mhmarfil Asked December 2010
How do we make sure our children don't go through the same caregiving experiences we are?
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We often write here that we do not want our kids to suffer the same terrible caregiving experience we are now going through. While we are still lucid, strong and healthy we want to ensure that we will not burden our kids in the future when we grow old. Precisely, how do we go about it? What steps can we do to avert this situation from repeating itself? Any ideas to share?
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Don't try & hang on forever when your quality of life is gone & put the quality of life for your children to an early end.
Don't let the doctors use you as a cash cow & prolong your life way past a reasonable time.
Get a living will & stipulate scenarios & instructions.
Prepare yourself & truely love your children.
(2) Alternatively, you can also add them onto your house deed so they are co-owners......that way, a nursing home cannot tap it. But do it NOW, because there is a 5-year look-back for assets. However, the RLT is the best option for real estate.
(3) Get your headstones laid NOW, draw up your funeral desires and give a copy to your adult children.
(4) Update your will and make sure your adult children all have copies.
I don't agree with the long-term care insurance after investigating it. The monthly premiums are cost-prohibitive. It only is in effect as long as you are paying the premiums. If you get too confused to pay the premiums, the insurance lapses....and you will have thrown money away.
Parents are NOT obligated to leave their adult children any kind of inheritance. Also, Medicaid will not pay for NH care until you spend down your assets. Better to go out of this world "owning nothing, owing nothing."
In another vein, it is selfish to expect that adult children are going to provide "taxi service" to elderly mom & dad, driving them around to appointments and things. They have their own lives and responsibilities and are usually working full-time jobs and putting children through college. They did not ask to be born - it was a choice by the parents - so they should not be "punished" in middle age by having to provide a baby-sitting or chauffeur service for their elderly parents.
I'm sorry your research has led you against long term health insurance. My mom bought when she was still of sound mind in 1996 when her mother died and put it on auto draft. If it had not been on auto draft, she would have lost in in 2004 when she stopped being on top of things but hid the truth. She was wise enough to put a rider on it so that once she was in a NH or AL the premiums would stop. She has means in her investments and what she inherited from her mother that are not liquid assets but produce annual liquid assets. She also put home builder care and home health care rider in the policy but that along with the whole policy was a hidden reality until her major stroke, and her hip breaking. I went through the house like a PI and discovered all sorts of things hidden from me.
Now, she has been in the nursing home since May of 2009 and the premiums stopped being charged after 2 months. She has already received more in benefits than she ever paid in premiums. In 1996, she was 65 and now she is 79.
I'm sorry your research has led you against long term health insurance. My mom bought when she was still of sound mind in 1996 when her mother died and put it on auto draft. If it had not been on auto draft, she would have lost in in 2004 when she stopped being on top of things but hid the truth. She was wise enough to put a rider on it so that once she was in a NH or AL the premiums would stop. She has means in her investments and what she inherited from her mother that are not liquid assets but produce annual liquid assets. She also put home builder care and home health care rider in the policy but that along with the whole policy was a hidden reality until her major stroke, and her hip breaking. I went through the house like a PI and discovered all sorts of things hidden from me.
Now, she has been in the nursing home since May of 2009 and the premiums stopped being charged after 2 months. She has already received more in benefits than she ever paid in premiums. In 1996, she was 65 and now she is 79.
While I realize not everyone can afford this, but from 1996-2009, my mom's long term health insurance premiums never went over $200 per month. They are way above $200 now, but she's not paying it because of the rider she bought.
While I realize not everyone can afford this, but from 1996-2009, my mom's long term health insurance premiums never went over $200 per month. They are way above $200 now, but she's not paying it because of the rider she bought.
Thanks for asking this question. The hellishness of your own experience as a caregiver adds a lot to your question.
I applaud many of these technical and practical ideas which I'm cutting and pasting for myself.
I want to focus on process. Beneath many if not all of the horrific stories is most often a daughter and sometimes a son whose emotional life was tampered with in their early days with F.O.G. buttons which got pressed later on to instill Fear, Obligation beyond reason, and Guilt for trying to live a balanced life instead of being their personal slave.
Let's be honest people, many of us have been victims and continue to be victims of emotional child abuse or emotional blackmail very well known as F.O.G., i.e. Fear, Obligation, and Guilt.
So, if your children are young, don't set them up to be your slaves when you get old. If your children are grown, ask yourself and maybe even them if you are doing anything like your mother or dad who has enslaved you? Whatever your age and you can afford it, get therapy to work through your parent issues so they want come gushing out like a volcano when you loose it.
If you raise your children to spread their own wings and fly which means you have healthy boundaries, you will most likely have an adult child who will care for you with healthy boundaries as well. If that's not the case and they have distanced themselves, then all you can do is say hey, I'm sorry, I did the best I could and knew how at that time and then get yourself some help and choose a healthier path to walk in from there on. Your grown children will probably noticed the change.
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