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How many of you have boomer parents that ruined their retirement planning and now you're paying for their rent/nursing homes? I spend $1800/mo on my 70yo mother

• reaperman 3y ago
  I submit without comment/intent: “Filial Responsibility Laws”: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filial_responsibility_laws https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filial_responsibility_laws
  • swozey 3y ago
    I'm in CO, I have no legal filial responsibility outside of wanting my mother to not be homeless.
    • reaperman 3y ago
      I’ve always been curious how it works across state boundaries. What if the child is in Pennsylvania and the parent is in Colorado? The reverse?
      • swozey 3y ago
        Yeah I'm not sure. I only heard that term recently and it shocked me that it was a thing. I immediately ran to see if it was a thing in CO. There's some lawsuit going on in PA where a guy who works a pretty normal income job, I think maybe he was a restaurant owner or manager. Anyway, IIRC his entire family except mother lives in Italy or somewhere overseas. He's the only one in the USA. He's being sued by her nursing home for $93k in back rent. IIRC he's lost every appeal. He had not a single thing to do with her nursing home contracts. He definitely made under 100k, I think 40-60k. I don't see it in this article and I'm too tired to dig around. https://hh-law.com/blogs/supplemental-hh-law-blogs/pa-filial-responsibility-law-are-you-your-mothers-keeper/ https://hh-law.com/blogs/supplemental-hh-law-blogs/pa-filial...
        • hiatus 3y ago
          > There's some lawsuit going on in PA Last I read, the superior court of PA denied hearing his case and so the lower court ruling holding him responsible held.
          • suckitsam 3y ago
            I'm pretty sure PA's entire legal system exists to fund institutions.
        • wing-_-nuts 3y ago
          I gotta be honest, that's pretty oppressive. Mom might have a right to not be homeless but IMHO has no right to enroll herself in a home in Italy and saddle her child with debt. Mom should have been repatriated back to the states if possible, and if not, the nursing home should have taken it out of her estate. Otherwise what's to stop someone from enrolling in a luxurious assisted living and sacking an estranged child with debt. Seems wrong to me.
      • hotpotamus 3y ago
        I know someone who will never move back to PA for this reason.
      • pc86 3y ago
        It applies to children in Pennsylvania, so if the parent is in a nursing home anywhere in the US, but that company has operations in Pennsylvania, you can be held responsible. As if anyone needed yet another reason to get out of Pennsylvania (I lived there for the first ~30 years of my life).
• foobarian 3y ago
  This is where all the socialist Euros get to say, "we told you so" re: letting individuals have freedom to DIY their retirements
  • slowmotiony 3y ago
    If my choice is "pay almost nothing, get no retirement" and "pay half your salary, get no retirement" then I'm 100% for the US model. Too bad I don't have that choice.
    • pc86 3y ago
      If you're here, you have the economic means to move and make it your choice.
      • slowmotiony 3y ago
        Sorry but I don't understand. Does the US give out citizenships or work visas on the basis of having a HN account...?
        • sgjohnson 3y ago
          it's an unwritten rule of HN that you must be able to self-sponsor an EB5 investor's green card. It's just measly $900k. /s, obviously. I'm already married, and I don't have an advanced degree (nor I have the need for one). My only options of getting a green card are (ranked from the least to most ridiculous) - winning in the green card lottery - finding someone to sponsor me an EB3, which would be very difficult, as I would refuse to accept an H1-B, unless they also immediately file for an EB3 (because on H1-B my wife wouldn't get a work authorization, but with EB3 she also gets an EB3 as dependent spouse) - coughing up $900k for EB5 - divorcing and marrying a US citizen (or LPR) - doing something that would get me persecuted in my home country but what was perfectly legal in the US, and applying for asylum in the US none of these options are feasible. I do play the green card lottery every year though.
• magic_hamster 3y ago
  I don't know your situation, but as for the sentiment, it sounds like you really resent this. My only advice is that you accept it and do it wholeheartedly. Assuming you can't change the situation, being at peace is sometimes worth more than money. If you want extra motivation, keep in mind that raising a child (you!) is very expensive. If you paid everything back, it might be around the ballpark of paying some rent for your mother (or, way more...).
  • swozey 3y ago
    This is an absolutely ludicrous statement. I don't owe my mother for the birth or childhood that I wasn't around to give approval to having. Nor do I owe her an ounce of positivity that I'm paying her rent while she's owned and sold more houses and motorcycles and everything else while I've been estranged from her since I was kicked out of the house at 16 and she votes for Trump and republicans who want to eradicate the $1200/mo she lives off of outside of my money. Be at peace.. my god.. lol. I don't have children, and won't have children. I don't expect anyone to pay for my old age.
  • toomuchtodo 3y ago
    I have had to provide material support to both of my parents, one of whom died suddenly, the other who is still around and resents my success while I provide almost all of their support. I provide the support because it's the "right" thing to do, but I fault no one who tells a parent to pound sand because they fucked up their life. How terrible of a person one must be to have children and then expect them to provide for them. You owe your parents nothing, it was their choice to have you, and their life to live. Maybe support social safety nets instead of pushing your terrible choices directly onto your children.
    • deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    • genman 3y ago
      You are actually mistaken completely. There s no your or theirs. It's all the same system, the cycle of life so to say and it's all connected. Just out of curiosity - were you the only child in the family?
