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1) My parents are both retired and have been since their 40's, so I'm really used to it. As far as "handling" them, well, they have more flexibility now so they can come visit more! And that is really, really nice. But they seem to forget that we can't just drop everything and go on vacation with them or visit them because we work in the corporate world.
2) I am not socking away money to take care of our parents. Nor is DH. I am of the mindset that that is their responsibility, and I know my parents, definitely, are okay, and that DH's mom has money set aside to retire in 10 years. I'm socking away for MY retirement and MY 401K now. And when I have kids, I will have them to provide for. I could never see my parents expecting us to take care of them. We've had discussions and they're very against this.
3) Our only rules are that they won't live with us. I am not opposed to appropriate care homes for my folks, and they for one, have already told me, "put us in homes. don't let us live with you, it's not right" and are adamant about us not taking care of them. They are selfless about this and would rather us spend our money on putting our kids to college than paying for them to sit in a nursing home. They have literally drilled this into my head. I know if my father passes first, my mom has commented that she wants to buy a home in st louis and at least be near us, though. I wouldn't be opposed to hiring my mom, say, a lady who comes and cleans for her and does the 'backbreaking' work, though.
I know it's a cultural thing, but my parents are very big on not burdening me in their old age. They have tried to have their parents live with them at various stages, but it has never worked out well. So, seeing as how the experience was unfavorable, I never see them trying to permanently move in with us.
Its certainly a question that we have discussed in passing. Luckily both of our parents are doing very well. I don't think my parents would ever move up by us and I don't think his parents would even leave their home.
We have talked a little bit about when/if it would be appropriate/ok to offer help to family. Its hard though because it really will depend on where we are at that point in our lives.
I worry about this a lot. DH's mom is fine, she's already on disability for medical reasons, and was awarded a fat settlement, so she's pretty much OK. That could (and probably will) change, though. I think that's just a bridge we will have to cross when we come to it
My mom, on the other hand, is an entirely different story. She's been self-employed most of her adult working life, and I know she struggles just to pay her income taxes. She never has any extra money, for anything, ever. Even when we were kids her money management skills were pretty bad. Now that I'm not around to "police" her spending, I'm sure it's out of control. But I've made it pretty clear to her that I will not be able to take care of her (financially) in her old age. She's 51 now - I think she thinks she will never get old, or retire.
I wouldn't be opposed to my mom living within walking distance of me... but definately not in the same house! DH and I have talked about it, but not very seriously. We just both know that SO MUCH can and will change in the next 10 or so years... so why worry ourselves too much about it now?
I am like your parents ejs. I get there's cultural diffences and everything but I feel it is my duty to take of myself, it's no one elses job. I would want my kids to focus on their own family first and formost. Kids are not born with jobs. It makes me feel icky when I hear people say that they have kids only because they want someone to take care of themselves.
My family is pretty self supporting. My grandparents are in their 70/80's and still working every day...they would be bored if they weren't doing something. My dad doesn't have the greatest job with benefits but plans on switching soon to get a retirement package. I'm pretty sure my step mom has nice benefits.
FIL is already retired and I doubt DH will support him and his wife much anyways with their relationship. They seem to be smart and put together money wise. Even though she has been told, MIL used to pretty much expects us to support her entirely when her current support is up (her mom). Now she says she would rather commit suicide than ask for help from her kids. Her plan all along has been to get a sugar daddy, not finding a job to support herself. That has been unsuccesful. Hopefully grandmother-il will live awhile longer. DH has told her that we will help if we have the money but we will not be helping her to our demise.
As for people moving in with us, well I would so much rather not. I would rather eat Ramen noodles for supper than have MIL live with us. She doesn't like me and won't even stay in our house when she visits anymore, which is never. I get people are put in tough spots but it's hard for me to help someone when they haven't tried to even help themselves.
Yes, snowflake, we will all cross that bridge when it gets here...just wondering what was decided as everyones plan just to get an idea.
@pendola, your MIL sounds like my aunt. She's 57, like my dad, with ZERO savings. And I worry about what'll happen if she doesn't find someone to take care of her! She has tried to move in with my parents and they flat out REFUSED. I find it very sad that my aunt is in her 50's and has never been stable her entire life, and I worry about her
At the moment, we are unable to save any money for this, but we will have to start soon. We both feel that because our parents sacrificed in order to take care of us as children, it is our responsibility to do the same for them later in life. ((I am not saying that this is the only way to feel about this issue, just to be clear)).
Also, we both grew up in multi-generation households, so it is something that we are used to. We would be very open to having them live with us at some point - it would depend on their wishes and on our financial situation. Sometimes it is better for older folks to be in an environment that can cater to them more, such as a retirement home. Personally, I'd prefer to have them with us, but I realize they may not want to!
