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If you choose to warehouse your parent in assisted living far away and visit for 2 or 3 days every couple of months, it's eventually going to create a mushroom cloud.
You have my sympathy. Been there and done that with my dad and it was quite a challenge.
FWIW, this isn'y just a baby boomer issue. My parents chose to leave family behind and retire out into the boonies. They didn't even give us kids any warning; one day they just had us all over for dinner and announced they had bought a house and were moving away. They were in the Greatest Generation. They treasured their independence and chose to move there because they thought would be a nice place to live. This sort of thing has been happening throughout history, even in pioneer days.
At first it was fun to visit them. I have to admit their place in the mountains was very pretty. We always thought they would want to move back when they started to get frail, but that didn't happen. They liked where they lived, and they refused. Even after my mother died, and my dad was in his 90s and starting to have mobility issues.
We tried insisting he move back in with one of the kids. Instead, he chose to move into assisted living. Did it the same way, signed the contract and then told us kids about it.
So before we all start berating a fellow poster for "warehousing" her parent, remember it's also likely that her parent did it on his own. That's what happened in our case.
To complete the story of my dad, after he moved there, he lived for several more years, and was feisty to the end. And apparently he was happy; we kept trying to get him to move in with one of us but he kept refusing. We worked out a family visitation schedule, which was ok at first (although flying out to the nearest city a few times a year and then making the long drive to his place became expensive and wearing over times; especially when we had to make unexpected trips for medical emergencies). His final year he began falling and needed to be hospitalized several times. Hearing about this long distance and trying to deal with it was a nightmare for us kids (and I'm sure hard on my dad). Eventually, my brother flew out there and stayed with him until he died because it was just easier to stay there. Which is not to say it was easy at all, it was very hard on all of us, and especially on my brother and his family.
We baby boomer kids learned a lesson from this. Like dad, we're also independent, and several of us enjoy living alone. But none of us are choosing to retire way out in the boonies or too many miles away from family. When the time comes that family is needed, none of us are more than a 30 minute drive away.
Last edited by Piney Creek; 12-16-2018 at 06:27 AM..
Fast forward to their 50's and 60's they are childless and often single (spinsters or divorced) which leaves them without the two main support networks Americans relied upon historically in older age for both companionship and financial support.
Hey, who are you calling a spinster?
Honestly, this whole thread has me confused. Aging isn't new. Most issues can be mitigated with proper planning. Geesh, I'm only 49 and I'm already browsing nursing homes and memory care units in case I need them in the future. Looking at costs, private pay vs LTCi, etc.
I'm a city girl so I have hospitals, doctors, shopping, etc all within a few miles. I'm buying a house and I'll get a ranch to avoid issues with stairs.
I'm an introvert so I have very few social needs and I'm used to getting out to movies, events, and even travel alone.
I also plan to get a geriatric care manager to help assist with my planning.
IDK. Good planning helps alleviate most of the fear of aging.
Sorry I wasn't clear. Dad is in assisted living. There are caregivers there who help him with dressing, bathing, etc. Once a month, one of the six of us visits him for 2-3 days. So I might come in March and October, for example, for a long weekend. While there I will take him out to eat, make sure he has a supply of his favorite toiletries and take him shopping if he doesn't, go for a walk if the weather is good, and just sit and visit.
So each sibling is with Dad for 2-3 days, twice a year. All the rest of the time he is "alone" in that there are no family members around him, but he's not "alone" as in living independently.
It really wasn't until the post WWII *boom* and prosperity that young people from even lower down on the income scale could afford their own home. Prior to that many young people/newlyweds lived with either set of parents because they couldn't afford their own place.
Also consider it was fairly common for immigrants (Italian, German, Polish, German, etc....) from the old country to settle in areas where there was already a large population, and or family already present. This was a great help as first and second generation adapted to the new country. But as time went on this model too changed as the kids, grandkids, and great grands became more *American*.
One great film about this is "Avalon" which shows the changes (some call it breakdown) of an immigrant family as it moves through generations between first arrivals to the younger ones moving out of the "hood" to the suburbs..... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avalon_(1990_film)
In the old county it was common or expected for one child and his/her spouse to live at the parent's homestead, and or the elderly parents moved in with one of the kids. That tradition was imported to USA, but by the 1970's or so began to wane as kids wanted their "own" place. Daughters and some son in-laws bristled at not being the mistress/master of their own homes because the mother and or father in-law always had something to say. This the latter didn't see as interfering, but their God given right.
