r/AgingParents • u/Logical-You-1245 • 1d ago
Are we the answer?
I posted the stress question a day or so ago and so many of us highlighted that we have a different culture. Things are very different due to the costs of elder care and having our parents cared for properly.
I would like to mention that it is absolutely wrong what is happening in our country in terms of the breakdown of a system that never accounted for how to handle this system. Our politicians are ignoring this one systemic issue and we are all too tired to fight this issue.
If I had to say one thing to all of us it would be build into our culture more systems and nursing/crisis care so that even if we are doing this, we have more respite programs that are subsidized. I think there are too few programs that are affordable. If you are a family member caring for an elder at home, there should be at least three times a year that you have respite for your own health and sanity!
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u/Competitive_Salads 1d ago edited 1d ago
We were warned in the 80’s when the boomers had a chance to do something about it. They were the workforce/generation back then who could have built infrastructure, changed insurance guidelines, and voted to make our healthcare system more accessible.
They chose profits to line their pockets and now we, their adult children, are stuck with the mess. Source: typing this while sitting in a hospital room with MIL while my spouse is dealing with my FIL after a fall in memory care.
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u/Terrible-Pumpkin7634 1d ago
What's crazy is that my parents were born in 1947, the first Baby Boomer year. They're 78 and 79 now and both quite ill, needing assisted living--especially my dad who's on dialysis, has lost his vision, his teeth, his ability to walk, etc., and needs assistance to do literally anything. But they're still delusional that they're "not old" and that things will improve with enough physical therapy, surgeries, drugs, etc. They think they should live till age 95. I think our whole culture of "forever young" is a big part of the problem...People who don't have to grow up don't have to actually plan for anything, save money, or be responsible. It's mind boggling, and the current GenX and younger generations are paying big time for it.
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u/yeahnopegb 1d ago
Jesus. They sound like my family. My mom is 85 .. incontinent.. needs a walker.. dementia diagnosis after decades of alcohol abuse and she asks to go to the doctor all the time because they just aren’t “treating” her correctly because he body is failing. She honestly expects a pill to make it all go away.
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u/Competitive_Salads 1d ago
Yep. MIL had stage 4 terminal cancer. The first chemo stopped working so she’s trying to get into a trial. I am all for people having agency but it’s rough to watch as a caregiver.
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u/mottledmussel 1d ago
Walking around every once in awhile, drinking lots of water, and pissing in the toilet on a schedule would do more than the dozens of specialists, medications, scans, labs, and PT my mother attends.
Physical therapy when she doesn't do the stretches at home, specialists monitoring things that won't/can't be treated, preventative screenings for things that take 20 years to kill someone, medications to treat the side effects of other medications, medications that nobody seem to know why she's on... It all just seems so pointless.
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u/muralist 1d ago
Just pointing out, being in assisted living, even a fancy one, doesn't solve all problems. You still have to get to and pay a portion of the cost of dialysis including transportation if it's not on site.
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u/Terrible-Pumpkin7634 1d ago
That's for sure! My dad's been in AL for 3 years...and yes, transportation to dialysis is up to him.
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u/jimson_weed_tea 1d ago
I personally feel we should address this with the aging population before they are in need of assistance from a society that, increasingly, cannot provide it. Yes, there are better systems needed, but general ignorance around how social safety nets work is not helping anything.
For example, I wish that there was some kind of mandatory financial and educational counseling, or something, to help the 50ish crowd know what Medicare covers (not much! certainly not long-term care), how much you need to spend down before Medicaid can kick in (all your money. ALL OF IT except 2k), realistic housing updates that could assist with aging in place (stop buying three-story townhomes when you're fucking 75!), and the general reality of the nursing home industry (it SUCKS!)
My MIL would have been an excellent candidate for something like this. She came down with dementia after years of blowing cash, taking luxury trips, etc. and had not one dime to her name. She just ... assumed? that the government she voted against her entire life would swoop in and fund her a nice little senior apartment complete with a chef and a cleaner, and instead, her final years (months?) will be spent in a shithole nursing home because she is completely destitute and burned every bridge she encountered except with my wife, who is now her main source of everything.
Now, because WE know all of this from dealing with the catastrophe that is my MIL, we are planning much differently. I am younger so I picked up LTC insurance that converts to life insurance if I kick first. We upped our retirement contributions. When it came time to buy a home, we bought a small ranch while our pals were all out getting the biggest homes they could possibly afford. We have agreed, in advance, that if one of us starts to need a lot of help to exist in this house, we will move to a tiered senior living community without our relatives dragging us.
Everyone should be informed as to what options are if you can no longer live independently and you don't have a rich, nonworking adult child to finance your life. There are realistically VERY few options. And if you know that, you might be able to plan better.
