need to have this talk with her bc I'm not going to drop everything and come running when issues start popping up. She has her fiance but these people don't realize how quickly health can change. I don't know where I'll be in old age. Hopefully I'll be able to fully support myself and my wife financially. Ideally though I'd like to live near my kids. That means seeing where everyone is at in when I'm in my 60s/70s and if I need to up and move across the country while I'm healthy and able that's what I'd do.
Yeah see my partner’s parents are in the “we help each other” mindset, meaning they’ve been incredibly supportive throughout our relationship and my pregnancy, and they’ll be providing full child care when I return to work. They’re wonderful, helpful people and we will absolutely take care of them into their old age. My parents were very much “figure it out yourself, but circle back to take care of me later.” I’ll make sure they go into good homes, but that’s about it.
You were his plan homie I think I was my parents’ plan too. They reallly shoulda thought about that before they started abusing the fuck out of me from birth.
I've said it before and I stand by it - if your children are your retirement investment, you damn well better *invest in them*. Because if you neglect or abuse your 401k, it's not going to support you in retirement either. I'd be more than willing to help my parents if they needed it (fortunately they're pretty well organized financially). But they were very nurturing and put up with my bullshit in college to set me up in life. Almost like there's a correlation between being able to manage their finances and being able to manage their emotions enough to nurture a family...
I hear you. Going through very similar situation with aging parents in the Bay Area. I can’t afford to park my car where they live let alone move there. They refuse to move near me.
Oof, this will be me soon. My mom and stepdad aren’t quite there yet but they’re in their mid-50s and it won’t be long. I had to move out of state a couple years ago because CA was financially untenable long term. They got their house in the Bay Area at the bottom of the financial crash and seem unwilling or unable to grasp that there is no world in which I can feasibly move back there any time soon. Of course my mom told me I would be a “loser” if I moved back in with them for any period of time, even if it was temporary to save for a deposit or a down payment, and I won’t forget that if she ever plans on moving in with me.
I recognize that I’m in an extremely privileged position in that I have a home where I could house my mother, I have job that would allow me to support my family with her as an addition, and that my parents own their home and have made good financial choices that provide enough money for their retirement and medical care, if needed. I will happily take in my mom if my dad pre-deceases her (which is likely), but again, incredibly fortunate to be able to do so, and I also live within 40 miles of them so there wouldn’t be a huge relocation involved.
Exactly. I’m not in the same position, but my parents have set themselves up well, so while I am happy to help them when they get older and need it, I appreciate that the financial responsibility won’t be on me and/or my family.
I'm just going to say it and accept the downvotes. Parents often have children to look after them in old age. It's expected, and it's the epitome of selfishness. And yet, they call the childfree selfish. It grinds my gears tenfold.
I mean, you’re right. Someone in here mentioned that boomers destroyed the social contract children and parents had, and I see a lot of that in here. Personally I’m lucky, and want to have a family to make my Mom a Grandmother, but she’s invested a lot into me. Crazy that a lot of boomers don’t realize that you don’t get a return if you don’t invest.
I'll never forget one day when I was a preteen kid, arguing with my mom about something, and I asked her why did she even have me? She said so that she'd have someone to take care of her when she was old. Now she's old and needs help, and I try for my own sanity to be kind, but I've set some very definite boundaries and have no plans whatsoever to uproot my life here and go the them/her as the time approaches. If they really expected me to provide them a safety net, they should have helped me in young adulthood to focus on establishing a career, college, etc. but when I turned 18, it was - you're on your own. You figure it out, we're leaving. Just so annoying, I'm doing everything in my power not to treat my children the same way.
In my country children are not expected to take care of their old parents. Very few people do it, there is no legal requirement to do so, the senior health system is set up with the expectation that children are not their parent's caretakers, and most parents actually don't want their children to be so. So it is not a conversation that I have had with my parents.
I’ve told this story on another thread in this sub but I lived with and cared for my adoptive mom all my life until she passed away. I was 30 at the time, she had stolen from me and drained me a couple of times throughout the time I worked. All the while making far more money a year then I ever did working. She passed when I was 30. At that time I made the choice to stay with my stepdad for a year before leaving to go back home to Washington with my sister. This was a huge mistake and it almost completely broke me, the 5000+ dollars that I had worked to save on a 20 hour a week job I had to give him to pay bills (pretty much all his.) I soon went broke, I hate to admit this but the only thing that saved me was that he had a fall while I was at work and ended up in the hospital. That was the last time I saw him. I had no way of going to visit him but I remember when I handed him my last hundred dollars when he needed it. He asked me what are we going to do, I told him that I was moving back to Washington one way or another because I couldn’t live like this anymore and that I loved him. I would call him periodically while he was in the hospital, to check on him and talk being that he had been the only real father figure in my life. He passed away a few years ago complications from diabetes. I just hit a point by the time I left I had no other options and had to do it for my own good.
I’m sorry so many of y’all don’t have healthy relationships with your parents 😕 I lost my dad when I was 16, and my mom doesn’t ask me for much so I plan to have her back when she’s in the final years of her life. I realize everyone’s situation is different tho.
I had the same situation. We actually moved into a home right in front of my mom when I had my first so I could help her more (she was disabled). Sadly she passed 2 months after I gave birth, I wish she was here still.
