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My parents are getting old and I don't know what is worse: watching them waste away in a retirement home where you visit periodically or watching them waste awa

My parents are getting old and I don't know what is worse: watching them waste away in a retirement home where you visit periodically or watching them waste away at my home. Curious to hear what other folks are considering/doing.

rs_rs_rs_rs_rs 4y ago
I'm eastern european, before visiting Germany I was under the impression a retirement home was for old people that don't have any family left at all. I was blown away to find out kids will put their parents in retirements instead of living and taking care of them until they pass away. How is this acceptable for a sane society?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  I do not think my kids owe me anything. I want them to prioritize their lives, their futures, and their kids over me. I base this on watching my parents (especially my mother) spend their entire youth taking care of my paternal grandparents, who lived far too long (101 and 97). To boot, my grandfather had my dad in his 50s, and my grandmother was 15 years younger than him, so my mother basically spent ages 20 to 50 as a maid/nurse/cook. They spoke no English (living in the US) and they did not drive, and they detracted from my parents’ ability to do what they wanted to do for their kids.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > How is this acceptable for a sane society? A good starting point when trying to understand other cultures is to drop pretences of universal sanity or even morality. American culture values independence. Many senior citizens in old folks’ homes pay for their own stays. They’re choosing to be there. I’d start there to understand why this happens, and how it isn’t a story of heartless holidaying kids dumping their parents on someone else.
  - ok_dad 4y ago
    - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
      > no one gives a fuck about anyone other than themselves and actively fucks over other people to get ahead the tiniest amount American culture also prizes traditional notions of community. (In a sense, this is its present political crisis.) The flip side of communal cultures is the stifling of individual choice and identity, the latter particularly problematic for anyone who diverges from the community’s ideal. Note that independence and individuality are similar concepts. But they’re distinct. Individualism is the American cultural trait that inspires competitiveness and sociopathy. Independence seeks to open one’s options but also not be a burden to others. It can be framed selfishly or altruistically depending on the circumstances, which is why I don’t think bringing judgement into such comparisons at the start is productive.
      - ok_dad 4y ago
        Good point, I guess I personally prefer communal cultures and my bias framed my view of American culture as a result. Still, you’re taking close to the No true Scotsman fallacy; if American independent culture relies on local community, and that’s broken right now due to tons of fighting and negative politics, that means our culture is basically broken. I would argue American culture doesn’t work without the situation where locals take care of locals.
        lotsofpulp 4y ago
        With respect to taking care of elders, or more specifically, people who need assistance due to aging, almost all cultures are “broken” simply due to demographic issues. Longer life expectancies, more medical treatments to keep people around, but not fully functional, and declining birthrates inevitably lead to a situation where sacrifices have to be made.
        JumpCrisscross 4y ago
- betaby 4y ago
  Well, don't know about Germany but in Canada old-age people voluntarily move to retirements home. And yes, they took home equity / sold their home and eventually there won't be anything to inherit from them. Don't know whenever it better or not of the eastern European approach.
  - evv555 4y ago
    How common is this in Canada? This doesn't sound like a representative anecdote. This sounds like a vacuously true statement as they say in statistics.
    - betaby 4y ago
      I would say very common, see https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2011/as-sa/98-312-x/98-312-x2011003_4-eng.cfm https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2011/as-sa/98... from ten years ago. ' Among seniors in their nineties, over half (56.5%) lived in private households in 2011, including 28.7% who lived alone, 12.2% who were part of couples and 15.7% who lived with others, such as adult children. The remaining 43.5% lived in collectives such as nursing homes or residences for senior citizens. '
      - evv555 4y ago
        This isn't a useful stat for answering the question
- LegitShady 4y ago
  My mom took care of her father for ~2-3 years from when he started getting sick (and tbh a little dementia) to when he passed. It was really tough on her, even with some help. She told me she plans to not put that burden on anyone else, and has prepared for that situation exactly. People change as they go through suffering and some of the nicest people become quite difficult to deal with after years of physical problems, pain, etc. People also have lives and having someone around to deal with medical issues, or even wipe them in the bathroom, or make them a meal etc becomes challenging especially if the person's kids don't have other people around to help. That doesn't make putting someone in a home better, but its not simple like you seem to think it is.
- RappingBoomer 4y ago
  we are far from sane
- kjreact 4y ago
  I would like to offer a counter view; I originally was planning on taking care of both my parents and my in-laws as they aged, but to my surprise neither wanted that. Both sides have experienced taking care of their previous generation and saw the tensions it caused with their significant others. Now neither want to be a burden to our generation so they prefer to live independently. Unlike their parents who were poor immigrants to NA with little to no retirement savings, they held decent jobs for most of their adult lives and have the financial means to live comfortably for the remainder of their lives. So sometimes it isn’t the kids who prefer to send their parents to retirement homes. Some seniors take pride in taking care of themselves.
  - orzig 4y ago
    Agreed. My grandmother was lovingly cared for by my grandfather until he died (he was physically able until the end), but in many ways her health was better in the nursing home for the next several years. For her level of needs, 24/7 professionals with a regular rotation of visiting family was the right arrangement. That said, the savings which had seemed perfectly sufficient when he'd retired from a big solid American company (pension, etc) were just obliterated by the black swan of American medical costs, and we had to sell the home which had been in our family for generations.
- bojan 4y ago