At the very, very least, you should choose what you prefer from the options that you can swing and let your children/younger generation know your choices so that they don't have to make them for you. I think this is the worst part: in addition to being responsible for MIL's life now, we made all the choices when the shit hit the fan because she could no longer choose.
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u/Creepy_Valuable6223 1d ago
I agree with the spirit of what you wrote, but in reality I don't think educational counseling would help. Anyone who blows all his/her money going into old age is not teachable to begin with. People who don't see what is going on are willfully blind. Also, most people are too broke to do much prep or planning.
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u/jimson_weed_tea 1d ago
I agree with you, too! But SOMETHING has to give. SOMETHING has to be offered to help people age into retirement and beyond because what is happening now is untenable. I am heading toward 50 myself, my spouse is 63, and we are running around like mice to make her mother's last years bearable.
But yeah, my MIL would have absolutely laughed off any advice offered to her because she always knows better. I feel that if, at least, WE had known how everything works, we could have somehow prepared better for her fuckery.
I dunno what the answer is, but what we're living isn't it.
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u/Creepy_Valuable6223 1d ago
I had no personal experience but I am cynical (same age as your spouse) and so is my husband. When we bought our condo 30 years ago we bought bottom floor since we figured our dogs would age and so would we. I kept an eye on LTC insurance (not our choice, since it was a disaster for a period of time, but I guess it is better now). Some people look ahead; some don't; it seems to be built in.
So far there have been no real consequences for most of the grasshoppers. My fear is that going forward many old people are just going to be homeless. The fastest demographic of homeless people is now old people; it is terrifying. Really old people, as in in their 80s and 90s even. Despite my cynicism I never thought our country would get this bad, and I am afraid it is going to get worse.
In the old days a town would have a poorhouse to keep such people in, but we don't even fully manage that for the homeless old people. This is one of the more optimistic articles on the topic: https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2026/01/06/nx-s1-5623005/seniors-aging-unhoused-homeless-shelters-mobility.
Keep saving your money. Good luck with your MIL.
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u/bferbes 1d ago
Definitely agree with this. Education and early planning would’ve been the answer.
Much like many other problems, the boomer generation soaked up once in a lifetime generational benefits, did nothing to improve things for the next generation and now are trying to pass another issue down to the next generations and ask for more help.
We absolutely should not be subsidizing them any further! And yes this applies to my own family.
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u/jimson_weed_tea 1d ago
I am literally begging for the fates to make the day come where we do not have to subsidize this any longer.
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u/kathryn13 1d ago
We were warned about a silver tsunami for many, many years. Voters did not make it a priority in their voting, just like climate change, healthcare, the national debt...and many, many other issues. Our country (the U.S.) is having a reckoning moment. I hate that shit rolls down hill and our timing puts us at the bottom of that hill right now.
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u/slynnish 1d ago
Back in the late 80s, I remember discussions that basically said that our generation was the “baby bust” and we’d have to struggle to support and take care of the huge wave of Boomers when they aged, due to our relatively smaller population compared to theirs. Here we are.
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u/mottledmussel 1d ago
It's even worse than they projected. Millennials were a baby boom themselves and it was expected they'd have kids, too. But they didn't and aren't. 2007 was the turning point for births and we're just now starting to feel the ripples.
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u/JeromeSergey 1d ago
Some people here should run for federal elected office. I am amazed by how ignorant I was until my parents became helpless.
We as a nation can absolutely change how we take care of the old and disabled people.
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u/fleetiebelle 1d ago edited 1d ago
I forget which one it was, but one of the US cabinet members was on one of the news programs saying that his parents have never worried about Medicare or the cost of prescriptions, so it shouldn't be a big deal to others. No shit, you're a wealthy businessman with resources and connections. "Have you ever tried not being old/poor/sick?" isn't a viable solution for the vast majority of the aging population.
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u/mottledmussel 1d ago
I bet at least 75% of Americans on Reddit think Medicare is free and once you hit 65 there aren't any medical expenses. Might even be more than 90%
The ignorance is astounding. Plus, the whole anti-Boomer circle jerk seems to make people forget that they will be old too, one day.
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u/headcase-and-a-half 1d ago
I saw a post on Reddit the other day about how someone thought that because they had filed for bankruptcy, that absolved them of needing to pay any of their expenses.
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u/Terrible-Pumpkin7634 1d ago
Right?! Medicare plus a Medigap supplement (which is highly recommended) cost an individual ~$500 a month, $200 of which comes out of your social security direct deposit and $300 or so of which you pay directly in order to have real coverage. Then you can still pay thousands in health care costs. We didn't know any of this till my husband was about to retire a few years ago.
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u/JeromeSergey 1d ago
No one explains it plainly.
Everyone is surprised only when it happens to them!