• lucaspm98 3y ago
  Boomers in the US lived through potentially the most economically prosperous environment in the history of humanity. Of course you can point out various crises and low points, but generally every factor has worked in their favor. They've had strong employment, cheap education, population growth, strong unions, rising wages, common pensions, strong dollar/low inflation, low real estate prices that later peak around retirement age, great stock market returns peaking around retirement age, advent of the 401k, cheap debt in peak earning years, and the list goes on. Unless they had incredibly bad luck or a major disability it'd be hard to be in a bad spot for retirement without being completely financially irresponsible. I have much less compassion and willingness to help in that situation.
  • rickydroll 3y ago
    It doesn't take incredible bad luck or major disability. It can just be a steady drip drip drip of bits of bad luck. something like 40+ percent of the Boomer generation is going to retire to poverty. There are many reasons ranging from jobs that don't pay enough or didn't offer a retirement plan. Divorce especially grey divorces are a common reason for no retirement money as is medical bankruptcy. job loss in your 50s and age discrimination contributes to lack of recovery. All the benefits that you pointed out of growing up in the Boomer era were concentrated in a very small part of the population. Pensions were not as common as you might think and a many of them were underfunded and collapsed in the late 1980s. 401(k)s were never intended to be a retirement plan. They were created to supplement pensions and personal savings. In my darker moments I think they were also created as a rent seeking vehicle for the financial industry. Great stock market return benefits mostly the financial elite. My father bought stock for his kids and returns were pretty crappy. Every ESOP program I participated in found me buying high and selling low (bad financial advice). Debit is never been cheap. When I bought my first house in 1980, it was 14 1/2% interest on a three year arm. we refinanced down to something like 9% a few years later. Over 15 years, it only appreciated by something like 2x-ish what we paid for it. when we bought our second house, interest was in the 6% range. yes, I had a lot of opportunity but between exploitive/bad financial advice, medical bankruptcy, and divorce all those advantages came to nothing. The lesson to take from this is you are just as vulnerable to the same forces. You sound like you have better financial literacy but doesn't matter if it's one bad event or series of smaller bad events, all of your retirement planning goes in the dumpster with no hope of recovery. what am I doing about my (lack of) retirement? Saving as much I can, choosing a better partner this time around, and like half of my generation, working till I die, and hoping I die quickly when the time comes.
• JKCalhoun 3y ago
  I was able to squirrel away a little of my mom's Social Security (and a bit of pension) money each month when she retired so that it was less likely I would have to dip into my own savings to support her. I do share the sentiment.
• srj 3y ago
  Yeah my in-laws were somewhat well off at one point but one of them lost their job two decades ago and emptied their 401k with penalties so they could maintain their standard of living. Last year we bought them a house so the working spouse didn't need to stay employed into their mid 70s. They pay "rent" equivalent to about 25% of the payments we make each month for the mortgage + taxes. I also found out last year that since they pay below-market rates I need to count the rent they do pay as income for taxes but don't benefit from any of the usual landlord tax deductions (e.g. depreciation).
• NikolaNovak 3y ago
  "Disgusts me" is a harsh statement to be said about one's mother (depending on other circumstances, which were not presented here). But to engage productively in the conversation: My own meager experience, as an immigrant to Canada, is that these things can be highly culturally dependant. Where & When I'm from, I feel parents sacrificed more for their kids upbringing (kids were not supposed to "get a job" in high school or university, typically stayed with their parents until marriage, were supported financially frequently beyond that point as well). Having output a lot more energy to upbringing, cultural norm at that time was largely that children will then take care of parents on the other end; frequently parents will live out their years with one of the children (while helping as babysitters etc - it's still not a one-direction relationship:) My experience in North America is that kids will become independent earlier, have jobs and some income as early as 16, frequently will move out as young as ~18 (University), obtain loans or work jobs to provide financing for university, and are unlikely to return home afterwards (*Historically! The housing crisis may bring the two approaches closer together!). As such, there's lower energy invested by parents into upbringing and somewhat lowered expectation / frequency of supporting parents later. My third anecdata observation is that some issues occur when cultures change - i.e. if parents invested a lot of energy into kids somewhere else, then they all move to North America where culturally we're less well setup to support our parents; this may occur in a "one-time" generational glitch with parents possibly left hanging. ---- That's my overall perception; as to your specific case, devil is always in the details - outsiders like us don't know, and don't need to know the background - how much your parents supported you, what happened that jeopardized their retirement, and what your overall relationship is :-/. I am planning and expecting to support my dad in at least some of his retirement (my mom passed away young), but again, I was lucky with my parents, and cultural expectations and specific family relationships differ. We all have our own story and history.
  • lotsofpulp 3y ago
    >My third anecdata observation is that some issues occur when cultures change - i.e. if parents invested a lot of energy into kids somewhere else, then they all move to North America where culturally we're less well setup to support our parents; this may occur in a "one-time" generational glitch with parents possibly left hanging. I invest everything I can into my kids, but I have zero expectations of them sacrificing their goals to help me. What people may have expected is kids will live nearby and help out, which is a perfectly reasonable thing to expect from nearby family, but things start getting dicey when kids have better economic opportunities in other places or simply want to live somewhere different or unaffordable for the parents. Also, I know lots of immigrant cultures that have an expectation of daughters in law being expected to be full time chefs/nurses/maids, so one generation of women that had to be a chef/nurse/maid will get shafted, while they will not receive the same from their daughter in law.