  Retirement homes in Western Europe are probably not the sort of thing you imagine. They are well regulated, and residents have a good mix of privacy, care and social interaction. I prefer vastly to end up in one of those one day then living in with my daughter and her future family. On workdays I'd still be alone and helpless for a good part of the day, waiting like a puppy for them to come home and tend to my physical and social needs. How miserable is that?
- homieg33 4y ago
  (USA here) My mother always would tell us kids to put her in a retirement home as soon as she became a burden to the family. Her favorite children's book was also The Giving Tree so there’s that.
- magic_hamster 4y ago
  Also non-American, but I do spend a lot of time in the US and with American people. It seems very common for children to leave home after highschool, move really far away and basically go overnight from living with their parents to seeing them once or twice a year. As time moves on and they get busier, the children might not even see their folks every year. I think that pretty much by default, your life cycle in the US is to leave your house, start your own family, get a bigger place to raise your family, pay it off for a couple of decades, and once your own kids move out, go to Florida and hope your children will see you more than a couple of times before you die. Somber jokes aside, if you plan ahead you can live quite well in the US, even though there's no guarantee you will be in close contact with your family for more than 18 years. To me that's not a great tradeoff (also, medcial treatment costs a fortune) which is why I always go back to my family in my home country. Nothing is better than being with family.
  - dgfitz 4y ago
    My cynic take is: you’ve never met my family. And When you’re a burden to your own I wonder if they feel like “nothing is better than being with family”
    - magic_hamster 4y ago
      You're absolutely right. You need some luck being born into a family that shows support, affection and love, and does so in a positive way. There is no shortage of people who can't wait to get away from their family. With that said, even in the most tight knit families, some people don't see each other often because they're busy, live far away, can't afford the trip or don't have enough days off.
  - ip26 4y ago
    People leave home because opportunity lies elsewhere. The US has changed pretty fast; the rust belt went from class ladder to sinking ship in a single generation, for example. Smallholder farms have been squeezed out in the last half century by commercial operations pushing down prices, sending many kids who were born on a farm to the city. There are communities all over which are lovely for empty nesters but dead ends for young adults.
- VoodooJuJu 4y ago
  I don't think it's acceptable, but it's certainly profitable. Taking care of your family doesn't show up in GDP - gotta keep that GDP up though.
- triceratops 4y ago
  > How is this acceptable for a sane society? I'd rather have my incontinence diapers changed by a care worker than my children.
- null_shift 4y ago
  I feel that children have no obligation to take care of their elderly parents. They don’t owe them anything. The alternative seems more insane to me.
  - ktzar 4y ago
    A society that creates people who feel entitled to say they don't owe anything to those who made immense sacrifices for them (even though nobody chooses their relatives), is quite sad. It's a society so individualistic that deprives one of the main pleasures of human life: making a difference in the lives of those you love.
    - patmcc 4y ago
      Parents choose to have children; in my mind the responsibility flows in that direction, from parent to child. A child has no choice in the matter, why should they be saddled with responsibility? I'll happily care for my mother as she ages - she's been a wonderful parent all my life. But I have friend whose parents basically just kept them alive to adulthood, kicked them out, and are now expecting years of "payback". No thanks.
- ip26 4y ago
  What do you do when the child left town to seek their fortune, found it a thousand miles away, and the parent doesn’t want to move? Does the child terminate their career to move back? Does the parent move to an unfamiliar place against their will? It’s very difficult to have mobility (chose your own life, follow opportunity) and very tight-knit family at the same time.
  - mokash 4y ago
    i'd like the answer to this too. let me know if you ever figure it out
prometheus76 4y ago
My father-in-law lived with us for the last two years of his life (he just passed a few weeks ago). My wife is his only child, and he didn't have a lot of savings, so we were basically the only plan he had. It was difficult, especially as time went on (he had liver disease and later developed liver cancer). We both work full-time, so as soon as we would walk in the door, the requests (demands?) would begin. At the beginning, he was mostly frustrated because he couldn't drive anymore (falling asleep too much) and so he was very bored. He took up some hobbies (mostly carving or drawing) but even then, he was restless and often wanted to make dramatic changes to the living arrangements. He thought he could work a part-time job, but because of his other physical issues (he was very weak and it was hard for him to go up stairs or walk or stand for any length of time) he didn't really have much he could do. We got to know each other well, and my daughter was a saint in helping him a lot when we weren't there (especially during the summers). He cooked for us a lot, especially at the beginning, but towards the end, we had hospice care and he was essentially helpless. I don't regret it for one second. It was difficult, but we were there to help him with the medical system (it's a zoo), insurance, and just helping him with his phone or his tablet really helped calm him down. We all got to know him really well, and he and my wife were able to reconcile a lot of old issues they had. He died peacefully at home, surrounded by family, with a stomach of home-cooked food he loved, listening to his granddaughter play the violin. Again, I don't regret it for a second, even though it's emotionally very difficult.
- savryn 4y ago
