re: Boomers and end of life care

I have a friend who has four siblings. Dad is at home with severe dementia and other issues — home health, the spouse and a sitter do day duty and all five kids rotate nights. Even the older grandkids help who can.

THAT is reasonable in my opinion.

Every situation is different and all involved need to figure out what they can/can’t do and what resources are available.

I’m at a point in my life where I could go and do what is needed — youngest of ours is 20 and I’m about to be unemployed so thanks covid.

But 15 years ago I couldn’t have just left my family. I love 90 minutes away — 3 kids and a husband with a crazy schedule. What would I have done?

Hopefully found a reasonable solution with my parents/siblings and pitched in as much as I could.

It is a bad situation when parents get to a point they need 24/7 care. I am in the situation now. Nursing homes start at around $72k a year; full time live in nursing is more than that. If you are the single breadwinner for a household it is not reasonable or possible to just quit your job to become a nurse. If you don’t make $150,000 a year you can’t afford full time nursing care when parents have budgeted and saved zero for end of life. For those that are only children it is even more difficult. It is much easier to get on a message board and tell others what they should do than it is to actually do it.

Boomers grew up where women stayed home and did all the domestic duties.

That simply doesn't exist anymore.

So, in his mind, this isn't a big ask.

But in reality, hes asking for your family to be severely crippled on multiple fronts.

YOUR family comes first and his inability to compromise and/or plan accordingly is HIS problem.

Different circumstance for me but some perspective. Took long term disability to care for my lady when she was diagnosed last year, ended up being 5 months. Circumstances were different because of COVID but having one person do all the care made a big difference. I knew exactly what needed to be done at all times and could delegate the care to others as needed to still keep up with four kids. I can understand why he would want his kids to be that for him, it’s a scary thing approaching death slowly and painfully. Additionally it may be a pride thing and not wanting others to see him as he worsens. It’s time they won’t regret having spent afterwards I can promise that. If it wasn’t my person and covid wasn’t going full throttle what I did could’ve been shared by a team of four or five to rotate evenings with the help of hospice and friends/neighbors during the day.

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My grandparents (greatest generation) invested, saved, and budgeted for end of life care. My parents and in-laws (boomers) are investing, saving, and budgeting for end of life care. My wife and I (millennials) are investing, saving, and budgeting. Not yet explicitly for end of life care but just for life in general.

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The thing is he has the money. It’s not a cost issue. He said that his plan was to hire people to take care of him.

That’s out the window now. His expectation is that his daughters leave their families to come and be there 24/7.

Well my dad is 80 and yes I’ll do whatever it takes for him being he made sure my life is what it is now. Anyone who wouldn’t is a selfish piece of shite.

Oncology is pretty good at setting a timetable for end of life scheduling based on the cancer and patient. Have you talked to his doctors and gotten a clear picture on his prognosis? Maybe the sisters can rotate a two week on/two week off plan until he needs to be put in Hospice. There's middle ground in there somewhere.

Time for him to move in with one of the kids, at least that is how my family has done it since I can remember. We had our great grandmother live with us and my grandparents moved in with an Aunt. It was something living with a great grandmother who had dementia when you are in grade school.

He refuses to move in with us even though we could do it because he would never be a burden or live in our house. He’s decided he is going to stay at home, but somebody needs to be there all the time.

Also, this is the same guy that sent his mom to an assisted living facility near his sisters back int he day “because it was their turn “ to take care of mom.