Non CF People On Aging & Moving In With Children

[Tabetha]

I came across an discussion on City-Data.Com asking whether people with kids prefer to move in with their families when they're old or live in a retirement/nursing home and the answers were interesting.

www.city-data.com/forum/retirement/127061-living-your-children.html

Here's a few of the replies in the thread which was started by a CF person...

If the choice were live with my kids (whom I love and adore) or move into a retirement home, I'd choose the retirement home - I would not want to be a burden to my kids or strain relationships with my DIL's. One thing is for sure, I hope to remain flexible with regards to living arrangements as my mother ages and as my husband and I age - there are lots of options to consider...

Back to the original posting question, no I would not move in with my kids and I would resist moving to a retirement home unless reaching the point of physically being incapable of living independently.

In anticipation, when I retired earlier this year we moved into a home with a first floor master bedroom and bath, allowing for single floor living if needed as we age. We have an upstairs with bedrooms and bathrooms, currently for family and friends who come out here and visit. In selecting our home, we kept in mind what is preferred to accommodate aging...

They have their own lives, and shouldn't need to plan around us. My role model is my folks, who have the same attitude about self sufficiency. I have friends whose older parents moved back in with them, and after a few months they all have become childlike in their demands and expectations of their adult kids...

Now that my wife has passed I am alone. Visited my daughter in Anchorage this weekend and she's telling me she thinks I should be planning where I'm gonna go when I get "older". I was stupified by the question. I plan to live in the house my wife and I built with our own two hands until I keel over, I guess. No way do I want to be in a home or have her taking care of me when she has kids of her own and her a single parent, or be a burden to my other kids who aren't too keen on Alaska anyway...

One of the things that's so intriguing about this thread is that despite having children, the prospect of retirement choices for many of those replying seems to create mixed feelings about the subject even in those raised to by society to expect that their children should provide them with a retirement safety net.

[ruth59]

So, despite all the 'who will take care of you when you're old?' comments, when the time actually comes, people really don't want to 'burden' their children.

[preraph]

I have real life experience with this, having had guardianship of three elderly people, my aunt and parents. People are envisioning only needing a modicum of care, like Mom moves in but all they have to do is take her to run an errand or fix her a meal but that she will be fine while they're at work or that she will be able to take herself to the bathroom.

The reality is much harsher. The reality is that no one, not even old people with kids, want to leave their home where they've been for 30 years and move anywhere. The reality is that their dream is to have their kids stop their life and come move in with them, but only one, not the whole family, and be at their beck and call under their terms and living under rules much the same as when they were a teenager.

The bigger and most important reality is that no one wants help until they absolutely can't do anything for themselves, until they break a hip and/or are incontinent. The reality is that it takes a staff, not just one person, to bed-feed a person and prop them up and take them to the restroom around the clock. It takes a staff to change the diaper of an old person around the clock. It isn't something one person or two people can do. It takes a hospital bed to keep an old person from falling out of it.

The other thing people who haven't been through it don't take into account is usually people become mentally incompetent. What this will mean is they may not KNOW they need help and fight you every step of the way, resent your presence, become paranoid of everyone and everything. If they remain in their home and are the type of person to let new people into their lives (or sleazy relatives take advantage), they will be constantly ripped off.

Anytime I hear anyone speaking about having kids solves this problem, I know they've never been through looking after an old person. Unless you 1) have a spare bedroom equipped with a hospital bed and 2) have a child with a large mature family who lives with you and are all willing to be nurses for however many years it's necessary (with my father, incompentent mentally and incontinent in diapers, it was 10 years), this fairytail of having kids take care of you is just that, a fairytale. In reality, there comes a time you need staff.

All three of these people I was guardian for lived out of town a long ways from me. My aunt, a very pleasant woman, even in her old age, went to a nursing home in her home town and my sister and I spent quite a lot of time hiring and firing private help to also stay there with her round the clock because she wasn't used to having any time alone and was scared (having been married 60 years or something).