  >as we would walk in the door, the requests (demands?) would begin. old age can be like wealth and power in that it magnifies character defects. Many awful people are going to get old and I kinda wish they could be written off the same way they would in middle age, without the social pressure to be compassionate. There is no innocence regained. Brings out a lot of underlying personality/ cultural /freudian entitlement in people who barely enjoyed getting thru life but are afraid of death. Some old people, it's like they can't wait to regress... (I did my part, I get to be the baby now!) also, immigrant kids have a special hell lots of cultural/ethnic and class differences that makes this burdensome, suffocating, manipulative, and "politically incorrect" to talk about in ways that feels lonely. A lot of these kids never got to be kids, since immigrant parents become low-agency children in practice: can't speak english, can't fill out basic forms, often too poor to do basic stuff by the book (legal, banking, etc), don't know the area to have risk assessment or make decisions adults are supposed to make. The kids have to grow up fast without help, succeed in some way without financial or cultural capital, and then take care of their parents without help. They are often being criticized and their decisions undercut the whole way. Offensive to say but real for many, some immigrant parents often just have god awful personalities: poverty and war and refugee trauma have misshaped them into people that can be hard and unpleasant. Depending on age, many are closed-off, unwelcoming by default, they feel too old to learn new things, racist and endlessly judgmental especially if they never moved out of the self-segregating enclave many start out in the host country. The next generation often feels embarrassed or ashamed of them while having to assimilate, can't bring friends or dates around. Growing up with two different sets of norms and expectations. Leads to simmering resentment and anger covered with guilt and duty and never ending ethnic responsibilities of the religious, Confucian, and/or gendered type. (Women expected to be servant-nannies for their middle-aged in-laws makes me fume.) A lot of immigrant kids who 'made it' despite their crummy families can't really share/talk about it with middle-class suburban Americans... I feel this loneliness and often rage myself and see hints of it just go unspoken in my 'scholarship kids' peer group (asian, indian, latino and post-soviet kids in city gifted programs) now that we're all grown up.
whalesalad 4y ago
I’d probably take my own life before doing the latter.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
ericmcer 4y ago
I watched my Aunt waste away at home, but she had a small house that she had been in for ~40 years. Her daily routine was deeply ingrained in her mind and she was able to function mostly alone into her 90s with severe dementia. Towards the end she didn’t know me and would talk about her husband who was 20 years dead as if he was still there, but she was able to take care of herself. If they had moved her to a nursing home I am sure she would have lost it.
- DoreenMichele 4y ago
  Keeping their routines is hugely helpful for seniors who are slowly losing their faculties. I stayed with my parents during my divorce and my dad had Alzheimer’s. I and my sons were able to effectively model how to interact with my dad via respecting his routines and stress levels for everyone came way, way down.
gwbrooks 4y ago
I've done both -- at-home hospice for my dad and a nursing home for my mother-in-law. Ultimately, each was the best choice in the circumstance. My dad was easily scared and cognitive decline was, for a while, outpacing the physical decline. Having him at home, with my mom nearby and in familiar surroundings, was a comfort to him and -- despite my mom constantly being scared of having medical strangers in the house -- I'd like to believe she preferred it as well. And it's hard to argue with the cost; my parents didn't have much money and think 18 months (three six-month cycles -- dad held on longer than anyone thought) of at-home hospice resulted in <$1,500 out of pocket. At the end, he died with three generations of people he loved literally standing over him and holding his hand. My mother-in-law? She was always proud of her health and, to be fair, it was well earned. So after her second hip fracture, a planned rehab stay turned into permanent nursing-home residence as it became clear she needed 24-hour care. Could she have gotten that at home? Yeah -- but she once said, years ago, that death was very private and she decided to stay in a facility. It ran about $8k/mo for moderately-OK care and she passed in her sleep about a year later. I don't know there's any wisdom to be found in any of this other than the obvious: Have clarity about what you want before you're too old and too incapacitated to make a nuanced choice. Write it down. Communicate it with your kids and loved ones. Anything else is just creating needless pain.
- susiecambria 4y ago
  >Have clarity about what you want before you're too old and too incapacitated to make a nuanced choice. Write it down. Communicate it with your kids and loved ones. >Anything else is just creating needless pain. I've had experiences with those who planned and those who didn't and the former is better. My dad planned and so we could spend time doing things he wanted until the very end. My MIL didn't and for a few years it was a constant struggle to be patient. I'm glad I was there with both but man, I'll take planning any day.
pmorici 4y ago
Caring for an elderly parent who is in both mental and physical decline can be tough. In any case it is a deeply personal decision without a definitive right or wrong answer. After seeing my Aunt try to care for my grandmother for years only for it to negatively effect their relationship because of her dementia I wouldn't blame anyone for choosing a care facility. My grandmother lived for close to 20 years after she was no longer able to live independently. I know people who were so effected by their experience of caring for an elderly relative that they checked themselves into a senior living community in their 50's so their kids would never have to feel like they needed to do the same for them.
gumby 4y ago
My parents built their house so they could grow old in it (if they couldn't climb the stairs they could move in downstairs, for example). When they got into their 80s though they found it too much effort to look after. Also my mum saw what happened to her patients as they got old: they became quite lonely because they couldn't get out as much to see people; they didn't have as many visitors because the same was true of their friends. Becoming bedridden was very isolating, and if your spouse died and you fell, you might not be found for a while. So I helped them move into a retirement home. They have friends, meet new people (everybody's in a hurry to do that because people are "departing" all the time). It's basically a nice apartment building with a gym snd such and I doubt there's anyone there under the age of 75. It has various affordances for older people. Attached to the apartment is another building for people who need more assistance, and beyonf that a "memory care" center and one for people who are bedridden. They are quite happy with it. OTOH my grandmother sold her house and moved herself into a "senior apartment complex" when she was about 80, but she kept on delivering meals on wheels into her mid 80s. When she really couldn't look after herself in her mid 90s she moved into senior care centre but she hated it -- she didn't really like old people. But she'd been a widow for almost 50 years, and those of her friends who weren't dead were all disabled one way or another, so she just offed herself. I have another friend (mother of my friends) who is in her late 80s and stuck at home. Her kids pay for round the clock in home care and the one who lives nearby is over there a lot. Fortunately she is losing her marbles a bit so it all works out. So everybody is different. Also, financially, everybody is different. They have an actuarial life expectancy of another decade. If one of them loses their marbles it could be $250K-$500K per annum to look after them well.