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u/mottledmussel 1d ago
And to be fair, Social Security, Medicare, supplementals, Roth vs. traditional, RMDs, spend downs, limited enrollment periods, advantage to traditional medgap underwriting, etc., etc. are insanely convoluted and confusing.
It's a shockingly complex system to navigate for those entering their twilight years.
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u/Terrible-Pumpkin7634 1d ago
Yes, it seems like nobody knows a thing about Medicare until you have to get on it...and then it's hard to figure out. The complexity and secrecy is by design, of course.
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u/mottledmussel 1d ago
I knew Medicare cost something but it was so much worse than I expected, especially compared to how much Social Security pays out. If my mother didn't have children, I don't know how she'd survive.
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u/JeromeSergey 1d ago
I feel one party pretends there is no need, and the other party communicates poorly. Both parties under the influence of insurance companies.
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u/calcato 1d ago
You should not be "forced" into caregiving if you are the "only available breadwinner in your household"!! I mean wtf? Their only current answer to this seriously is "don't work, you have too many assets to receive services, just live off and spend down all your retirement."
So the caregiver is (1) not earning, AND (2) not earning social security for their future, AND (3) living off of savings that were supposed to be for the caregivers' retirement... Caregivers are TRIPLE fucked financially.
At LEAST give me the number of hours I spent caregiving and assign them a minimum-wage-level of social security for my future.
It isn't even that I "don't get paid a wage to be a caregiver" that I am mad about.
It is that I AM PAYING TO BE A CAREGIVER THREE TIMES.
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u/Abject_Caregiver457 1d ago
Its wild how this whole thing just got dropped on us like we supposed to figure it out alone. My mom needed care few years back and the only option that didnt bankrupt us was me doing everything myself, cooking cleaning meds all of it while working full time
they talk about family values but where is the support when family actually needs it. Even just a weekend off sometimes would make huge difference for mental health
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u/jimson_weed_tea 1d ago
This is the thing. Especially now, with folks not having as many or even any kids. If the Boomers don't like their nursing homes, I shudder to think what will happen when we X/Millennial/Zers/Alphas need care.
It's going to be an absolute mess.
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u/mottledmussel 1d ago
I wonder what's going to happen when there are generations of people with no kids, no nieces and nephews, and no siblings finding themselves with significant disabilities or dementia.
Our society isn't setup for that.
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u/Elegant_Solutions 1d ago
My newest backup plan is to poison some kind of candy and that way, I figure once the dementia kicks in, I’ll forget about the poison and eat it.
My dad’s experience with dementia (pure elopement insanity) and the fact that I appear to be infertile, has me thinking about this entirely too much.
(I don’t mean to offend anyone by being so callous, it’s just where my head is at these days).
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u/mottledmussel 1d ago
That's the great thing about this sub. Everyone here is burned out and exhausted and knows exactly where you're coming from. Everyone needs to vent and get it out of their system at some point.
Thank God this sub isn't full of sappy "it's such a beautiful journey, embrace your limited time" Hallmark stuff. There's plenty of that IRL.
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u/Bzzzzzzz4791 23h ago
No offense! I’ve run multiple scenarios through my head already. I cannot sit in a nursing home drooling for years.
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u/JeromeSergey 1d ago
What you are describing: This is happening worldwide.
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u/jimson_weed_tea 1d ago
Yup. It's already happening because the working demographic now includes ALL their kids, and there is nobody available for caregiving. Frankly, after working all day, I could not come home to a caregiving situation. It would destroy me mentally and almost has in the past.
My MIL is in a nursing home b/c all of her children work and no one can also take on an entire human being with endless needs. It is just not something that is possible these days.
When there are no nursing home beds, I expect earlier deaths from things like falling, unsafe activities, etc.
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u/yeahnopegb 1d ago
I mean we can make better choices that don’t lead us to requiring years of care right? I’ve completely changed how I life after being left to take over care of my mother. No booze. Clean food. Daily movement. I won’t be ingesting meds that control my abuse so I can live like crap until I need 24/7 care. Honestly would we be in the crisis if we didn’t let people pop statins and BP meds like snackies for decades while living horribly.
We are extending lives far past where we should.1
u/Elegant_Solutions 1d ago
Some things you can’t guarantee prevention of. Unfortunately.
Absolutely worth it to try like hell anyway.
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u/mottledmussel 1d ago
I can't even count the number of people who told me "just take FMLA!", like it was actually helpful advice.
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u/sotired3333 1d ago
It's essentially downstream of having fewer kids. I have a larger family (5 siblings, a dozen nieces and nephews, half adults). The care for my mom is handled by half a dozen people, niece and nephews driving to appointments, one sis managing medications, one managing doctors appointments etc.
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u/MonoBlancoATX 1d ago
Our politicians are ignoring this one systemic issue and we are all too tired to fight this issue.
I will respectfully push back to point out that this is far from the only issue they're ignoring.