My father remained robust physically to the point he would throw things at the nurses, but his mind was degenerated. He fought anyone trying to hold him back from going to the liquor store or just go driving or things normal people want to do that he couldn't do any longer due to his severe incompetence and though we first tried private staff to care for him in his home, his biligerence made that impossible. He had to go into a nursing home he couldn't get out of. For 10 years. So he wouldn't steal a riding lawn mower and be gone for three days or get arrested for drag racing because in his mental state, he usually felt he was 19 years old and didn't even recognize his family.

My mom stayed in her home for a long time and managed not to break something, but she gradually got to where she just couldn't keep up with everything. She had notions of living with me, but she and I always butted heads, and it was always her way or the highway, so I knew that wasn't going to work. Also, I worked out of my home and knew I'd never get any work done if I was trying to nursemaid someone and/or listening to them yammer 12 hours a day. She opted to go to a nursing home, a small one that was better than any others I'd seen, and lived there a short time before a brain tumor took her.

People just have to face up that once an old person is ready to acquiesce to someone else's care, it's because they can't do anything for themselves and are pretty much impossible to care for. Kids don't solve that. The most a kid can do is check on their homes and keep their car from going bad, take their pets, go visit them and take them out for a drive, make sure no opportunists are victimizing them, and check on their caretakers regularly to make sure they're getting proper care and everyone is showing up (they're not), and manage their finances, and let them know you love them. And believe me, when you're working full-time, that is plenty enough to keep two adults busy, as me and my sister can attest.

[Tabetha]

preraph said:

The reality is that it takes a staff, not just one person, to bed-feed a person and prop them up and take them to the restroom around the clock. It takes a staff to change the diaper of an old person around the clock. It isn't something one person or two people can do. It takes a hospital bed to keep an old person from falling out of it.

I saw a bit of this when my husband was the personal live-in chef for a mentally healthy (whipsmart, really) but dying gay man in his 60's.

In the beginning, when he was healthier but pretty physically weak, volunteers from the Office on Aging had to come in and drive to and help him get physical therapy at a local swimming pool and gym several times a week (to slow down muscle wasting).

As his health further crumbled, several more aides were needed regularly to come in when he became bed-bound to take care of the rest of his growing needs.

It was very frustrating for him, because he had always been so vital and independent. He'd traveled all over the world but now was stuck in a hospital bed in a tiny room.

He eventually ended up moving into a Hospice center so he could die in more dignity than the local hospital would have given him.

My grandmother was sickly for nearly 20 years, and as she moved closer to death, she transformed from a hard-driving, ambitious career-woman to a willfully dependent, moody person who took out her lifetime resentments on us and ran my mother around like a slave 24/7 since she didn't want "strangers in her house".

[preraph]

Being old and dependent on others does not translate into grateful, meek and acquiescent, which I think is what many people envision. Getting old is hard and it makes you cranky, and aging and losing your abilities magnifies every flaw you ever had tenfold.

[shell]

Thanks for sharing that story Preraph. Most would not take on that level of responsibility like you did. You must be a very patient and understanding soul. I am not close with my parents, actually quite estranged, as there is alot of 'history' there that is bad. I am in fear and dread of what will happen as they age. While I will do what I can, because although they did not care for me when I was young, I don't think I could do the same to them and neglect them in their old age. I just couldn't do that to anyone. I will likely be paying for a nursing home for them. They don't have much money, as far as I can tell.
Shell

[preraph]

I have very little patience, and as you can see, I delegated much of the work. It's really hard to take care of your mom and dad when it means going against their wishes (they're not thinking right). It's not worth bringing your relationship with them down to that.

The good news, Shell, is that once they're eligible for Medicare, 65, I think, they can get that to pay for nursing home, but they must relinquish everything to do that, so you want to wait until there's really no way for them to go home. I think you sign over everything, basically, except personal possessions. I didn't do that with either of my parents. We paid for it out of their money, because at least with mom, she had the peace of mind of thinking maybe she could go home again. I know that will be the big issue with me. I'd rather die alone at home and 10 years early than away from my home under any circumstances. My home is precious to me.