- badpun 4y ago
  > OTOH my grandmother sold her house and moved herself into a "senior apartment complex" when she was about 80, but she kept on delivering meals on wheels into her mid 80s. When she really couldn't look after herself in her mid 90s she moved into senior care centre but she hated it -- she didn't really like old people. I don't think it's "old people" per se. These places gather around people in the sorriest possible states, most of whom are in (understandably) horrible psychical condition. Every time I visit, I feel bad for at least the remainder of the day. Living there must be terrible.
JshWright 4y ago
In 2020 (coincidentally right at the start of the pandemic) we moved into a house with an in-law apartment for my parents. We have three kids under 10, and my parents are in their early 60’s and in good health (mom has been a homemaker her whole life and dad is about a year out from retirement), so we’re likely still a couple decades of this arrangement. It was an intentional decision (based on a couple years of conversations) to enable my kids and my parents to spend a lot of time together, and to make it “easy” for us to care for my parents at the end of their lives. I’m well aware that there will be a lot of tough moments. I’ve got a background as a paramedic, and have spent more time in nursing homes than pretty much anyone who isn’t a resident of staff at a facility. I think the most important step we’ve taken so far is to have a lot of open and honest conversations about how we want things to go.
olyjohn 4y ago
Bring them home. Take care of them as much as you can. Spend time with them. I spent 6 months taking care of my dad while working from home. He was wheelchair bound and we had to have hospice care come in every few days to help out with things. There were no options to send him to a retirement home, unless it was something that Social Security could pay for. So I basically moved in with him, and lived with him until he passed away. Doing it while working full time was the most stressful thing I have ever done. It was so difficult, dealing with doctors and nurses and care people calling every day. Keeping his doctors informed on what was going on. Keeping track of his prescriptions. Keeping his appointments up. And he had a lung disease, and it was during COVID, so it was super isolating, as I could not fuck around at all with exposing him. I could not leave him at home alone at all. It would take 30 minutes to load him into the car... I got maybe a couple of hours a week to leave the house. I also lost my partner of 10 years. But would I do it all again? Most definitely. Despite how hard it was, it was a life-changing experience. I have never felt such love and support from my dad and all the people around me. I'm so glad that I got to spend so much time with him and be with him up to the end. He was so scared of going to a home, there was just no way I could let that happen, and I'm super glad that I didn't.
maxerickson 4y ago
It's going to be very situational. Some issues, like dementia, can quickly become impossible (requiring essentially constant availability in addition to the emotional grind that comes with the decline of a close family member).
wombatpm 4y ago
Just went through this with Inlaws. They lived 20 minutes away, my wife would cook meals, shop for them and take her mother to dialysis. I stop by after work and heat up dinner and make sure their meds were ready for the next day. MIL passed just before the lockdowns. After lockdown, I did my WFH at my FIL place, until he was hospitalized for a bleeding ulcer(while on blood thinners not good). Then I lived there full time until he passed 10 months later. He never expected to outlive his wife and would not consider a senior facility. In the end he had kidney failure, bile duct cancer, and lest body dementia. My advice take care of what you can now. Get someone added to the title of the house NOW while they are still mentally able so that you can avoid probate. If they have other property, sell it now. We had to open ancillary probate in Florida for real estate they owned for 30 years - making us miss the best market in years. Get their power of attorney and medical power of attorney in place and active NOW. They can’t sign after having a stroke or when unconscious. And realize things can go downhill quickly. Every illness, or hospitalization takes more out of them, and a lot longer for them to recover. On a serious note, I had the TALK with my parents. I reminded them of how, as a child, I was told having a pony was a foolish luxury and that needed to learn the value of money. I told them I remember that lesson and plan to utilize it when the time come for them to move into a facility. They may want to move in with their other children, because who really needs more than 2stars for a long term care facility.
prometheus76 4y ago
I wrote the comments about my father-in-law at the end of my workday yesterday, and I wanted to come back this morning and answer your question a little more directly. For us, we couldn't bear the thought of watching him waste away in a home and feel helpless to make him comfortable. The care received in those places is often sub-par and careless, at least in our area and for the budget we had available. For us, having him in our home was better because we had the responsibility and opportunity to do our best to make him comfortable. It was also easier for our adult kids and their spouses to come over and visit him. The food was also much better, and many memories will live on of sitting around the dinner table together. We also got the invaluable lessons on patience and self-sacrifice that come with caring for an older person. They're not fully aware of the burdens they are placing on you. They really do regress in many ways to being like children. We would often joke that it was like living with a toddler who wanted to also cook dinner. We felt that we could provide a more comfortable environment in our home than anything we could afford in a care center. My youngest daughter still lives at home, and she also got many important lessons about patience, self-sacrifice, and love. And respect for our parents and grandparents who have already sacrificed so much for us. Taking care of them at the end of their lives is a small but important way of being able to show gratitude to them. It's not an easy decision for anyone, and the challenges and struggles you face will be unique and unpredictable, but I have zero regrets and much gratitude for how our family has grown together as a result of all of us participating in the end of life care for my father-in-law.

