Both of my parents are only 60 years old. However, my mom recently had a stroke and also fell and broke her hip, while my dad is suffering from severe congestive heart failure. They are basically unable to take care of day to day activities by themselves. I am only 25 years old with just 2 years of work experience out of college. My brother, who is 23, has already taken a year off of school to help take care of our parents. I am taking the summer off to move back to Florida from New Hampshire to help so my brother can finish school, however I am worried that this will turn into a much more long term commitment. I also feel obligated to take care of my parents, because they gave up their lives to take care of their parents. Everyone tells me that it is the right thing to do, but it is scary to think that at only 25 years old, I am giving up my entire life before it seemingly even starts. I do not have my own family to lean on for support, just my brother. I love my parents very much and want the very best for them. I was wondering if anyone out there was in a similar situation and had any advice!
I found my mistake was catering to them starting 5 years ago, and now I am trying to back off and trying to tell my parents I am getting too old to help them out, I can barely take care of myself. But since I am still working at 68, they think I can still do everything.... but at work I sit at a desk in front of a computer, I am not doing physical labor, stuff my parents need help with. I tell you, work is my sanity, so don't retire unless you absolutely have to.
Situation 1: First scenario is of a Singaporean-Canadian family. The grandmother is 85 years old living in Singapore. The father gave up his career in Canada to take care of his aging parents. The father is 64 years old and his new Vietnamese wife is 34 years old. The father and his new wife were taking care of grandmother initially without asking his son for help as he had to establish his career in the film industry as a set decorator until he was able to gain union membership. The father and wife wanted to be spelled off as taking care of elderly is a full time job. Initially, the couple owned a cleaning company but could not manage to work the contracts as taking care of his mother took full time as she has Alzheimer's. The son works making $100k a year being single in Canada. Initially, he decided to let his father and his new wife reduce the number of contracts they needed to work so that they could spend more time taking care of grandmother. (Just to add the son is the breadwinner of the family here) The father and his wife told him that since he does not have to work 12 months of the year if he doesn't want to, and can work shows that go for 6 months if he wanted to, that he only work half the year making $50,000 or so which is more than enough for a single person, and spend the other 6 months in Singapore. The son will continue to make this sacrifice until grandmother passes away. He cannot stay for the whole time because the father and his wife makes less income with their cleaning business than the son does as a set decorator.
Scenario 2: Japanese Canadian family giving up their previous careers to take care of aging father and grandparents. In this scenario, the son worked in the Alberta oil sands making $95k per year. While the oil sands job can be seasonal, his position required him to be fully committed to continue working there. He was not able to just work whenever he felt like the person in the first scenario. He had to actually give up his job to move back to Kyoto. There, he had to take a job as an English teacher making $30,000 year, making not even a third of what he used to (of course, he only had to also work less hours than he used to in Alberta working only part time) so that he could take care of his family. In Japan, the aging population is so bad that in some districts, the waitlist to place them in an old folks home is so great that if they have surviving children it is impossible. Unlike in Canada or the USA, in Japan, the country expects the children to be financially responsible to take care of their aging parents. Of course teaching English for $30,000 a year is not going to be enough to feed all four of them, so they decided to make the most of their homebound situation. I think you could actually use this situation yourself. They decided to start up an AirB&B business. Now it is not a quick easy money situation, and it did not make them rich by any means. It gave them another $25,000 a year to get by. It did not replace the son's previous wage in Alberta even with both sources of income combined. The family of 4 is lucky if they could get half. But what it did do was enable him to take care of his grandparents and his father who need him at home by using the home to generate him income. What you can do is while you take care of your parents at the age of 25, you run a bed and breakfast at your place so you make that your job. It won't replace what you made working but it will at least cushion the blow. Another thing you can do with your brother is mechanical turk where you do a task and get paid whenever you are free. For those who have only pockets of free time this is a good thing to do.
But please do NOT let your parents down over $$$. Taking care of your parents is never about venture capital. If money were first priority we would all be better off not having kids and working two full time jobs and pay off our homes in fraction of the time. But then what is life? We don't all do this because family is more important than money. We work to live, not live to work. You may see some families working two full time jobs being cheap but the reality is they do this to work as a family. In some families where there are more siblings than two, one will stay home to take care of the home, while the other siblings will all pool in their money and support the parents. As in the case of the Singaporean set decorator, he had no siblings. Had he had siblings who let say worked a job at Starbucks or some retail job, he told me that he would have sent them to Singapore, and sent over the money to support their brother or sister. If the brother or sister became too old to establish a career as a result of looking after the family, in this case, he would have sent financial aid recognizing he made the sacrifice and could not get a job past minimum wage. When I learned about this, I learned to not judge people just because they might be working at Starbucks at the age of 45. They might have done the right thing.
I find it interesting that someone who cares for their father, living at independent living is so quick to tell others that they are being selfish or should quit their careers.
What have you given up?
We don't live in a culture where the family or community are paramount and individual desires are subordinated to the greater good. We live in a society where each person is expected to take care of himself or herself. So if we accept the caregiving role, we do so knowing that nobody is going to bail us out if we give up our income, our savings, our health benefits, whatever. That makes a huge difference.
Then too, of course, the fact that another culture, or specifically an Asian culture, follows a given practice is not necessarily an endorsement of said practice. Footbinding, anyone?
As that one child got older, that one adult child was left with having to provide support for his/her two parents and four grandparents without any help from siblings.... since there are no aunts or uncles, there would also be no cousins to help that one grown child out.
At least the policy has been changed recently where if one aging parent is an only child, then that grown child can have two children.
I suggest they move to assisted living quarters , what one may call a senior's lodge, but there are lodges that are 55+. Assisted living places have round the clock medical care on hand, ensure their meds are taken at the right times, make sure they get exercise, ensure they are eating 3 squares a day of nutritious food and bring a doctor to them on a regular basis. Some places have a resident doctor.
The clients' units can be one, two, or three rooms and some come with kitchenettes.
Set a goal and research it determinedly. Don't let yourself get discouraged. Keep
looking and calling, asking for referrals or suggestion on where you can get the help.
It will take a while to mold a plan for them, maybe 2 or 3 months unless you hit upon a solution earlier on. After all is said and done, you will be relieved at how well everything turned out and you can go on with your own life, of course visiting often.
I'm nearing their age and I'd rather see my kids and grandkids thrive in their lives than give it all up to help me. Please call frequently, visi when you can, pray without ceasing, and let them work it out .