Bottom line is America was always the land of individualism; but over the last few decades it seems to have gone into the extreme of selfishness. Men got shot of spouses (helped along by newly loosened divorce laws) regardless of the hurt and harm it caused their kids. Now they are shocked and whatever because those same kids are *still* angry and don't want to have anything to do with them in their old age.
Females beginning in the 1970's were told they could abandon the tradition safe careers open to respectable women: wife/mother, convent, nurse or teacher and pursue a world of job opportunities opening up due to various anti-discrimination laws. In the decades that followed many women did leave marriage till later in life and or forgo it all together for sake of career/profession. Fair enough, but what they weren't told is that while laws changed society didn't. Well at least not fast enough for many of these women.
Fast forward to their 50's and 60's they are childless and often single (spinsters or divorced) which leaves them without the two main support networks Americans relied upon historically in older age for both companionship and financial support.
The better off had decent jobs/careers and or otherwise managed to prepare for a secure if not good retirement/senior years. They also cultivated a network of friends and other relationships that offer a surrogate for family/children. Others who aren't so fortunate are going to be left scrambling and or at the mercy of local government senior and other systems.
This isnt about women getting their comeuppance for daring to want to choose their own lives sorry. As I said, many of the elderly living alone DO have kids. Many are men. More are men perhaps. Regardless of what women were or weren’t told, we would still be where we are as we simply don’t have an economy that allows women to stay home. Unions and good middle class jobs didn’t die because women were good they could have it all
.people here sometimes act as if women’s lib never existed, that we’d still be in a place where a man in an average job could buy a home and support a family on one income and without needing to relocate away from family, it’s just not the case.
This isnt about women getting their comeuppance for daring to want to choose their own lives sorry. As I said, many of the elderly living alone DO have kids. Many are men. More are men perhaps. Regardless of what women were or weren’t told, we would still be where we are as we simply don’t have an economy that allows women to stay home. Unions and good middle class jobs didn’t die because women were good they could have it all
.people here sometimes act as if women’s lib never existed, that we’d still be in a place where a man in an average job could buy a home and support a family on one income and without needing to relocate away from family, it’s just not the case.
This issue isn't a personal attack on women for goodness sake. Men have played their role as well as the OP noted. It's all part of the recipe why people find themselves aging alone. Much of it is personal choice when people are young when you consider finances, moving away for a job, and just being independent. Not too many people take into consideration who will take care of their parents when they are old or who will help when they themselves become old when deciding on jobs and where to move. It works well when you are in the work force and work along with being successful your priority, it doesn't work so well when you are old and need family members around you.
Didn't work for me even with my FB login. It wanted me to subscribe to the WSJ.
It worked for me and I have neither FB nor a WSJ subscription. Usually, as other posters recommended, you can Google the article title or a line of text.
Do you have a public library card? Many public libraries have online access to various resources as SportyandMisty pointed out. Access to the PROQUEST database is pretty standard for urban libraries (I’m not sure about very rural areas with more limited budgets.) Logging into PROQUEST with your library card gives you access to the articles for many major newspapers, including WSJ, NYT, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Barron’s, Christian Science Monitor, Financial Times, etc. Thanks to the library, I can look up cited articles from home or work.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TamaraSavannah
Companionship? You mean like cats?
Not at all. It used to be common for better off elderly women to hire younger women or take in impoverished younger relatives to live/travel with them as Lady’s Companions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady%27s_companion
For those who live alone and like it that way, or for family members who worry about an aged relative far away, charlygal made a great suggestion about hiring a Geriatric Care Manager.
.......Not at all. It used to be common for better off elderly women to hire younger women or take in impoverished younger relatives to live/travel with them as Lady’s Companions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady%27s_companion
For those who live alone and like it that way, or for family members who worry about an aged relative far away, charlygal made a great suggestion about hiring a Geriatric Care Manager.
As far as cats and people go, for me, that is one of those things. Explaining it in the fewest words, "And the Angels said, go find Tamara, she's a marine biologist, she will find you a good home.".
So I am more for the animals than for the people. Now, at 5 cats, I am at my limit, REALLY, TRULY I AM, and the Fates have decided that it will be cats, so Project: DOG is off.
You have my sympathy. Been there and done that with my dad and it was quite a challenge.
