<p>Doubleplay, you’re doing the lion’s share. It must be like at LEAST a part time job if not fulltime. Although its hard to be away, absolutely its harder to be right there, I’m sure. I told H that I’d like to check into assisted living when the going gets tough, so my kids won’t have to worry and deal with so much. He’s adamantly opposed to anything like that, said that I can go and he’ll come visit me! I worry about being a burden to our kids already, and I’m in my early 50’s!</p>
<p>Have you looked into the cost of Assister Living? We did, and it was definitely an eye opening experience! It makes college look like a bargain (in our area anyway)!</p>
<p>Yes, it is pricey, but less than being in a house with all the taxes, maintenance, etc. The nice one here has a 10 yr. waiting list so on my last bday I was teasing H and told him we’d better get on it!</p>
<p>MY inlaws are on the wait list for assisted living, but hope to stay in their home as long as possible. With all the help they have- gardener, pool man, cleaning girl, I say it is assisted living in their own home.</p>
<p>They have tried people part time & then with a surgery having some one round the clock, but they always end up getting suckered- cosigning a car loan, possessions & jewelry disappearing, etc, so no one feels great about that option. There really is no great option- like every one else in that situation, they want to be who they used to be and it’s not gonna happen. One of these days, any month or year now, the final straw will break and they will have to make the switch. But AL is quite expensive and no one really wants to go there, so as long as they can stay where they are, that’s good.</p>
<p>I have seen a lot of people in my parents neighborhood moving to live nearer their families, so by the time parents leave that particular community they are not leaving all the old friends, because so many old friends have already left them!</p>
<p>Both of my parents passed away fairly young, my Mom after a relatively short battle with lung cancer. All of us were fairly close, but a lot of the day-to-day stuff fell to my sister, who is a nurse and worked part-time.</p>
<p>I would love to have the option to spend more time with my Mom. I still feel that I could have been a better daughter. She didn’t really want much from us but our time. We model for our children the relationships we have with our parents. How do you hope they will treat us when we need their help? The best thing we can do for them is to set a good example. Not just for us but for all of the other people that will be in their lives.</p>
<p>Many of my friends are having difficulties dealing with older, aging parents. The hardest are those who don’t think that they need to move or that they need help.</p>
<p>This is a tough topic.</p>
<p>When our kids were young we visited the grandparents often … the closer set at least once a month and the further set about 4-5 times a year. Then the kids got older and started sports and having independent social lives … we’re still pretty good about the closer set of grandparents but the longer trip is tougher to fit in. </p>
<p>Now that the grandparents health is failing is more important to go and also harder to go … there is nowhere to stay now that they are in a nursing home … and they only want to visit for an hour or so while not really interacting with the kids much other than asking “how is school?”.</p>
<p>As a child and a parent this is one of the more heart wrenching experiences I have gone through.</p>
<p>3togo- that is one of the reasons why we have been efforting at a very high level to help the in-laws stay in there own home- we can stay there when we visit. To travel 12 hours and pay $300-$500 each to do it and then have to pay for a hotel would limit the visits even more than now, so the longer they can stay in their place, the better for visits. And I agree with you on the kid interaction, the g’rents want to interact, but they do not really know how; it really seems they just want the brag list so they can tell their buddies what amazing thing a grandkid has done. Our kids are all in college and we have told them that if they are anywhere nearby, they should visit those Grents, otherwise, they have to focus on their college lives and those visits are not likely to happen much.</p>
<p>There was a period of time when my kids were in high school that my dad was bed/chair-ridden for about a year. He had brain tumors and had a stroke that left him basically “not all there” for some time and he was under home hospice care. (He eventually came out of it- slowly).<br>
He really couldn’t converse or anything when we visited, so the boys would go into his room and just lay on the bed next to him and watch sports on TV. They didn’t really talk. It was just a “company” thing.
He liked watching the History Channel and news shows a lot too. I would go in there and knit or even read a book. Basically watching TV was about the only “activity” everyone could do together, so that’s what we did.</p>
<p>I guess rather ironic that I suggested moving closer, when we had the ultimate commute to an elderly parent…Thailand. Only advantage is you don’t have to change your watch, as it is 12 hours from Central time. My dad had 2 years of dementia after a stroke, before he passed away. His wife did a wonderful and very hard job with 2 Thai maids helping him. 12 hours on, 12 off. We visited to give the maids a vacation, as my dad was quite the busy handful, and his wife worked. My son earned a free ticket to Asia at one point for a week of caretaking. Tho I wasn’t there, I have a lasting picture of my son reading PJ O’Rourke to him during the long nights. Tho politically repulsive to us, they both appreciated the irreverant humor, stroke or not. </p>
<p>I read something recently about this being a bit of a trend. Take yourself and the elderly relatives to Asia or Latin America, where healthcare and living expenses are cheaper, and help is more affordable.</p>
<p>^^outsourcing the elders? oh my.</p>
<p>“A wise mom of a friend, and RN, said to me once that the greatest kindness you can show your kids is to move in close proximity before your health declines.”</p>
<p>In theory, that sounds great, but the problem is that in this mobile society, the kids may move away. The parents who uproot themselves also may not like their new communities, may not be able to find friends/activities there, and may end up relying solely on their kids for a social life.</p>
<p>To me, the greatest kindness parents can do is to while they are still relatively healty move into an assisted living community, retirement community or other place that they can manage and afford.</p>
<p>If teey don’t do this, a sudden decline in their health may cause them to have to be uprooted close to their kids to a place that the parents may not like and may not be able to find friends/activities.</p>
<p>The people I encounter who have moved closer are transitioning into retirement complexes associated with assisted living and nursing homes. Good source of new friends and many planned activities, of a cultural and intellectual sort, as well as shopping trips to Walmart and the mall. In my university based town there are many things to do and get involved with. In other less interesing places, boredom could be a major issue, as well as not liking the place. I’m also talking rather advanced ages here, say 85, where horizons and activities are a little, or a lot more limited for many, and participation in life in the original home town is a bit more circumscribed. </p>
<p>But yes, in this mobile society, hard to know how long anyone will stay in one place.</p>
<p>We should be building homes differently. Is there a real market? If so, within the private sector: for the wealthy, those McMansions might include a bed/bath with private entrance and 2 bedrooms, one for the elder and one for live-in nursing help. For the rest of us, build new developments with this feature built in as a complex housing unit within a mile of the single-family homes. When boomers demanded recreation and swim pools within their own housing developments, some developers met that need; so why not this? </p>
<p>Or other creative ideas. Perhaps the government can give tax incentives to rehab homes to accommodate elders, to accomplish this health goal, just as they began to do so to encourage energy-saving rehabilitation (insulation, etc.) as a national goal.</p>
<p>Houses of worship are also starting to build assisted living communities nearby their buildings, which provides a source for activities, too. A privilege of membership there includes having your elder eligible for a spot, although it’s not restricted to the members’ families necessarily. Since you can buy gravestone plots as part of membership, why not something that serves in the years preceding?</p>
<p>Here’s an “out there” idea: a lot of suburban communities have zoning regulations that forbid unrelated people from living in the house. Lots of people on these sites cry about their empty bedrooms along with tuition bills. Suppose local communities gave permission to house elders (for pay) in those bedrooms? People joke about, “I wish you could take care of my Mom in your city, and I’ll care for yours…” because of the way the locations worked out. Why not let this become a legal form of tenancy in suburban homes? It might pay a few tuition bills to house someone else’s elder. Not everyone’s cup of tea, but some might.</p>