rs_rs_rs_rs_rs 4y ago

I'm eastern european, before visiting Germany I was under the impression a retirement home was for old people that don't have any family left at all. I was blown away to find out kids will put their parents in retirements instead of living and taking care of them until they pass away. How is this acceptable for a sane society?

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
lotsofpulp 4y ago
I do not think my kids owe me anything. I want them to prioritize their lives, their futures, and their kids over me. I base this on watching my parents (especially my mother) spend their entire youth taking care of my paternal grandparents, who lived far too long (101 and 97). To boot, my grandfather had my dad in his 50s, and my grandmother was 15 years younger than him, so my mother basically spent ages 20 to 50 as a maid/nurse/cook. They spoke no English (living in the US) and they did not drive, and they detracted from my parents’ ability to do what they wanted to do for their kids.
JumpCrisscross 4y ago
> How is this acceptable for a sane society? A good starting point when trying to understand other cultures is to drop pretences of universal sanity or even morality. American culture values independence. Many senior citizens in old folks’ homes pay for their own stays. They’re choosing to be there. I’d start there to understand why this happens, and how it isn’t a story of heartless holidaying kids dumping their parents on someone else.
- ok_dad 4y ago
  - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
    > no one gives a fuck about anyone other than themselves and actively fucks over other people to get ahead the tiniest amount American culture also prizes traditional notions of community. (In a sense, this is its present political crisis.) The flip side of communal cultures is the stifling of individual choice and identity, the latter particularly problematic for anyone who diverges from the community’s ideal. Note that independence and individuality are similar concepts. But they’re distinct. Individualism is the American cultural trait that inspires competitiveness and sociopathy. Independence seeks to open one’s options but also not be a burden to others. It can be framed selfishly or altruistically depending on the circumstances, which is why I don’t think bringing judgement into such comparisons at the start is productive.
    - ok_dad 4y ago
      Good point, I guess I personally prefer communal cultures and my bias framed my view of American culture as a result. Still, you’re taking close to the No true Scotsman fallacy; if American independent culture relies on local community, and that’s broken right now due to tons of fighting and negative politics, that means our culture is basically broken. I would argue American culture doesn’t work without the situation where locals take care of locals.
      - lotsofpulp 4y ago
        With respect to taking care of elders, or more specifically, people who need assistance due to aging, almost all cultures are “broken” simply due to demographic issues. Longer life expectancies, more medical treatments to keep people around, but not fully functional, and declining birthrates inevitably lead to a situation where sacrifices have to be made.
      - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
betaby 4y ago
Well, don't know about Germany but in Canada old-age people voluntarily move to retirements home. And yes, they took home equity / sold their home and eventually there won't be anything to inherit from them. Don't know whenever it better or not of the eastern European approach.
- evv555 4y ago
  How common is this in Canada? This doesn't sound like a representative anecdote. This sounds like a vacuously true statement as they say in statistics.
  - betaby 4y ago
    I would say very common, see https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2011/as-sa/98-312-x/98-312-x2011003_4-eng.cfm https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2011/as-sa/98... from ten years ago. ' Among seniors in their nineties, over half (56.5%) lived in private households in 2011, including 28.7% who lived alone, 12.2% who were part of couples and 15.7% who lived with others, such as adult children. The remaining 43.5% lived in collectives such as nursing homes or residences for senior citizens. '
    - evv555 4y ago
      This isn't a useful stat for answering the question
LegitShady 4y ago
My mom took care of her father for ~2-3 years from when he started getting sick (and tbh a little dementia) to when he passed. It was really tough on her, even with some help. She told me she plans to not put that burden on anyone else, and has prepared for that situation exactly. People change as they go through suffering and some of the nicest people become quite difficult to deal with after years of physical problems, pain, etc. People also have lives and having someone around to deal with medical issues, or even wipe them in the bathroom, or make them a meal etc becomes challenging especially if the person's kids don't have other people around to help. That doesn't make putting someone in a home better, but its not simple like you seem to think it is.
RappingBoomer 4y ago
we are far from sane
kjreact 4y ago
I would like to offer a counter view; I originally was planning on taking care of both my parents and my in-laws as they aged, but to my surprise neither wanted that. Both sides have experienced taking care of their previous generation and saw the tensions it caused with their significant others. Now neither want to be a burden to our generation so they prefer to live independently. Unlike their parents who were poor immigrants to NA with little to no retirement savings, they held decent jobs for most of their adult lives and have the financial means to live comfortably for the remainder of their lives. So sometimes it isn’t the kids who prefer to send their parents to retirement homes. Some seniors take pride in taking care of themselves.
- orzig 4y ago
  Agreed. My grandmother was lovingly cared for by my grandfather until he died (he was physically able until the end), but in many ways her health was better in the nursing home for the next several years. For her level of needs, 24/7 professionals with a regular rotation of visiting family was the right arrangement. That said, the savings which had seemed perfectly sufficient when he'd retired from a big solid American company (pension, etc) were just obliterated by the black swan of American medical costs, and we had to sell the home which had been in our family for generations.
bojan 4y ago
Retirement homes in Western Europe are probably not the sort of thing you imagine. They are well regulated, and residents have a good mix of privacy, care and social interaction. I prefer vastly to end up in one of those one day then living in with my daughter and her future family. On workdays I'd still be alone and helpless for a good part of the day, waiting like a puppy for them to come home and tend to my physical and social needs. How miserable is that?
homieg33 4y ago
(USA here) My mother always would tell us kids to put her in a retirement home as soon as she became a burden to the family. Her favorite children's book was also The Giving Tree so there’s that.
magic_hamster 4y ago
Also non-American, but I do spend a lot of time in the US and with American people. It seems very common for children to leave home after highschool, move really far away and basically go overnight from living with their parents to seeing them once or twice a year. As time moves on and they get busier, the children might not even see their folks every year. I think that pretty much by default, your life cycle in the US is to leave your house, start your own family, get a bigger place to raise your family, pay it off for a couple of decades, and once your own kids move out, go to Florida and hope your children will see you more than a couple of times before you die. Somber jokes aside, if you plan ahead you can live quite well in the US, even though there's no guarantee you will be in close contact with your family for more than 18 years. To me that's not a great tradeoff (also, medcial treatment costs a fortune) which is why I always go back to my family in my home country. Nothing is better than being with family.
- dgfitz 4y ago
  My cynic take is: you’ve never met my family. And When you’re a burden to your own I wonder if they feel like “nothing is better than being with family”
  - magic_hamster 4y ago
    You're absolutely right. You need some luck being born into a family that shows support, affection and love, and does so in a positive way. There is no shortage of people who can't wait to get away from their family. With that said, even in the most tight knit families, some people don't see each other often because they're busy, live far away, can't afford the trip or don't have enough days off.
- ip26 4y ago
  People leave home because opportunity lies elsewhere. The US has changed pretty fast; the rust belt went from class ladder to sinking ship in a single generation, for example. Smallholder farms have been squeezed out in the last half century by commercial operations pushing down prices, sending many kids who were born on a farm to the city. There are communities all over which are lovely for empty nesters but dead ends for young adults.
VoodooJuJu 4y ago
I don't think it's acceptable, but it's certainly profitable. Taking care of your family doesn't show up in GDP - gotta keep that GDP up though.
triceratops 4y ago
> How is this acceptable for a sane society? I'd rather have my incontinence diapers changed by a care worker than my children.
null_shift 4y ago
I feel that children have no obligation to take care of their elderly parents. They don’t owe them anything. The alternative seems more insane to me.
- ktzar 4y ago
  A society that creates people who feel entitled to say they don't owe anything to those who made immense sacrifices for them (even though nobody chooses their relatives), is quite sad. It's a society so individualistic that deprives one of the main pleasures of human life: making a difference in the lives of those you love.
  - patmcc 4y ago
    Parents choose to have children; in my mind the responsibility flows in that direction, from parent to child. A child has no choice in the matter, why should they be saddled with responsibility? I'll happily care for my mother as she ages - she's been a wonderful parent all my life. But I have friend whose parents basically just kept them alive to adulthood, kicked them out, and are now expecting years of "payback". No thanks.
ip26 4y ago
What do you do when the child left town to seek their fortune, found it a thousand miles away, and the parent doesn’t want to move? Does the child terminate their career to move back? Does the parent move to an unfamiliar place against their will? It’s very difficult to have mobility (chose your own life, follow opportunity) and very tight-knit family at the same time.
- mokash 4y ago
  i'd like the answer to this too. let me know if you ever figure it out