I'm not looking for sympathy. It's one of life's obligations and tons of people eventually live it. I'm trying to do the reality check on someone who thinks visiting a parent in assisted living for a few days every couple of months is going to end well. You can put it on autopilot for a while but you eventually get the phone call where the ALF informs you they can't keep them unless you shell out huge money for constant 1-on-1. And you eventually face the time when they decay to the point where the ALF ejecting them to the ER is a fairly frequent thing. Unless you feed them enormous piles of money, that's not their business dealing with that level of issue. Doing it from a long distance eventually is no longer viable for many/most people.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Piney Creek
FWIW, this isn'y just a baby boomer issue. My parents chose to leave family behind and retire out into the boonies. They didn't even give us kids any warning; one day they just had us all over for dinner and announced they had bought a house and were moving away. They were in the Greatest Generation. They treasured their independence and chose to move there because they thought would be a nice place to live. This sort of thing has been happening throughout history, even in pioneer days.
My father retired to a condo on the beach in Florida. My stepmother dealt with all the dementia issues. Adult daycare 5 days per week for several years where my sister and I would fly in occasionally for a week to spell my stepmother. When that got too much, he landed in a memory care lockdown. Eventually, his health declined to where he landed in a nursing home for his last 6 months. I got to do all that very much at arms length. I didn't fully appreciate all the agonizing decisions and angst.
For my mother, I had to do it all. My mother and stepfather had made a bizarre decision to live in a semi-rural place. They had no support network. My stepfather was a type A d-bag with no friends. It was an hour from my summer house. When he had his health event, I had to pick up all the pieces with my mother and it was an enormous undertaking. The house vanished and she was going to be homeless even if I had opted to pay for all the adult supervision to keep her there. Assisted living. All the bizarre phone calls when something funky happened. It was 45 minutes from my summer house so I could usually handle the "drop everything and deal with a situation". I eventually got the phone call that her dementia had gotten to the point where the ALF couldn't keep her without tons of 1-on-1. I then had to find a memory care place and picked one that's a building in a CCRC 15 minutes from my girlfriend's place so I can be there in a hurry and deal with the ER/hospital stuff as it happens. I also have a path to the skilled nursing facility at that CCRC if my mother degrades to the point where the memory care building can't keep her. After 3 years of it, I remember calling my stepmother and telling her I hadn't appreciated all she had done for my father.... and thank-you.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Piney Creek
We baby boomer kids learned a lesson from this. Like dad, we're also independent, and several of us enjoy living alone. But none of us are choosing to retire way out in the boonies or too many miles away from family. When the time comes that family is needed, none of us are more than a 30 minute drive away.
I didn't reproduce. My sister is 2,500 miles away in Vancouver. My girlfriend has a daughter 2,000 miles away in Colorado who can barely manage her own life. I kind of had no option but to pick a living situation that was dense suburban near urban with all the services. Semi-rural or rural wasn't an option. A cheap red state with no senior services wasn't an option. I'm a mile from the town Senior Center and the town has all kinds of social services for seniors aging in place. I'd be OK living in my home with mobility problems and mild dementia with a bit of paid outside adult supervision. If it gets worse than that, there's a brand new ALF/memory care facility a mile away and I can afford their fees. As a male, the odds of me needing more than 3 years of ALF/memory care/nursing home are quite low. After all these years in those places, I'm very aware that there aren't many men.
.people here sometimes act as if women’s lib never existed, that we’d still be in a place where a man in an average job could buy a home and support a family on one income and without needing to relocate away from family, it’s just not the case.
Actually, it is possible but people in 2018 don't want 1950s lean living. A family of four used to live in 1000 square foot houses. One TV with an antenna. A telephone. The library for books. A very inexpensive food budget. The kids with hand-me-down clothes. The family vacation was a tent in a state or national park somewhere. Restaurant pretty much never happened. A very basic used car.
In 2018, that is considered to be poverty level. In 1960, that was middle class.
No, as other poster mentioned "paid companions". Equally "no", we're not speaking about escorts. *LOL*
Since about the Victorian age (maybe sooner) older wealthy women (and some men) hired "paid companions" who acted as a cross between private secretary and confidante.
These young or middle aged women were usually from the same class or maybe just one below their employers but in "reduced" circumstances. For an educated and respectable young upper or middle class girl being a paid companion offered an entry into a world they otherwise wouldn't experience. Travel (both in US and abroad), concerts, parties, and in general running with the social set.
If you've seen the film Rebecca, then you've seen a paid companion.
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