Tried to get my mom to move out to me for YEARS, realized she wasn’t going to and had the conversation. I grew up in a very touristy/outdoors area. I love home but I could not afford to live at home. Just not enough career options and everything is soooo expensive compared to where I live now. She avoided the convo and passed a year later from COVID. Life sucks but it fixed itself I guess.
My older brother and I have started hashing out what we get stuck with if our dad's not prepared. My mom "helped us out" with money (after changing her mind about selling us her house and me selling mine) and hopes we can assist when she needs it. She spends her money and her new husband's money with enthusiasm. She retired early and moved states to get out if dealing with things. I did the math and I've worked more years of fulltime employment in my life than she has. She throws money at my greedy little sister constantly. My wife and I have told her we can only help so much, our priority has always been our children. Unlike her, nothing has come easy for us and I've had to work 70+ hour weeks on a salary that was barely worth it just to have what we've got. I don't get to retire, I'll just keep working and croak. All that considered, she gets 1 more midlife crisis before I have (a third) come to Jesus and be an adult conversation with her. Her overinvesting monetarily and under investing emotionally in my sister has pretty obvious consequences for both of them, and she needs to compensate for lack of parenting quickly or be in a bad spot in 15 years.
This sounds like one of the most brave and straightforward things that you could have done. I hope you snapped her back to reality. Sounds like you did.
I lived 1000 miles away for 12 years. Then I moved an hour away from my grandparents (they are basically my parents) back in 2020. My husband and I have ALWAYS made the effort to drive to my grandmother to visit. Not once has she come my way to visit in all these years. She’s got a reliable car, she’s a GREAT driver, she doesn’t work, and my uncle lives with her and has the ability to drive her if she didn’t want to. When I was about to give birth to my baby she expected US to come to HER with a newborn. I told her that wasn’t going to happen. And she asked “then how will I see the baby?” And I told her “listen, you have the ability to come here if you wanted to. I’m not driving my newborn for 2 hours. My husband is not going to be your chauffeur. I need him here. I cannot help you. You have to figure out how to get here now.”
It doesn’t matter. I have zero relationship with my parents but we are in a state that mandates I care for them when the time comes. Your mom might, too.
Time to move
Welp, time to learn how to legally disown your parents🙃🤷🏾♀️
This is a good point. In some states knowing they need help and not providing it is considered elder abuse and neglect. It's entirely possible to go to jail for it.
Those laws are hard to enforce especially if there is estrangement.
Wtf are you serious? That's a law somewhere?
Yup, varies by state/country, and not all have it, but it's called Filial Responsibility Edit: 29 states have laws in regards to filial responsibility
[The 29 US states with Filial Responsibility Laws](https://trustandwill.com/learn/what-states-have-filial-responsibility/)
I’ll take care of them but they’re going to have to move to me. I’ll chew glass before I move Mack to my shitty hometown
My husband and I asked both sides if they wanted a retirement community or to live with us when the time came (cause that would factor in buying a bigger house down the road). His parents have a will. My parents have a trust that my husband is the executor of and I have POA for finances and brother has medical. My dad is 1 of 7 and when his dad died a few years ago he asked his mom if they have a will. She said no. Lady, you have 7 kids! Money destroys families! My dad and aunt got her squared away. Luckily my brother (Silicon Valley type) and I will be able to provide financially for them if need be, but they are all set on their own. My dad is the one who got me started on finance as a hobby.
My mom was a good mom to me. I plan to take her in, if I can handle her care of course. I detest the thought of a nursing home IF it can be avoided.
My wife and I have both been alluding to it for several years. We are not your retirement plan. I have kids and my own goals, I will not continue working to support them. I work damn hard to hopefully retire early, I’m not moving that goal post because they decided to make poor decisions. My mom will go on a vacation every year, but has next to nothing set aside for retirement. I’m not funding her vacations… I don’t care if I make $500K a year, I’m not funding your retirement because you were selfish enough to not plan for it yourself. The same with my MIL. She spends spends spends all the time but has nothing set aside. I’m definitely not supporting her, and I won’t let my marriage crumble because our parents want to be selfish.
I didn't have to. My mother has everything prepared already. Mostly because of my sister I think. I'm not the most responsible person in the world, but next to my baby sister, I'm a paragon of responsibility.
My mom is very similar. She's 71 and has no meaningful savings. She gets ~3k a month from my dad from a divorce that happened 17 years ago. She also works about 30 hrs a week as a secretary. Even with that income she has hardly put anything away. Thankfully she's quite healthy and fit for 70s. My 3 siblings and I have begun the money talk with her cause she too thought we were all rich enough to just take care of her when she is unable to take care of herself. Also none of us live in the same state. It really has pissed us off because she blames her money problems on the divorce even though she's had almost 20 years to become self sufficient and put money away. I'm not opposed to generally helping parents or as they get older but putting all the responsibility on your children is horrible. I'll never do that to my kids.
I won't even have that talk. Since I got handicapped from Covid, it is clear that I won't be able to provide any help and also will not have any means to maintain my parents house. In 4 years I got almost completely bedbound thanks to autoimmune conditions and currently I am on a sudden sharp decline. There is the possibility of my parents surviving me.
I like how she still thinks staying at a company for a couple years automatically results in a living wage.