prometheus76 4y ago

My father-in-law lived with us for the last two years of his life (he just passed a few weeks ago). My wife is his only child, and he didn't have a lot of savings, so we were basically the only plan he had. It was difficult, especially as time went on (he had liver disease and later developed liver cancer). We both work full-time, so as soon as we would walk in the door, the requests (demands?) would begin. At the beginning, he was mostly frustrated because he couldn't drive anymore (falling asleep too much) and so he was very bored. He took up some hobbies (mostly carving or drawing) but even then, he was restless and often wanted to make dramatic changes to the living arrangements. He thought he could work a part-time job, but because of his other physical issues (he was very weak and it was hard for him to go up stairs or walk or stand for any length of time) he didn't really have much he could do. We got to know each other well, and my daughter was a saint in helping him a lot when we weren't there (especially during the summers). He cooked for us a lot, especially at the beginning, but towards the end, we had hospice care and he was essentially helpless. I don't regret it for one second. It was difficult, but we were there to help him with the medical system (it's a zoo), insurance, and just helping him with his phone or his tablet really helped calm him down. We all got to know him really well, and he and my wife were able to reconcile a lot of old issues they had. He died peacefully at home, surrounded by family, with a stomach of home-cooked food he loved, listening to his granddaughter play the violin. Again, I don't regret it for a second, even though it's emotionally very difficult.