ETA: just noticed this was in newlyweds! Obviously I am not yet a newlywed, but this is something that we've discussed at length.
I've heard of people buying their parents houses but there's no way we could do that unless we win the lottery that we don't play.
If we did have the money, I did have the idea of moving everyone into one house but that would be a lot of drama between everyone: no one likes MIL.
My grandmother just retired. 12 years ago, give or take, she moved to take a job that had a retirement plan just to have the retirement plan and insurance because she feels those are important and her current job didn't offer much. She is older than MIL (10+ years) and every reason that MIL gives to not getting a job, well guess what my grandmother did it. MIL: I don't have a degree. Well neither did my grandmother. MIL: I don't have much experience. Well neither did my grandmother. She has all these excuses that I do not buy. Yes I get the job market sucks right now but she has been this way for YEARS. MIL does not understand how important having health insurance is. I don't know if she has ever had it. The bills usually go onto creditors and she waits until it's off her credit report. I have had health insurance and retirement beat into my head and everyone thinks I am crazy for starting to save.
Oh my DH did say that with his moms health she probably won't last long.
My husband and I have discussed this together a LOT and tried to talk to my parents about it too - but they are off in la-la land and refuse to be responsible. We tried to get them to look at buying long term care insurance, and they laughed and said they are not going to give their money away. We are very, very worried that the burden to care for them will fall on us, and they do not seem to care one bit. They are going to retire soon and have very little saved. They plan to live off my dad's pension plus his social security. I am most worried if my dad passes away first, because my mom really won't get much from SS and she has no pension. She also has a serious spending problem, and only laughs when we try to discuss it with her. We even sent them fill-in-the-blank forms for wills and powers of attorney, and two years later they have not touched them. Their financial affairs are going to be in a huge disarray and it will be up to us to fix everything. I don't know what else to do, we have tried everything to get them education and support and they don't care.
Don't worry about the section Jenni. All the boards I thought about posting this on are WR so I thought I would put it on the nesting board since it isn't WR.
I think it is great that you have discussed this at length so there are no surprises. I didn't grow up in a family like yours. Being in the sandwich generation seems like a hard time because you are taking care of everyone and one can only stretch so far.
I have discussed it with my mom, and in the end she and my step father will live independently as long as they can, and then we will make final decisions on things when the time comes. I also have an uncle and aunt (my moms brother and sister) who I am extremely close to. My aunt's husband is about 20 years older her, so he will pass before her and she has no kids, my uncle and his partner have been together 20+ years and they have no kids. So I have also had discussions with them that I will be there for them when the time comes, I am also the executor of both their estates. It's strange to talk about but I'm glad that things like this have been discussed early in my family, so we all are on the same page about what direction things will go in atleast in a broad sense.
My parents are very well off. My dad actully just got laid off and is SO excited (hes been expecting his work to close for YEARS) They plan on buying a house in FL to live in in the winter and maine in the summer. FH and I plan on building a new house in a couple of years and We will prob have an apt over the garage for them ( they will be paying of course!) And i cant wait because my mom mows the lawn like everyday and FH mows our yard like once a month!
Ugh. I'll be taking care of my mom. He knows. His parents will be fine. Hopefully, one, magical day she can live in the imaginary guest house behind my imaginary house.
We haven't outright discussed this but it's pretty obvious neither set of parents expect anything from us (except for visits and grandchildren.) I know my mom is set for retirement, as are my in-laws. My dad is a farmer so there's no retirement package there and I'm not sure how much planning ahead he's done but both families are fiercely independent (as were their parents.) Our families definitely have the "take care of yourselves and the next generation" mentality. Out of my grandparents, two died "young" and two died in their homes with help only at the very end. Same thing with J's maternal grandparents. I would imagine our parents, and eventually ourselves, follow in their footsteps. (Though hopefully not the "young" part!)
My parents are FAR from set up to retire, thankfully, I have a sibling who would be financially capable of helping in that regard. the other sibling is as unreliable as the weather, and is part of the contributing factor to their financial woes.
As for FFIL & FMIL, well .. I kind of have the sinking feeling we're going to be expected to help them with the costs of retirement/long term care. They are a decade older than my parents and neither is in a very attractive financial situation. Also, despite the fact that FMIL has 2 children, FBIL is just starting out and has a hard enough time supporting himself let alone to think about his mother's possible retirement in 10 years.
We've discussed logistics, but definitely don't want to be 'held responsible' or so to speak. Mostly all 4 of them are in the financial situations they are in from making poor life choices/poor financial decisions, and we don't feel it is 'fair' to have to pick up the slack from them all living like 50+year old teens.
