My 80-year old dad has Parkinson’s & some memory loss & my 74-year old mom - who also has her own health issues - works extremely hard and takes great care of him and their home. They’re fairly stable, but age-related shifts are happening quickly. They just downsized from their huge house and acreage to a small house in town closer to family. Thank goodness!
My parents and I enjoy a good relationship with each other. I round out caregiving needs by taking both to doctors appointments, managing their calendars, doing taxes, tech help, financial, legal guidance, social support, physical labor, resource identification and other regular needs that come up, which is becoming more and more frequent. Often times I find that I’m playing marriage counselor when they bicker over things like thermostat temperature settings!
They’re low income now - dad is a disabled veteran on 80% disability due to Camp Lejeune water poisoning. His needs are becoming greater and mom is struggling to keep up with them, as well as trying to find time to address her own. I advocate for her a lot.
They’re very traditional husband/wife roles and dad manages finances and always has the final say in everything, while mom has to deal with it, no questions asked. Otherwise he becomes angry. It’s easier to just bury her thoughts and feelings, but it takes a toll.
They’ve always made the most of what they have and lived a good life, but I worry that mom is burning out faster than him because she’s catering to him and her emotional resilience is becoming less with age. We got her on anti-depressants and anti-anxiety meds, which has helped.
Since he received the disability rating and is receiving extra monthly benefits, he was able to pay off their house and has a little extra financial cushion each month, which has been a Godsend.
The problem is, dad is giving all of this money away to charity now! Mom actually had to threaten divorce when he first got the disability money because he wanted to give it away to charities and friends “in need,” rather than pay off their house at 80 years old!
His spending on charitable donations has become an obsession and he treats it like a business. He sits in his office for hours a day mapping out where he wants to spend his money, what credit cards to use, etc. He has no savings.
Once he passes away, all of his pension and disability payments stop. She will not be able to afford to live on her own. She has mentioned this to him several times and he doesn’t seem to care. She says she wants to stay in their home if he passes first. He told her, “you’ll be able to afford to stay here for a little while.”
He’s not considering that my mom’s medical needs are beginning to match his own and she has no financial benefits to help offset these costs. He makes her use her own tiny pension and social security to pay for all of “her” needs, like medical, clothing, etc. He’s not saving money for a rainy day to plan for their future.
Mom has managed to save around $25k through strict discipline, but whenever an extra cost comes up or they want to go out to eat or anything seen as “extra,” dad expects mom to pay out of her savings.
We have tried to reason with him that his charitable donations are putting them in jeopardy, but he chooses to live in denial and his response is always something along the lines of “God is calling him to help those who have so much less than them.”
He becomes agitated and contrary and gets offended when we attempt to discuss this topic. I think it’s a loss of control and a pride thing, but how can we respond when he says it’s a calling from God? He’s always been very religious and charitable, but this is reaching new heights.
His mother (my grandmother) also spent a lot on donations when she was at his age, but her husband had already passed and she lived with family and had no other expenses, so her funds actually WERE “extra.” His are not. They need this money to live.
Any ideas? Please help!
If he puts stamps on the envelopes, get Mom to put the checks and envelopes somewhere for you to shred and remove from the premise (don't let him see them no matter what). Be creative, leave him something to do (dignity) while keeping funds going where they need to go. Having POA helps with this significantly. Also who would complain to "authorities" - if you are the only child it is a different situation than if you have siblings with some opinion of what happens with parents.
My Dad is competent enough to understand the financial ramifications. I was able to show him what he was giving away as a total for "tax deductible" and "non-tax deductible". He stopped giving to several organizations, though he still gives more than I believe is wise, but it is his money and he has enough for his care.
If she does not have POA someone needs to apply for guardianship.
They are not capable of making reasonable decisions any longer and need for you to step in.
Why Mom needs POA? Because what he does is not normal and how can a a person who manages so badly be in charge, traditional marriage or not. I am strong, correction, the strongest believer in women attaining financial independence.
Secondly, my husband has Parkinson’s as well for 15 years. I allowed him to do bills although it is all automated. I check. I am financially trained with years of experience so is he so we are both fiscally responsible people.
We stopped making donations once we stopped working.
There is one thing I noticed about my husband in recent months, he is becoming obsessed with money, not excessively but more than ever.
There is a reason for that as he could be reaching final stages of disease, some say people worry more or want to give away money etc.
But he is only obsessed with me having enough. I am better than OK.