[shell]

I wonder if that is the same in Canada here? I have not looked into it. There is the Canada Pension Plan, everyone pays into it via a deduction from their paycheque throughout their working life. But that looks like it will be depleted by the time I am older, all the baby boomers are using it up!! Yes, I think I would rather die at home too, even if it means kicking off a few years early. I think that once your quality of life is gone, your life is pretty much over.

[ana]

shell said:

I wonder if that is the same in Canada here? I have not looked into it. There is the Canada Pension Plan, everyone pays into it via a deduction from their paycheque throughout their working life. But that looks like it will be depleted by the time I am older, all the baby boomers are using it up!! Yes, I think I would rather die at home too, even if it means kicking off a few years early. I think that once your quality of life is gone, your life is pretty much over.

I was always worried about that too. That's why I started saving for retirement so early.

My parents are in their 70's and have no plans to leave their home. They have someone come in to clean, mow the lawn and shovel their driveway. If need be, we will get them private nursing care but they definitely want to stay in their own home as long as possible.

[cnu5000]

My parents are 80 and 85. They are still able to live independently. They also hire help to take care of the house and lawn.

I think child-free people do OK in "healthy and young" old age(I know some). I think when I get older there will be more "supported" old age services(i.e. prepared meals, house cleaning) as the baby boomers get older.

In "young" old age, I think there can be a certain freedom in being child-free. People can spend their money on themselves rather than worry about the next generation.

In the novel Gulliver's Travel's. Gulliver travels to a place where people have eternal life but not eternal youth-these people just get frailer, sicker, more senile etc. Gulliver realizes that eternal life is not good without eternal youth. So maybe I also feel at some point in time it is just better to go rather than lead a restricted life.

[happy2bchildfree]

cemoses said:

So maybe I also feel at some point in time it is just better to go rather than lead a restricted life.

I KNOW that I would rather die than lose my independence and be forced to live a restricted life.

If/when I get to the point where I can no longer take care of myself, suicide will definitely be an option.

[cnu5000]

Sometimes when things aren't too busy at work I listen to NPR. There was one section on aging Japan. Japan has the oldest population in the world with a shrinking population. They were saying that things were more socialized there in that the elderly were seen as everyone's responsibility.

A lot of people there were saying they would rather die then be dependent on other people.

[kentuckykimmie]

this is a terrible thing to say since i am not getting any younger myself, but i think that some old people are nearly as much of a burden and hassle as children. i don't want to sound like Hitler or anything, but when a person is useless to himself or others i think it's time he departed this life with grace. people are being kept alive way too long by artificial means and i think it's selfish. i have no intention of becoming a burden on anyone and i would commit suicide in a heartbeat should i foresee this anytime in my future.

we need legalized voluntary euthansia for the elderly like never before. old people who are also sick in mind are a hazard to the roads, they are a danger to themselves and often times others, and they are'nt really themselves anymore anyway especially if they have any form of dementia. they are a financial and emotional burden to their spouses and children and need to be peacefully allowed to die if they are too ill to take care of themselves. if we asked people before they got too ill to be able to understand what they wanted should they get dependent like that, i would bet that a lot of people would opt for euthanasia. i know i would. it will never happen though because like abortion for severely deformed fetus', it's politically incorrect.

[happy2bchildfree]

kentuckykimmie said:

i don't want to sound like Hitler or anything, but when a person is useless to himself or others i think it's time he departed this life with grace.

I don't think you sound like Hitler or anything. Seriously, what is the point of being kept alive when all quality of life is gone? Life in that condition isn't living. It's merely existing, and it's an emotional drain on the family. It would be so much better for all concerned for the person to be able to end his life with dignity.

I know I wouldn't want to continue to live in that condition.

[ana]

My husband and I are in the process of writing a living will. Both of us are quite adamant about not being kept alive if we have no quality of life.

Hopefully, we will be able to cover all contingencies. (but i doubt it)