I mean, I'm 22, my SO is 24 and we BOTH have 10k (separately) socked away for retirement already, call me selfish, or greedy but I don't want to spend my retirement funds on someone else's retirement (especially since they will all be covered by CPP & I won't!)
At the very MOST, we would consider renting an in-law suite or such like. Long term care is the part that scares me Sh*tless (my g-ma has Parkinson's & Alzheimer's, so I have definitely seen the 'dark side' of old age).
Uugh, now I feel like I should call my sister and figure this out!
DEFINITELY a subject to talk about with both sets of parents as individual children (rather than a married couple); then discuss with each other as a married couple. I have this discussion with my parents about every 7 years, starting with my 18th birthday, when a special about "old folks homes" aired on the local news. Most recent was last year, when they assured me about their insurance plans & savings & home they own being able to cover any costs they can forsee. My cousin (who is like an adopted sister) & I have discussed what we'll do, if anything unforseeable occurs (so we don't fight over inheritance or what to do with it). After Mr. proposed (about 5 mos later, actually) we had a convo about it. His parents are well-off & have a living trust, so no worries there. It was a good thing to talk about with my parents (some of their plans have been executed within the last 15 years, & they're just reaching Senior Citizenship status) & one less thing to "worry about" with wedding/marriage planning between Mr. & I. Now, we're concerning ourselves with providing them with grandchildren rather than retirement.
I worry about this - not financially, because our parents are responsible and have good retirement. But more the burden of having parents live with us. We could handle one but there is a very good possibility that more than one parent will need it. I'm an only child and my FI has one sister who has a rather explosive relationship with their mom.
In our family, it's seen as cold to stick parents in homes (even though R's parents own one! Maybe their own would be okay? Haha.) and I would like to help for as long as we could.
@lilyfaith, that's so ironic!!!
My parents are both dead-set against going to care homes. My dad refuses and my mom worked in one for years and they both don't want one. I'd rather provide use their money to provide them someone to come help out. At first a few days a week (laundry, cooking, etc), and eventually, more day-to-day care. I think they could have the best of both worlds that way, and I'm sure I could find someone qualified and affordable down in Branson =]
My inlaws are in their 60s (both of my parents have passed away), and while we haven't discussed it with them, between the two of us, we will move in with them or have them live with us when the time comes. We owe them that.
Luckily fiance and i discussed us having my parents live with us. I'm the oldest of my siblings and I would feel better taking care of my parents. I'm hoping my siblings would help them financially since they don't have too much saved up. As for fiance's parents, we're hoping his sisters would continue to live with them and if not, we'll help them fiancially. Our parents mean a great deal to us and we would support them. Plus, they'd love to help raise the kids. =)
I think it is great that you have that much already, MissMouse! I'm a little older than you but I get the weird looks, some from my DH but at the same time, how do you say "If we don't start now, we'll end up like your mom!"
Don't the latest figures say you have to save a couple million?
I don't know what I am going to do. As far as I know, my dad doesn't have life insurance or any retirement savings at all. My mom has a 401K (no IRA or any other savings)... but she has borrowed repeatedly against the 401K (and the home equity) for various things... so I doubt there is much left there. Neither have health problems, but both are heavy smokers. I guess this is something I should think about, but I don't see how I even have a choice in the matter, really. It pisses me off b/c all of this is due to irresponsible decisions... at certain points in time my mother had very good jobs.
>>It pisses me off b/c all of this is due to irresponsible decisions... at certain points in time my mother had very good jobs.<<
Have you talked to either of them? I think you do have a choice, honestly. If you let them know up front that you won't be able to support them 100%, then they aren't going into this blind and have a chance to prepare now. You can get all your expectations out in the open.
My husband and I have discussed this before. In my family we grew up living in multi-generational households, while for my husband it was the opposite. We are not saving up money for our parents as they have saved more than they need for their retirement.
My parents did put me through school and never asked for repayment, so i do give them large monetary gifts each year and hubby is alright with that. His parents did not help him financially so they receive regular gifts.
Both of our parents have no interest in living with us at this point. they are only in their fifties and would like to live on their own for as long as possible. In-laws plan to live alone with hired help until they pass away basically. my parents will live together as long as possible and if something happens to one of them, the other will live with my sister. they've already chosen to live with her as they get along better with her.
I would like to keep my parents out of a nursing home for as long as possible, while the in-laws don't want to burden us and are willing to go in once they are not able to live alone with help.
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Have any of you discussed how you will handle both your parents when they retire, become unable to work, etc.?
Are you socking away money now to take care of both your family and both sets of parents? Are you completely opposed to them living with you?
Do you have any rules about when you will step in to help them? Are you against supporting them 100%?
These are the only questions that are coming to mind right now but would love input. I'm curious as to what everyone is doing or has done.