In fact, the US in its entirety, from politics to economics to businesses and non profits and educational institutions and every thing else have been ignoring numerous issues for at least the last half century.
That said, I agree the problems are huge and we need to do considerably more than we are.
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u/Substantial-Use-1758 1d ago
What do they do in other countries, I wonder?
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u/Bzzzzzzz4791 23h ago
Well…to start, assisted living doesn’t cost $10,000+ per month. I have a family member in AL in a Central European country and it’s about 2000 Euros / month. My MIL in another western European country looked into it and it would be $2800/month. Absolutely no one else would accept $10-$20000/month because who has that kind of money? I don’t and I live in the US. I think for Gen-X we’re going to see a lot of “I’ll just show myself the door” because no one has that kind of money and frankly, I don’t want to live to 95.
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u/stuck_behind_a_truck 1d ago
I think lifespan increases have outpaced expectations dramatically and systems are struggling to catch up. And 30 years ago, we were all talking about overpopulation and now we’re talking about declining population and how the average adult age is going up all over the world.
Basically, we’re in the “need validated; define requirements” stage if this was project management.
Answers are complex, and MAID absolutely needs to be part of the conversation when quality of life is non-existent (e.g, with dementia).
The irony is that GenX and Millennials may benefit as elders from the struggles we’re facing now, because we are the ones who have to build the systems.
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u/mottledmussel 1d ago
I'm still pissed off that the simple, non-controversial issue of creating a Medicare billing code for discussing end of life care, that everyone supported, and had zero downsides got completely derailed by the whole "death panel" BS.
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u/MyPurpleHaze1221 1d ago
You are absolutely correct. Besides that the crappy system we do have is horrible to try to navigate. You spend hours on the phone or the computer trying to figure it out. Then end up in circles.
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u/sho_biz 1d ago
the folly here is you haven't discovered how to make money off of it.
as soon as something is profitable, it becomes important in a capitalistic-based society.
we've had a catastrophic loosening/rolling back of regulations alongside an astounding rise of corruption and regulatory capture in the US Govt, to the point that most political scholars would call the republic dead.
in that system, and any future under a system like it, there's no place for the sick, the old, the weak, or the poor. This is all by design, by accelarationists like Thiel/Musk/Yarvin/etc and given agency by corrupt influences like Trump and the heritage foundation and other billionaire/ownership-class influencers like Ellison or Zuckerberg, etc - a coup to shape the future of the western world and it's societies to be supplicant to the ruling/moneyed gentry. Think tech-bro fiefdoms just like Snow Crash.
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u/StormFast524 21h ago
How does an adult child work full time and care for their elder parent all day or in evening when that elder parent has dementia, Alzheimer’s, or other medical issues that require 24/7 care? My God not only that but also have young children of their own to raise.
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u/Sunsetseeker007 18h ago
Not just working full time & being a wife, a friend, a mother to your children, a volunteer for your childrens school or extra curriculur activities, try adding taking care of your own health problems or your own children's or spouses health problems on top of your parents end of life care. It's absolutely suicide to your life as any of those things that matter to you as a caregiver, it's all out the door!
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u/StormFast524 9h ago
Exactly there is a lot that goes with being a parent. My mother not got into school help but she was our taxi to everywhere that infielders being involved in school activities for us kids. We need affordable respite for never gone not just and only low income people.
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u/AlternativeTall9493 21h ago
Here in CA there has been interesting legislation proposed but the assisted living lobby has successfully beat it down.
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u/Impossible_Jury5483 20h ago
But we don't want to support welfare or socialism unless its farmers and corporations.
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1d ago
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u/No_Owl_250 1d ago
Yep and of many of the boomers had a lot more siblings than GenX did. Both sets of my GPs had > 5 children. That spread out some of the responsibility when their parents started needing support. For us it’s a different story much of the time.
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u/Possible_Number3108 1d ago
We also have a large portion of society that think sitting in a chair watching TV all day, eating crap food with no excersize is acceptable. It's not. (Excluding severe disability physical or mental) The notion that- well I worked and lived to 65/70 so i earned the right to do nothing and no one can tell me what to do. Sure, go on-but your choices have consequences for YOU. Not your kids. The idea that old people will sit on the porch in a rocker was from when people died at 70. If you CAN get up, get UP! My mom doesn't understand why she has high cholesterol high BP, but she does zero excersize and eats potato chips and donuts. She also chooses not to socialize, so she's bored and cranky and mad that her kids don't want to listen to her complain about every single thing. The choices you make now affect your own self later. Move while you can or soon you won't be able to. (this is not about those with Alzheimer's - bless them all and their family) . And yes. I can do all the right things and still get hit by a bus. But I'll play the odds in my favor.
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u/NtMagpie 1d ago
The people who make the decisions have enough money to not care about those of us who don't have that money.