savryn 4y ago
>as we would walk in the door, the requests (demands?) would begin. old age can be like wealth and power in that it magnifies character defects. Many awful people are going to get old and I kinda wish they could be written off the same way they would in middle age, without the social pressure to be compassionate. There is no innocence regained. Brings out a lot of underlying personality/ cultural /freudian entitlement in people who barely enjoyed getting thru life but are afraid of death. Some old people, it's like they can't wait to regress... (I did my part, I get to be the baby now!) also, immigrant kids have a special hell lots of cultural/ethnic and class differences that makes this burdensome, suffocating, manipulative, and "politically incorrect" to talk about in ways that feels lonely. A lot of these kids never got to be kids, since immigrant parents become low-agency children in practice: can't speak english, can't fill out basic forms, often too poor to do basic stuff by the book (legal, banking, etc), don't know the area to have risk assessment or make decisions adults are supposed to make. The kids have to grow up fast without help, succeed in some way without financial or cultural capital, and then take care of their parents without help. They are often being criticized and their decisions undercut the whole way. Offensive to say but real for many, some immigrant parents often just have god awful personalities: poverty and war and refugee trauma have misshaped them into people that can be hard and unpleasant. Depending on age, many are closed-off, unwelcoming by default, they feel too old to learn new things, racist and endlessly judgmental especially if they never moved out of the self-segregating enclave many start out in the host country. The next generation often feels embarrassed or ashamed of them while having to assimilate, can't bring friends or dates around. Growing up with two different sets of norms and expectations. Leads to simmering resentment and anger covered with guilt and duty and never ending ethnic responsibilities of the religious, Confucian, and/or gendered type. (Women expected to be servant-nannies for their middle-aged in-laws makes me fume.) A lot of immigrant kids who 'made it' despite their crummy families can't really share/talk about it with middle-class suburban Americans... I feel this loneliness and often rage myself and see hints of it just go unspoken in my 'scholarship kids' peer group (asian, indian, latino and post-soviet kids in city gifted programs) now that we're all grown up.

whalesalad 4y ago

I’d probably take my own life before doing the latter.

deleted 4y ago

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ericmcer 4y ago

I watched my Aunt waste away at home, but she had a small house that she had been in for ~40 years. Her daily routine was deeply ingrained in her mind and she was able to function mostly alone into her 90s with severe dementia. Towards the end she didn’t know me and would talk about her husband who was 20 years dead as if he was still there, but she was able to take care of herself. If they had moved her to a nursing home I am sure she would have lost it.

DoreenMichele 4y ago
Keeping their routines is hugely helpful for seniors who are slowly losing their faculties. I stayed with my parents during my divorce and my dad had Alzheimer’s. I and my sons were able to effectively model how to interact with my dad via respecting his routines and stress levels for everyone came way, way down.

gwbrooks 4y ago

I've done both -- at-home hospice for my dad and a nursing home for my mother-in-law. Ultimately, each was the best choice in the circumstance. My dad was easily scared and cognitive decline was, for a while, outpacing the physical decline. Having him at home, with my mom nearby and in familiar surroundings, was a comfort to him and -- despite my mom constantly being scared of having medical strangers in the house -- I'd like to believe she preferred it as well. And it's hard to argue with the cost; my parents didn't have much money and think 18 months (three six-month cycles -- dad held on longer than anyone thought) of at-home hospice resulted in <$1,500 out of pocket. At the end, he died with three generations of people he loved literally standing over him and holding his hand. My mother-in-law? She was always proud of her health and, to be fair, it was well earned. So after her second hip fracture, a planned rehab stay turned into permanent nursing-home residence as it became clear she needed 24-hour care. Could she have gotten that at home? Yeah -- but she once said, years ago, that death was very private and she decided to stay in a facility. It ran about $8k/mo for moderately-OK care and she passed in her sleep about a year later. I don't know there's any wisdom to be found in any of this other than the obvious: Have clarity about what you want before you're too old and too incapacitated to make a nuanced choice. Write it down. Communicate it with your kids and loved ones. Anything else is just creating needless pain.

susiecambria 4y ago
>Have clarity about what you want before you're too old and too incapacitated to make a nuanced choice. Write it down. Communicate it with your kids and loved ones. >Anything else is just creating needless pain. I've had experiences with those who planned and those who didn't and the former is better. My dad planned and so we could spend time doing things he wanted until the very end. My MIL didn't and for a few years it was a constant struggle to be patient. I'm glad I was there with both but man, I'll take planning any day.

pmorici 4y ago

Caring for an elderly parent who is in both mental and physical decline can be tough. In any case it is a deeply personal decision without a definitive right or wrong answer. After seeing my Aunt try to care for my grandmother for years only for it to negatively effect their relationship because of her dementia I wouldn't blame anyone for choosing a care facility. My grandmother lived for close to 20 years after she was no longer able to live independently. I know people who were so effected by their experience of caring for an elderly relative that they checked themselves into a senior living community in their 50's so their kids would never have to feel like they needed to do the same for them.

gumby 4y ago

My parents built their house so they could grow old in it (if they couldn't climb the stairs they could move in downstairs, for example). When they got into their 80s though they found it too much effort to look after. Also my mum saw what happened to her patients as they got old: they became quite lonely because they couldn't get out as much to see people; they didn't have as many visitors because the same was true of their friends. Becoming bedridden was very isolating, and if your spouse died and you fell, you might not be found for a while. So I helped them move into a retirement home. They have friends, meet new people (everybody's in a hurry to do that because people are "departing" all the time). It's basically a nice apartment building with a gym snd such and I doubt there's anyone there under the age of 75. It has various affordances for older people. Attached to the apartment is another building for people who need more assistance, and beyonf that a "memory care" center and one for people who are bedridden. They are quite happy with it. OTOH my grandmother sold her house and moved herself into a "senior apartment complex" when she was about 80, but she kept on delivering meals on wheels into her mid 80s. When she really couldn't look after herself in her mid 90s she moved into senior care centre but she hated it -- she didn't really like old people. But she'd been a widow for almost 50 years, and those of her friends who weren't dead were all disabled one way or another, so she just offed herself. I have another friend (mother of my friends) who is in her late 80s and stuck at home. Her kids pay for round the clock in home care and the one who lives nearby is over there a lot. Fortunately she is losing her marbles a bit so it all works out. So everybody is different. Also, financially, everybody is different. They have an actuarial life expectancy of another decade. If one of them loses their marbles it could be $250K-$500K per annum to look after them well.