What is also not OK with your Mom, she is doing too much, Parkinson is long and hard and progressive and always getting worse. She should use extra money to get help, that is why she needs POA, so she will make decisions which will benefit her.
Cognitive impairment and/or dementia, sadly often leads to poor financial judgment and decision-making. A non-springing POA can be key control or setting some limits. Fingers cross such a document has been executed (?). But that then requires some hard decisions for the person who has the POA; mom (?)...
If there is no POA in place, that is harder. Worth getting that done, perhaps making you instead of mom the POA. Make sure it is done properly with an elder care attorney where they live, and make it "non-springing" (meaning you have immediate rights rather than having to wait until a third part potentially has to deem there are cognitive issues for which he needs the POA to step in.
A hard approach is to ask the courts for guardianship, where he is deemed to "lack capacity" (different terms in different states, but this is a high threshold to meet).
Any of these approaches will undoubtedly cause him to react negatively and that puts you and mom in a really tough spot.
There are a few things to consider. I had to do this for my mom, when during COVID lock down I would walk out mail daily to the same charities. I asked her about this and she said, "those are my bills, I have to pay them so I am not late." Rut ro!!!! Yes she had dementia, but I did not realize at the time how bad it had gotten. ANY charity request she received in the mail, she thought was a bill and would pay it. More than 80 organizations were soliciting her. She'd write a $5 or $10 check (what ever the lowest amount was on the request) and mail it in. Some times, two or three checks to the same organization each week. OMG
First, get ahold of the mail. Just redirect all the mail to a PO box, get it and start to cull through what are real bills, put those in their mail box at the house. The rest, write a letter to each (I did this, wrote over 100 letters) telling them to take them off their mailing list. Most complied. But it took about 6 months.
If he has email (my mom did), say there is a software update you can handle and then give yourself access to the email. Then start to move email solicitations to spam, unsubscribe, delete. I would do this every morning before she woke up so the junk requests were not in her in box. She over time could not do email. So that ended then.
Similarly, I got her phone (again, said there was a data breach and a complicated software update, that I could handle) and I took control of her phone. Limited incoming calls, emails and texts to ONLY from those numbers in her contact lists. There are several spam blocking apps too if needed. I also set up her cell phone, so I could access it online and delete things if the other approaches did not catch it.
Before all of this, I cannot tell you how many times a call would come in telling her "you won the sweepstakes" and "we just need your social security number, to take out the taxes." OMG over and over, she got scammed.
There are really bad actors out there that prey on the elderly with scams or repeated donation requests.
Hopefully you can get online access to their accounts too, bank, credit card, taxes, medical on and on. I would see an order for something and cancel it before it shipped. One can also put a "spending" limit on expenditures that require a "second" authorization -- YOU -- before it is paid.
If you can do as much under the radar the better, but sometimes it is like having to become the parent to our parents and we have to take control to protect them. They won't like it, we won't like it; but it has to be done.
Good luck and try not to beat yourself up about this as you are trying to protect and care for them, even if this fractures the relationship. They are not of sound mind now. Just like an adult would not cave to a two year old wanting only candy for dinner, you have to make the tough decisions for them now. Sorry
it’s against the grain of their relationship dynamics so she may need help- maybe you can say you have poa and no funds of your mothers will be given on days out when he’s giving away his money
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if it’s excessive maybe you need to speak to legal about him not being in sound mind
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it’s honourable he wants to give back in life but he needs his own house in order first and he’s giving away funds to now ‘ borrow’ with no intent to pay back to his wife
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maybe separate finances and let him experience the accountability of his actions - his money to buy only his food etc
no sharing
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I take it you have t anyone he listens to to talk to him about his responsibilities to his family and excessive generosity ?
maybe he feels guilt at being selfish in life that he’s trying to exorcise - counselling?
best wishes fir a workable solution
maybe he’s just bored and needs to be involved in something rather than directing his efforts to this - paperwork
maybe local church - can volunteer to help with their books or gardening even
got too much time on his hands/mind!
it’s against the grain of their relationship dynamics so she may need help- maybe you can say you have poa and no funds of your mothers will be given on days out when he’s giving away his money
—
if it’s excessive maybe you need to speak to legal about him not being in sound mind
—
it’s honourable he wants to give back in life but he needs his own house in order first and he’s giving away funds to now ‘ borrow’ with no intent to pay back to his wife
—
maybe separate finances and let him experience the accountability of his actions - his money to buy only his food etc
no sharing
—
I take it you have t anyone he listens to to talk to him about his responsibilities to his family and excessive generosity ?
maybe he feels guilt at being selfish in life that he’s trying to exorcise - counselling?
best wishes fir a workable solution
maybe he’s just bored and needs to be involved in something rather than directing his efforts to this - paperwork
maybe local church - can volunteer to help with their books or gardening even
got too much time on his hands/mind!
I would consider not getting the advise of an elder care attorney. I doubt that an hour of time will do little other than put solidly in your own mind how little power you have to change this, but that alone may be a relief.
As to protecting your mother, she has spent a lifetime bowing to the decisions made by your father. It's unlikely that will change. If she has control over her small fund she will either take control of it with your help or she will not. Again, it is unlikely you can change her decisions formed over a lifetime.
You might consider asking APS to consult with you about any options they can see to protect your parents; but truly, in the end, not everything can be fixed. I am so sorry.
From What I have read, 80% of people with Parkinson’s eventually develop dementia.
We had to block his access to all financial accounts by having him declared incompetent. I tried to get the mail before him whenever I could. (My mom refused to go the PO Box route). I monitored his email.
good luck.
If your Dad doesn't have a PoA, and is resistant to assigning one, please tell him that what happens to elders who don't put this protection in place is that they become wards of a 3rd party court-assigned legal guardian, like what happened to my SFIL.
The lack of judgment (or grandiose thinking about helping others) is actually a very common dementia behavior. Dementia robs people of their ability to use reason and logic, and have empathy for even very close family members, like spouses, children, siblings, etc. My Aunt was reading magazines and finding Cat and Dog charities and writing checks out them like crazy.
How is your Dad finding these "needy" organizations and people? I would maybe have their mail go to a PO Box where the mail can be filtered and junk can be sorted out. Put them on Do Not Solicit lists online.
Maybe get him a phone like I did for my Mom (RAZ Mobility). It looks like a smart phone but has no internet or data, and the caregiver controls all activity by an app on their phone. It was well worth the money as my Mom was making inappropriate calls create so much more work for me. THen she got her aids to call for her and I had to put a stop to that, too.
You won't be able to control his spending in a way that won't piss him off. You can make up a therapeutic fib, like "Your disability benefits require you to save XX% of all other income" or some narrative that you think he'll accept.
If you are a person who doesn't like uncomfortable conversations or conflict -- you will need to harden up because this is just the beginning of trying to manage a stubborn elder.
My brother, the main POA, had to take over our dad's finances. But this was not an easy task by any means. My dad insisted on a printout each Friday morning of his financial statement.
Soon dementia set in more and more. My dad bought an extended warranty for a car he did not own. He canceled subscriptions. He called his bank, just to check on things and chat.
Then he believed he needed to increase the tenants' rent in the apartment he was living in...but he and my mom were living in a house, with no tenants. We surmised this was because he lived in apartments all his life.
And at 91 he thought he needed to get a job to support his family. We could clearly see a decline in his mental state, which meant increased agitation regarding money. He would lie in bed with his arms raised up in the air, saying he was managing his bank account.
We had to watch his use of his phone and computer. Soon those were taken away from him. (He did not like this one bit. We had to use Theraputic Fibbing.) But his dementia, for better or for worse, made him forget that he did not have access to these things.
Plus Seroquel, which was a godsend. It kept him calm about most things.
So, as hard as it is, as much as your dad will fight, as frequently as he will express his frustration, your best bet is to prevent his access, in one way or another.
I hope you can find what works, as I know this is not easy.
First...mom should be entitled to Aid and Attendance.
Second...Is dad actually competent to make financial decisions? Does he fully understand the ramifications of his gifting money the way he is? Does his doctor give any indication that he is not competent? He may need a fiduciary to manage his funds.
Third....The VA is always changing the criteria for determining the % of Service Connected Disabilities. If it has been a while since he has seen the doctor you might want to make an appointment and see if his % can be adjusted.
If he truly wants to donate do some research on the places he is donating to. make sure that they have a great % of the money donated going to the cause not to the people in the offices.
. There are these:
Charitynavigator.org
Charitywatch.org
Give.org
Then agree to a set amount that he can SAFELY donate each month. Then see that he sticks to that. That compromise might satisfy both of you. And tell him that if the needs of the family require that he donate less he will have to do that.