badpun 4y ago
> OTOH my grandmother sold her house and moved herself into a "senior apartment complex" when she was about 80, but she kept on delivering meals on wheels into her mid 80s. When she really couldn't look after herself in her mid 90s she moved into senior care centre but she hated it -- she didn't really like old people. I don't think it's "old people" per se. These places gather around people in the sorriest possible states, most of whom are in (understandably) horrible psychical condition. Every time I visit, I feel bad for at least the remainder of the day. Living there must be terrible.

JshWright 4y ago

In 2020 (coincidentally right at the start of the pandemic) we moved into a house with an in-law apartment for my parents. We have three kids under 10, and my parents are in their early 60’s and in good health (mom has been a homemaker her whole life and dad is about a year out from retirement), so we’re likely still a couple decades of this arrangement. It was an intentional decision (based on a couple years of conversations) to enable my kids and my parents to spend a lot of time together, and to make it “easy” for us to care for my parents at the end of their lives. I’m well aware that there will be a lot of tough moments. I’ve got a background as a paramedic, and have spent more time in nursing homes than pretty much anyone who isn’t a resident of staff at a facility. I think the most important step we’ve taken so far is to have a lot of open and honest conversations about how we want things to go.

olyjohn 4y ago

Bring them home. Take care of them as much as you can. Spend time with them. I spent 6 months taking care of my dad while working from home. He was wheelchair bound and we had to have hospice care come in every few days to help out with things. There were no options to send him to a retirement home, unless it was something that Social Security could pay for. So I basically moved in with him, and lived with him until he passed away. Doing it while working full time was the most stressful thing I have ever done. It was so difficult, dealing with doctors and nurses and care people calling every day. Keeping his doctors informed on what was going on. Keeping track of his prescriptions. Keeping his appointments up. And he had a lung disease, and it was during COVID, so it was super isolating, as I could not fuck around at all with exposing him. I could not leave him at home alone at all. It would take 30 minutes to load him into the car... I got maybe a couple of hours a week to leave the house. I also lost my partner of 10 years. But would I do it all again? Most definitely. Despite how hard it was, it was a life-changing experience. I have never felt such love and support from my dad and all the people around me. I'm so glad that I got to spend so much time with him and be with him up to the end. He was so scared of going to a home, there was just no way I could let that happen, and I'm super glad that I didn't.

maxerickson 4y ago

It's going to be very situational. Some issues, like dementia, can quickly become impossible (requiring essentially constant availability in addition to the emotional grind that comes with the decline of a close family member).

wombatpm 4y ago

Just went through this with Inlaws. They lived 20 minutes away, my wife would cook meals, shop for them and take her mother to dialysis. I stop by after work and heat up dinner and make sure their meds were ready for the next day. MIL passed just before the lockdowns. After lockdown, I did my WFH at my FIL place, until he was hospitalized for a bleeding ulcer(while on blood thinners not good). Then I lived there full time until he passed 10 months later. He never expected to outlive his wife and would not consider a senior facility. In the end he had kidney failure, bile duct cancer, and lest body dementia. My advice take care of what you can now. Get someone added to the title of the house NOW while they are still mentally able so that you can avoid probate. If they have other property, sell it now. We had to open ancillary probate in Florida for real estate they owned for 30 years - making us miss the best market in years. Get their power of attorney and medical power of attorney in place and active NOW. They can’t sign after having a stroke or when unconscious. And realize things can go downhill quickly. Every illness, or hospitalization takes more out of them, and a lot longer for them to recover. On a serious note, I had the TALK with my parents. I reminded them of how, as a child, I was told having a pony was a foolish luxury and that needed to learn the value of money. I told them I remember that lesson and plan to utilize it when the time come for them to move into a facility. They may want to move in with their other children, because who really needs more than 2stars for a long term care facility.

prometheus76 4y ago

I wrote the comments about my father-in-law at the end of my workday yesterday, and I wanted to come back this morning and answer your question a little more directly. For us, we couldn't bear the thought of watching him waste away in a home and feel helpless to make him comfortable. The care received in those places is often sub-par and careless, at least in our area and for the budget we had available. For us, having him in our home was better because we had the responsibility and opportunity to do our best to make him comfortable. It was also easier for our adult kids and their spouses to come over and visit him. The food was also much better, and many memories will live on of sitting around the dinner table together. We also got the invaluable lessons on patience and self-sacrifice that come with caring for an older person. They're not fully aware of the burdens they are placing on you. They really do regress in many ways to being like children. We would often joke that it was like living with a toddler who wanted to also cook dinner. We felt that we could provide a more comfortable environment in our home than anything we could afford in a care center. My youngest daughter still lives at home, and she also got many important lessons about patience, self-sacrifice, and love. And respect for our parents and grandparents who have already sacrificed so much for us. Taking care of them at the end of their lives is a small but important way of being able to show gratitude to them. It's not an easy decision for anyone, and the challenges and struggles you face will be unique and unpredictable, but I have zero regrets and much gratitude for how our family has grown together as a result of all of us participating in the end of life care for my father-in-law.